We’ve got to listen to strong people and fight fire with fire! More triceps, more rib-meat, more attacking the sticking point of the move!
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Some cool an moves
Some less cool ab moves
I slacked on abs for what feels like most of the year. I forgot all my moves, and in the gym my mind goes blank and I can only remember leg raises and decline situps. The crunch + leg raise and decline situp with one leg loose from the first video look like fun new stuff. There’s also kind of a rotational Pallof twist thing that looks easy to work in.
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Gonna make a list of all those and rotate through a few of them each week. Great stuff.
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This popped up yesterday and I can touch fingers on the left side but nowhere close on the right. MaybecI have been blaming the wrong side… lol
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Great video, great timing! That’s just what I’ve been rambling about.
That’s interesting about the shoulder rolling up and “turning off” the big part of the pec and “firing up” the pec minor. Lots of my bros get that tight pec minor, or a “minor pec strain.” They should get after the Sleeper Stretch.
I have definitely been able to feel way more good chest feeling instead of bad front shoulder feeling during the bench press since messing around with some internal rotation stuff during upper body warmups.
At 5:30 Jeff shows a stretch with the arm behind his back, pulling against a band anchored overhead. I get in that position, then move my arm like I’m sticking my hand in my back pocket. I call that a “scap pushdown” and I haven’t been able to find video of anyone doing that motion to share.
I sucked so bad at dips last week I think I’m going to jump on these bench scap dips, feet on the floor like training wheels, for awhile. Then progress to dip bars, nothing on the floor. I know Jeff said we don’t need to strengthen this stuff, but my hero Matt Wenning said to get that rib meat really strong.
Anyway, if you make any breakthroughs, Keep Me Posted!
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11-23 DE Upper
Stretch pec minor, traps. Some bench scap dips, it took a couple sets to get tension on my back and off my collar bones.
DB Floor Press
70 x 6 x 8 sets
BB Bench
115 x 15, 17
KB Tricep Extensions on Decline x 15+
JM Press x 10+
3 pairs
Chinese Row x 12ish
Band Straight Arm Pulldown x 12+
3 pairs
Rear Delts on Reverse Pec Deck
x 15 x 3 sets
Pretty ass-busting. All the jokers sitting around playing on their phones irritated me. I was trying to work hard for them.
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11-25 ME Lower
Plank with elbows up off floor
Standing Hamstring Curl x 15
Hip Airplane x 5
Belt Squat x 25
4 rounds
Zercher GM
125 x 3
135 x 3
145 x 3
1 Arm Pulldowns x 12
Elevated Dead Bug x 6
3 pairs
Seated Band Hamstring Curl x 25
Reverse Hyper x 20
4 pairs
Lots of heavy breathing, lots of posterior. Successful workout!
It does no good to be strong on the wrong exercises. Shit Bros! The last month of training has not carried over into improving my max effort upper body lifts. 4-5 weeks ago I was making lifts with room to spare and now I’m barely able to duplicate those efforts.
For the last 4 weeks or so I’ve been making Progress on Press Behind Neck, 1 Arm DB Rows and Chin-ups. Those moves are stronger, but the barbell moves are stagnant. Before that I was going through motions, kinda maintaining or stagnant on chest supported rows, face pulls and rear delts and I felt stronger every time I touched the barbell.
I’ve also been messing with the incline on my pre-work out DB presses set to set. Going through 4 angles, like a mechanical drop set. As my French-brah reminded me, this is stressing to my CNS. Or maybe just whack in a non-scientific way. Irregardlessly, That Shit is Over!
Frustrating yet illuminating.
11-26
Bench Scap Dip x 15
Band Pushdown, roll thumbs to Floor x 25
Chest Supported Shrug on T-Bar x 25
Decline DB x 25
Smith Machine Press
50 x 10, 5, 4.5
Band crossbody pullover motion x 12
Chest Supported Seated Row x 12
3 pairs
Rear Delt Swing x 15
DB Rear Delt Raise, top half of motion x 7+
3 pairs
5-5-5-5 Pushup x 4 or 5
PJR Pullover x 10+
3 pairs
I started to feel the bench scap dips along my ribs during the 3rd set. Progress!
I gained like 1 rep on the Rest/Pause smith machine pressing. Very disappointing.
Assistance work was cool, everything was crushing the muscles I wanted to work.
I’m not sure how to rate this session. I was mad in a childish tantrum sort of way, but the feedback I received from the weights was very good and the straining was for real… Let’s call it Another great one.
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Which barbell movements are your current benchmarks and how do you test rhem in order to determine if you got stronger overall?
Bench press with chains
Z Press from the rack
Floor Press
Press in Smith Machine, rest/pause style
Close Grip Bench
I worked up to a single or double in one of those moves per week. Then started the rotation over with the goal of adding 5 pounds the 2nd time around. 3 weeks ago, bench with chains felt stronger/better than the first time around.
Z Press, floor press and smith overhead have felt not stronger.
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11-28 DE Lower
Get loose
Elbows Elevated Planking
Single Leg Hamstring Curl x 15
45 Hyper + Barbell in Hands x 15
Belt Squat x 20
4 rounds
SSB Box Squat, 4-1-4
155 x 2 x 10 sets
Pin 2 Sumo, Pause just off Pins
185 x 1 x 12 singles
Upper Back Extension over bench + dumbbell Squeeze x 12
Medium Width, Semi Supinated Pulldowns x 12
3 pairs
Opposite Side Standing Band Ab x 7
Reverse Hyper, Squeeze DB between knees, 5 count eccentric x 7
3 pairs
All 3 phases were tough. Pin 2 pause sumos almost felt nearly like deadlifting today.
11-29 DE Upper
Bench Scap Dip x 20
Shrugs on Chinese Row x 20
Cross Body Cable Tricep Extension x 20
Incline DB Press x 20
4 rounds
DB Floor Press
75 x 6 x 8 sets
Barbell Bench
125 x 16, 15
T-Bar Row x 10 x 4 sets
Band Tomahawk x 20
Tate Press x 12
4 pairs
Side Delt DBs x 15+
Rear Delt DB x 15
3 pairs
Band Hammer Curls x 50 x 2 sets
DB floor presses were slowing by the end. After that I still had a bunch of shit to do. Good thing I’m tough.
12-1 (whoa!) ME Lower
Copenhagen Plank x 6
Seated Band Leg Curl x 25
45 Hyper x 20
Belt Squat, Yuri Stance x 25
4 rounds
Box Zombie Front Squat
190 x 2
200 x 2
210 x 2
Hollow Body Hold x 6
Hanging Leg Raise x 6
3 pairs
Inverse Leg Curl
3 plates x 8
2.5 plates x 7
2 plates x 3 + 1 shitty one
1 Leg Standing Calf
x 12 x 4 sets
Seated Calf + MiniBand
x 15 then hold at top till failure x 3 sets
It feels like a good week to take it easy on assistance moves. That’s the first time in awhile that I’ve done inverse leg curls. It’s clear now that I wasn’t driving my hips forward enough in the past. I was leaning forward at the waist, kinda hanging off my lower back, not getting great hamstring tension on the right side.
For the last couple months I’ve really been working on jamming my hips forward, exaggerating the hip back to front motion on belt squats, and pushing the hips through in the kneeling nordic GM hamstring thing. Really trying to squeeze my glutes on reverse hypers and 45 degree back raises. Especially the right one. And actually doing some good mornings.
Anyway, I could feel it working today.
12-3 ME Upper
Kneeling scap Pushup x 6, kneeling thoracic twist x 6 a few times around
Band Face Pull x 25
Band Pushdown, thumb to floor x 25
Fat Man Chin with slowness x 6
Single Arm Landmine Press x 15
4 rounds
2 on the smooth Close Bench
225 x 1
235 x 1
245 x 1 EZ, so I’m back on track
Chinese Row x 10 x 3 sets
Dick’s Press x 10
PJR Pullover x 15
3 pairs
Rear Delt Swing x 20
DB Y Raise x 12+
3 pairs
I had to take an extra puss-attempt 210 on the close grip because I was too worried to jump from 195 to 225. Mercifully the singles felt progressively better and 245 was no struggle.
I did 2 sets of twisty Pallof presses and 2 sets of regular Pallof presses on each side too.
Something I did in the gym yesterday knocked my S.I. out of place. It felt like a pulled muscle in left upper back, right mid back and left lower back. I could picture my crooked, backward “S” shaped spine.
Now that I know what I’m doing I was able to do some 90/90 hip lifting, one leg at a time and get that shit straightened out in just a few minutes. Holy Shit, it felt good.
It may have been the twisty Pallof press, or maybe I was uneven jamming myself into the bench for Y-raises and rear delt swings. Or maybe some combination.
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Sucks about the back but good job getting a head start on the issue!
It’s kinda infuriating to get hurt on small stuff like that. Like if you lock out a huge deadlift PR and blow a hammie it’s at least “worth it” (it’s not in regards to comps and all but you know what I mean).
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I’m pretty sure that I’m OK! Once I got everything lined back up I felt good. It’s lunch time the next day and except for a little stiffness in my shoulder I feel mostly normal.
In the past I’ve gotten twisted like that, and not understood what was happening. And then tried to lift with my SI out of place. It felt like it was impossible to brace or use my abs, or to get my feet planted into the floor. That messed me up! Looking back I can remember 2-3 times feeling that crooked sensation and getting hurt lifting that way.
Last night I “fixed it” before causing problems by loading it. Hopefully I’ll be cool to squat tomorrow.
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Louie stuff. Being in shape is always cool.
John Quint is pretty smart following his advices helped me get my shoulders working a few years ago.
I decided to wait one more day before rushing to the gym.
12-6 DE Lower
Standing Psoas March x 5
Leg Raises off Bench x 15
Laying Leg Curl x 20
Step Up with weight above opposite shoulder x 15
4 rounds
SSB Box Squat with 4-1-4 tempo
175 x 2 x 8 sets
Pin #1 Pause Sumo
205 x 1 x 10 singles
Kneeling GM x 6-8 x 3 sets
1 Arm Neutral Pulldown x 12 x 3 sets
Reverse Hyper x 20 x 3 sets
Solid one!
There was some young lady in the gym, also squatting for a bunch of sets of low reps. We were in the same area, doing the same moves, resting and lifting opposite of each other, so I found myself watching her squat between my sets. She had really nice technique, and I could see she was getting some good work in, hitting the muscles. At one point I could see some nice quad sweep, even from behind.
I was admiring skill, effort and the results of consistency, but to the untrained eye it might have looked like I was just creepin’. Hmmm.
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Some stuff from Dr Mike. He’s good at presenting the big picture, if you can get through his 30 minute lectures. Sometimes I like them, they remind me of school. I haven’t watched this yet, I’m like 3 videos behind.
