C_C, what’s your opinion of overhand grip Yates rows?
Hey CC
I also wanted to add in some more bicep work as well. Would adding thick bar reverse barbell curls and dumbell hammer curls the day before a benching session negatively impact my bench?
Thanks again.
Ok, dinner first, questions later.
(hm, that sounds kinda weird, actually…)
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Ok, dinner first, questions later.
(hm, that sounds kinda weird, actually…)
[/quote]
Yes. Yes, it does. Ohhhhh tell us more, CC! Haha.
[quote]kylec72 wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Ok, dinner first, questions later.
(hm, that sounds kinda weird, actually…)
Yes. Yes, it does. Ohhhhh tell us more, CC! Haha.[/quote]
Creep 
Oh shit, we have to buy him dinner now? I KNEW there was something wrong with all this free advice! Mark my words, we will all soon be invited over to www.cephalictraining.com for only $29.99 a month 
[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
Oh shit, we have to buy him dinner now? I KNEW there was something wrong with all this free advice! Mark my words, we will all soon be invited over to www.cephalictraining.com for only $29.99 a month ;)[/quote]
A proud German like C_C would never charge in any currency other than the Mark, even if they use Euros nowadays…
[quote]Bloobird wrote:
Mr.Purple wrote:
Oh shit, we have to buy him dinner now? I KNEW there was something wrong with all this free advice! Mark my words, we will all soon be invited over to www.cephalictraining.com for only $29.99 a month
A proud German like C_C would never charge in any currency other than the Mark, even if they use Euros nowadays…[/quote]
Bullshit. C_C is clearly a closet American. Hammer Strength machines aren’t built in Germania
Bad news C_C you can read about it in my log…
[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
Bloobird wrote:
Mr.Purple wrote:
Oh shit, we have to buy him dinner now? I KNEW there was something wrong with all this free advice! Mark my words, we will all soon be invited over to www.cephalictraining.com for only $29.99 a month
A proud German like C_C would never charge in any currency other than the Mark, even if they use Euros nowadays…
Bullshit. C_C is clearly a closet American. Hammer Strength machines aren’t built in Germania ;)[/quote]
You’re actually kind of right.
[quote]dfoiles wrote:
Hey CC,
I would absolutely love to get your feedback on a template focused for a 15 year old athlete training in his football offseason. I have not yet seen any feedback that you have provided that didnâ??t totally resonate with me.
Once football ends we have 3 months before lacrosse starts to add some strength/muscle. I would be lifting with him for convenience, but this is specifically targeted to him and his needs. My son plays offensive lineman and currently weighs 185-190 and is 6 foot. He definitely needs more strength and size for varsity next year. He is currently a sophomore and came into his freshman year at low 150s. He started off using Starting Strength on-off in 7th/8th grade and have been using WS4SB and Bigger-Faster-Stronger since. BFS is being used by the high school football program and are stuck having him follow that during periods of the year. Not a bad program at his level but is not being implemented very well at the school. We are able to follow our own program during the winter. Just to give you an idea of his current lifts (Bench:155, Squat:200, Deadlift:305).
I was looking at a modified WS4SB that is done 3 days a week with a bit more focus on ME (Max Effort). Based on schedules, etc. â?¦ I just donâ??t see how we can get 4 days a week in and donâ??t think he needs it at his age and experience (but curious if you agree).
Workout 3 times per week. A 4th day would be used for more GPP. Hit each body part 2 times over the three workouts per week. Exercises would be used twice per week (some only once). Exercises would be kept the same for at least 4 weeks. PRs attempted for each exercise per session (either increase weight or reps each session).
As the WS4SB template specifies â?¦ focus on rep range between 3-5 for ME exercises â?¦ 8-12 for Supplement exercises. 1st exercise is done as one max lift and then other exercises are done across 3 sets.
Week 1 â?¦
Upper ME (5 exercises)
Lower ME (3 exercises)
Upper ME/Lower RE (4 exercises, 2 Upper and 2 Lower)
Week 2 â?¦
Lower ME (3 exercises)
Upper ME (5 exercises)
Lower ME/Upper RE (4 exercises)
Week 3 (repeat of week 1) â?¦
Upper ME
Lower ME
Upper ME/Lower RE
Week 4 â?¦ continued
Also considered a similar split like DC but thought that my son would be better off hitting each both upper/lower body twice a week.
Week 1 â?¦
Upper ME
Lower ME
Upper ME
Week 2 â?¦
Lower ME
Upper ME
Lower ME
Week 3 â?¦ continued
ME = Max Effort
RE = Repetition[/quote]
Had a much longer/in-depth response typed up, but firefox decided to rebel the second I hit “submit”.
Bloody hell.
Ok, so we have 3 months or am I getting that wrong?
If you wanted to get him to 220-230+ and his strength up to respectable levels, there’s really only one routine for his level of training experience that I’d trust would allow him to achieve that in the given time-frame (though I gotta say that the results are difficult for me to predict as he’s only 15… Hormone levels/metabolism are a bit of a wild card here).
Issue is, that routine is a 6 days a week affair, and very demanding in terms of food and recovery requirements/impact etc.
You still want him to keep his football skills at a good level as well as his endurance… Else he’ll be big and strong but not very useful on the field…
Now WS4SB is fine, I’d not focus more on ME work though… There are good reasons for not doing ME stuff more than once a week for the upper/lower body.
Rather stick to the original 3 day layout of ME upper, ME lower, RE Upper or whichever way they do it. Still, I think your son will gain more strength by not rotating main exercises out every 3-4 weeks or whatever. There are routines which will allow him to keep all his main exercises in for the full 3 months and keep progressing all that time.
DC itself is not much of an option for young people and beginners alike. A 2-way split over 3 days a week in general can work very well, but I’d only do that if he had to practice football a lot on the side… Actually, a 5-way split would be even easier to follow then, as sessions are short and when exercises are done ramped with bigger weight-jumps, they’re usually not very recovery-intensive etc.
But none of those are necessarily what I’d choose here.
A custom 2-way over 4 days could work very well, too.
You see, training athletes is definitely not my specialty… You may really be better off contacting Gluteus Gigantis or Sentoguy… Just a warning
What exactly are your goals here? Get him strong and big fast OR give him an easy-to-follow routine which he can do while having plenty left in the tank for sports practice, OR …?
[quote]Matthaeus wrote:
Bad news C_C you can read about it in my log…[/quote]
Good luck with your recovery man, that sucks… Answered in your log.
Couldn’t get a bench vid, but I think that I may have fixed a form issue. After I did 107.5kg3, which I was not happy with at all, I tried again with a much wider foot placement. I got 107.5kg5 that time around, which was acceptable. Also felt way more stable and much easier.
I guess Sumo stance makes everything easier.
[quote]Bloobird wrote:
C_C, what’s your opinion of overhand grip Yates rows?[/quote]
When I do them, I don’t use my biceps much. So my opinion on them may not help most people a whole lot
They’re kind of nice for learning the scapular retraction part, it seems to come somewhat naturally with that movement. At least that was my experience. At the bottom position, my shoulders are in a neutral position or so, and get shrugged back/scapulae are retracted on the way up. Reverse that on the way down… I rarely do them these days though.
You can do them, just keep in mind that they’re a back exercise and nothing else.
CC,
I really appreciate your feedback!
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Ok, so we have 3 months or am I getting that wrong?[/quote]
Yes he has 3 months off for the winter season that he can focus his energy towards lifting without any other sport. He then plays lacrosse during the spring season and then back onto spring/summer football.
[quote]
What exactly are your goals here? Get him strong and big fast OR give him an easy-to-follow routine which he can do while having plenty left in the tank for sports practice, OR …?[/quote]
We want to focus on getting strong and big as fast as possible. For this three months, we don’t need to leave anything for other practices.
[quote]
If you wanted to get him to 220-230+ and his strength up to respectable levels, there’s really only one routine for his level of training experience that I’d trust would allow him to achieve that in the given time-frame (though I gotta say that the results are difficult for me to predict as he’s only 15… Hormone levels/metabolism are a bit of a wild card here).
Issue is, that routine is a 6 days a week affair, and very demanding in terms of food and recovery requirements/impact etc.[/quote]
I know we can commit to 4 days a week … 6 days might be a stretch based upon pure logistics if he has to rely on me. If he is able to lift on his own for a couple of days then 6 might be doable. He is pretty committed on the food side as well. I just stocked up on Surge Recover, Surge Workout fuel, Finibars, and a good quality whey protein.
[quote]
You still want him to keep his football skills at a good level as well as his endurance… Else he’ll be big and strong but not very useful on the field… [/quote]
He plays lacrosse in the spring but is definitely a secondary sport to football. He isn’t worried about coming into the lacrosse season at any certain level of condition. The lacrosse program is pretty poor.
[quote]
Now WS4SB is fine, I’d not focus more on ME work though… There are good reasons for not doing ME stuff more than once a week for the upper/lower body.
Rather stick to the original 3 day layout of ME upper, ME lower, RE Upper or whichever way they do it. Still, I think your son will gain more strength by not rotating main exercises out every 3-4 weeks or whatever. There are routines which will allow him to keep all his main exercises in for the full 3 months and keep progressing all that time.[/quote]
This is the type of feedback I was looking for. I would love to see your other suggestion(s) although. I do see the progression logic to staying with the same exercises at this level.
[quote]
DC itself is not much of an option for young people and beginners alike. A 2-way split over 3 days a week in general can work very well, but I’d only do that if he had to practice football a lot on the side… Actually, a 5-way split would be even easier to follow then, as sessions are short and when exercises are done ramped with bigger weight-jumps, they’re usually not very recovery-intensive etc.
But none of those are necessarily what I’d choose here.
A custom 2-way over 4 days could work very well, too. [/quote]
Yes I had discarded DC for him based upon his age/level. I would love to see what you think over a 4 to 6 days a week given the goals stated above.
Thanks again CC and really appreciate your advice and look forward to what you think!
I hate to keep bugging you with this, but I’m still thinking about how I should best approach this problem of mine. I still want to get stronger, and don’t want to diet away all my gains here. I would just get strict with carb cut offs and do morning cardio every day but leg day if I could, but for some reason my leg will have none of it. If I take my walk in the evening, it’s fine. I can still feel it a bit, but nothing like it is in the morning.
I’m 200lbs, 176cm(5’9"?), and I know I need a lot more muscle mass to look good dieted down.
How about 1 to 1,5 hour walks late at night, could that do the same trick? So I’d have a carb/prot shake pre and during workout, come home and have a solid meal, then go walking a couple of hours later.
OR I guess some steady state cardio after weights could do it. I just can’t decide how to go about this. The approach I mentioned from Thib’s article looks like a good way to diet down, but I was thinking more along the lines of damage control.
What would you do?
[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
I hate to keep bugging you with this, but I’m still thinking about how I should best approach this problem of mine. I still want to get stronger, and don’t want to diet away all my gains here.
I would just get strict with carb cut offs and do morning cardio every day but leg day if I could, but for some reason my leg will have none of it. If I take my walk in the evening, it’s fine. I can still feel it a bit, but nothing like it is in the morning.
I’m 200lbs, 176cm(5’9"?), and I know I need a lot more muscle mass to look good dieted down.
How about 1 to 1,5 hour walks late at night, could that do the same trick? So I’d have a carb/prot shake pre and during workout, come home and have a solid meal, then go walking a couple of hours later.
OR I guess some steady state cardio after weights could do it. I just can’t decide how to go about this. The approach I mentioned from Thib’s article looks like a good way to diet down, but I was thinking more along the lines of damage control.
What would you do?
[/quote]
Shelby’s carb cycling. Stick to it exactly as he lays it out, get on the yates 3-way or the updated 3-way, train whenever you feel like it… I.e. if you feel good for 3-4 days in a row, do that, if not, have off-days whenever necessary.
That way, you get the majority of your fat-loss from dieting and your routine will be very flexible…
[quote]dfoiles wrote:
CC,
I really appreciate your feedback!
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Ok, so we have 3 months or am I getting that wrong?
Yes he has 3 months off for the winter season that he can focus his energy towards lifting without any other sport. He then plays lacrosse during the spring season and then back onto spring/summer football.
What exactly are your goals here? Get him strong and big fast OR give him an easy-to-follow routine which he can do while having plenty left in the tank for sports practice, OR …?
We want to focus on getting strong and big as fast as possible. For this three months, we don’t need to leave anything for other practices.
I know we can commit to 4 days a week … 6 days might be a stretch based upon pure logistics if he has to rely on me. If he is able to lift on his own for a couple of days then 6 might be doable. He is pretty committed on the food side as well. I just stocked up on Surge Recovery, Surge Workout Fuel, Finibars, and a good quality whey protein. [/quote] There is a 4-day version, but I really don’t trust it
I’m talking about Big Beyond Belief, but a custom version of mine which has worked well for those local guys that I’ve forced to do it
It’s modified mostly in the pressing department.
When does your sons’ off-season/3-months-to-300lbs-period begin? [quote]
He plays lacrosse in the spring but is definitely a secondary sport to football. He isn’t worried about coming into the lacrosse season at any certain level of condition. The lacrosse program is pretty poor.
[/quote] Hm. Why does he do it, then? That time could be used for football practice and proper strength training, after all. (unless he just wants to have fun or gets some kind of extra marks for it?)[quote]
This is the type of feedback I was looking for. I would love to see your other suggestion(s) although. I do see the progression logic to staying with the same exercises at this level.
[/quote] I can write up some suggestions for you. Again I have to emphasize: 6 days a week if we want maximum results here in both strength and size… There are still other alternatives, but they take a while to get used to and to show results. [quote]
Yes I had discarded DC for him based upon his age/level. I would love to see what you think over a 4 to 6 days a week given the goals stated above.
Thanks again CC and really appreciate your advice and look forward to what you think![/quote]
That’s what she said! (I wish… Mostly she just says “Awwww, will you cook me dinner, C_C? (and do the dishes afterwards, and don’t forget about the laundry, and…)” No appreciation for my real talents there!)
[quote]Gaius Octavius wrote:
Couldn’t get a bench vid, but I think that I may have fixed a form issue. After I did 107.5kg3, which I was not happy with at all, I tried again with a much wider foot placement. I got 107.5kg5 that time around, which was acceptable. Also felt way more stable and much easier.
I guess Sumo stance makes everything easier.[/quote]
Hmm. Do you care for the bench as a chest exercise, or do you want maximum poundage on it (and leave chest training to the arguably more capable “hands” of HammerStrength) ?
CC, Austin said he’d get it to me tomorrow.
Anyways, thanks for the comments. Regarding the lat spread, are you talking about my avatar? If so, I took a new one a few days ago:
Today, I took this video of me posing because xb-C wanted to see me hitting a rear lat spread. Dunno if this link will work for you:
Also, regarding your comments on my curl form – is it really atrocious or are you just mocking me? Ever since your first round of criticisms I’ve really focused on form on my curls.
Regarding the 3-way, I’m loving it. I don’t follow a strict guideline for taking off days… if I feel good, I go 4-5 days in a row. Sometimes, I take one after every 2, it just depends. As always, I’m really focusing on bringing up those puny-ass arms of mine. I read morepain in the T-Cell write about alternating a very heavy arm day, and a lighter, high rep pump day. I’ve been doing that for the last few weeks and really liking it and my arms have grown a quarter inch (just shy of 17 now).
I’ll shoot you an email soon though.