I guess my hip movement was off/restricted after tearing an adductor water skiing years ago. Moving poorly for awhile left my lower body pretty weak and a little worse on the right side. If I go to heavy or progress too fast I tend to twist and lean left.
I like the band marches, but the straight leg sled drags sound good too. Like a reverse hyper standing. I’ll Definetly try those.
What do you guys do with the bands to get after the adductors? I’ve been doing “adductor pullbacks,” laying on the floor rolling the roller between my thighs but I’m ready for something more exciting.
We fix two bands to something behind our heads while laying down. Hook one foot in each band and extend them out straight. Grab the bands part way up in your hands and then fully extend your arms out to your sides which tries to make you do the splits. Then basically just rep out that way. I’m not sure if I’ve explained myself well enough for you to visualize this.
Resembles this, but with two bands and attached to something overhead:
I find changing the height of my heel off the ground tends to target different muscles in the area. I will caution you though, the first time I did these I think I did 3 x 25reps, and had adductor DOMS for several days. I know it is an area that I’ve neglected through my years of lifting!
"Scientists have figured out something amazing, though. In the case of muscle, you don’t lose it, regardless of how little you use it. Whatever muscle you built during your miserable life actually hangs around with you forever. The muscle itself may shrink, may wither, but the muscle nuclei hang around like loyal beagles at their master’s beck and call.
Then, when you start exercising again, these “myonuclei” allow for increased and faster growth of the muscles. This explains and confirms the phenomenon known as “muscle memory.”"
This stuff is a little over my head, but when you lift nuclei from satellite cells to into your muscle cells. Then your muscles are more bad-ass. And if you stop lifting for awhile the extra nuclei somehow make your muscles grow faster than the first time around. So that’s cool.
Months ago I listened to a podcast where Dr Fred Hatfield talked about training one way for awhile to accumulate satellite cells. Then training more intensly, with more muscle damaging methods (plyometrics/CAT?) to get the nuclei from the satellite cells into the muscle cells.
Now that everyone is training to be a fitness model I’d like to know more but I’m not even sure what to ask g oogle.
I think it was in here.
Or here
Anybody out there know anything about any of this?
Cable Rear Delts, straight arm kinda push back
4 x 10
Chinese Shrug then Chinese Row, mini band pulling bar forward/up
4 x 12
Single Arm Lever Pull down
4 x 12
Single Arm Dumbbell Row
4 x 10
Rear Delt Raise with Kettlebell
3 x 12
Seated Calf Raise
3 x 15
Tibia/Front Shin Raise
3 x 15
Donkey Calf
2 x 25
Some focused tension and some reps for back. Fewer sets and higher intensity is cool but lately I feel a lot of the work being done by my arms. Not biceps but whatever is on top of forearms and in front of elbows. My long arm bros know what I’m talking about.
Chinese shrug into row was cool. I had a band wrapped around the legs of the bench and over the ends of the barbell so I had to pull the bar lateral against the band and up against gravity. Ideally I’ll be able to get an awesome back squeeze and row away without shrugging first.
Rear delts with kettbell were good too. Every time I mess with kbs instead of dbs I like it.
Brachialis. The controversial under bicep. I just tried to rub it and it was really tight. Last week I did close grip bench/triceps, somehow it killed those muscles. I swear I could feel my bones knocking into each other inside my elbows later that night.
Sometimes dudes will pop up talking about the shape of their biceps, or the way their muscle attach, complaining about their whack biceps. Some people tell them it’s all in their heads, and not to worry. Other people say the brachialis is getting worked, not the biceps. Sometimes there will be a debate about if you can train your lower biceps or not.
Other times lifters/authors will talk about training the brachialis to make your arms bigger. Why wouldnt you grow all the muscles? Or the opposite school of thought, Don’t hit the brachialis because you’ll thicken the elbow. Why do that if you want your upper arm to look bigger?
Still other dudes believe that all of this is total BS, it’s all just your arm bending. And if you simply straight bar curl 225 x 10 your arms will be plenty big and strong and you’ll be ready for any sport, up to Grizzly Bear wrestling.
True, they really do. My view on them changed too when Brian Shaw or Eddie Hall (I forgot who) actually trained some biceps in one of their videos. Didn’t realize it actually was important in Strongman until one of them pointed it out.
I did PLENTY of biceps training in my early lifting days, but it wasn’t until I did a short atlas stone workout that I felt what true biceps DOMS feels like!
Ouch. I really love the feeling of DOMS specially in legs and upper back, but first time I ever lifted weights (literally first upper body gym session), the biceps DOMS totally sucked balls!
Btw, @FlatsFarmer out of all the views you mentioned, what’s your take on them now? I’m leaning towards all just flexing the arm, but of course that’s because I’m in it mostly for sports performance
In the past I rotated through 3-4 types of curls, trying to get big strong biceps and forearms, and strong grip for wrestling, strongman and grip strength “feats.” It was rewarding. I could feel the work carrying over.
Other times I did John Meadows/Mountain Dog style workouts, with cables and slow eccentrics and different angles. Focusing and getting good contraction. It was fun and it worked.
Also 100 rep, light barbell curls. Or 50-100 generic assistance reps of curls in 5/3/1 style. Mindlessly accumulating reps. I hated it, it was boring and I dreaded it, so it didn’t really work.
As I get older, I’m learning there is a connection between having shitty biceps, developing tight biceps tendons, getting poor posture, and putting even more pressure on bicep tendons. Then shoulder problems. Then stories of old guys who don’t even lift weights tearing biceps trying to move TVs.
More specifically, last year I started doing incline curls and 1 arm preacher curls and spider curls. Focusing on biceps, getting my shoulders externally rotated, wrists outside elbows, etc. It was new, I was mentally engaged, my biceps grew and my shoulders felt good.
A couple months ago I stopped that and did alternating dumbbell curls with Fat Grips handles. Turning from neutral grip to supinating at the top. Straight trying to get heavier for 12 reps, week after week. I swear it hit way more brachialis than bicep and made my elbow thicker.
