I’m not really sure I’m going to be the best example. I’m de-trained, injured, and lacking a lot of the equipment. I’ve started but I’m bastardizing it pretty well.
So far I’m far sorer than I thought I’d be for such little volume. The negative sets are kicking my butt. We’ll see how it ends up the next year challenge.
Brick,
Do you have a similar opinion on circuits or alternating antagonist sets? The same folks that espouse stuff like your mock-advice also seem to “A1. A2. B1. B2. B3…” all the exercises in each session.
Couple of questions/points on db raises…do you do front raises with a neutral grip, or palms down(is that pronated?). Seems like most do them with a neutral grip. Just curious as to why? Also, saw a video of Seth Feroce doing side raises while changing the location of his hands on the dumbbell to slighty change the way it its the delts. Thought this was pretty interesting.
Good topic, little tweaks make all the difference sometimes. I’ve tried front raises a few ways, my current and favorite way is alternating with pronated grip. I’ve tried standing, seated, and seated incline neutral grip, personally that grip gives me some joint pain and I feel more of a pump in the front delt with a pronated grip. How do you like to do yours?
Regarding the hand positions for lateral raises, you can really manipulate where the tension and pump is with a small change of hand position or even angle. It’s good to try different ones and see what feels best for you. For both seated dumbbell presses and dumbbell lateral raises, if I angle my pinky up a little bit I feel more targeted tension in my delts.
I had a biceps injury doing them palms up, so I recommend people got safe on them myself, and keep the palms down the whole time.
I think they put the distal biceps tendon in a very compromised position, leaving it vulnerable to injury (ie, rupture). This wasn’t something I was terribly concerned about until I ruptured one of my tendons (although I should add that I was not doing preacher curls at the time).
Ok, thank you for the reply. What about doing them with your arm hanging down vertically instead of on the angle? On some preacher curl stations, you can hang your arm down on the opposite side of the pad. Is that still in a vulnerable position? I don’t like regular preacher curls as you lose the tension at the vertical point anyway.
Thanks Rob. I was doing front raises today and I like to vary how I do them on each set- neutral, palms up, palms down, out to the side a bit, directly in front, etc…and found that I feel my front delt working more with my palms down. So I guess I’ll prob just do them that way from now on.
I’ve heard those referred to as spider curls. (Why ‘spider,’ I have no idea.)
I’m not a fan of any curl equipment that prevents the elbow from moving backwards. Think about the last time you saw someone do heavy standing curls (or did them yourself). Was the elbow fully extended at the bottom of the movement, or was a small amount of bend maintained? I think most lifters instinctively realize the dangers of the fully extended position, and thus keep a little bend in their elbows. If they should find themselves in the fully-extended position, they get out of it by moving the elbows backwards a little–that is, if their elbows are free to move in that direction. Preacher and spider benches prevent this movement. Thus, if the elbow gets into the fully-extended position on one of these devices, the biceps is required to forcibly contract when its angle with respect to the forearm is 180o. At this angle, the force vector favors disinsertion.
Did that make sense?
Edited several times in likely fruitless attempts at improving clarity
Never thought about this before but it absolutely makes sense.
So when doing preacher curls don’t fully extend/hyperextend, I think the lesson is learned.
Yup. And you really have to be mindful of this fact. Twice I have seen guys late in a workout (read: tired; ready to call it quits) doing preacher curls with fairly heavy weights, and toward the end of the set their concentration lapsed just for a moment…the weight got a little too low…and the next thing you know, they had a ‘play date’ with an orthopod.
Not really a " Bodybuilding Training" question but, what are your guys thoughts on pre-workouts? Any preferences? Do you use them?
I liked Rob’s reply. To paraphrase it, in my own mind, the angle and hand placement has more to do with what is comfortable for you and how you feel the movement.
For me, I didn’t “feel” front raises in my delts until I tried them with a neutral grip. I vary it, though, to hit the delt differently. When I use a pronated grip, I like to do the front raises a bit wider (feeling it in the outer part of the anterior head and medial head). When I use a supinated grip, I’ll usually try to keep my hands closer together to target the part of the delt that ties into your chest, and I’ll also squeeze my chest more. My favorite is still using a neutral grip, though…maybe it’s because I can use more weight and that makes me feel badass. 
I use pre-workouts…but not heavily. Most of them are terrible tasting or the dosing is wrong and my body doesn’t respond well (ie: doesn’t do enough, or works TOO much). I found one that I like, and I’ll use 1/2 a scoop on days that I’m just feeling bad (tired, mentally not there, etc). I don’t think I’ve used more than 1/2 a scoop at a time in a year or more. Then again, I haven’t done a contest prep yet…
Speaking of that, @robstein @BrickHead – do you guys use lots of preworkout during contest prep to go to the gym or are you hardcore and just get the work done on your own?
@orcrist I don’t see anything wrong with alternating between antagonistic muscle groups. It’s actually what I did for my depletion workouts in the last week of my contest prep.
So a depletion workout went something like:
A1: dumbbell bench press
A2: cable row
B1: overhead dumbbell press
B2: lat pulldown
C1: bar curls
C2: dips
This might of been asked before, but do you guys seek to get a bit of soreness the next day? Shoulders always seem to be the hardest body part for me to get any soreness out of the workout.
I really only see to do more reps or add weight. I don’t get much soreness anymore, just perhaps some residual, slight swelling. I don’t think soreness should be aimed for. If you’re getting results, that’s all that matters.
Towards the end I was using BCAA’s during workouts, one of which has 100 mg caffeine per serving. But I only used that one with caffeine for a week or two, when I was at the very end. I really don’t think it had much of an effect with exciting me or anything like that because I would just have one less cup of coffee than usual when I had it. Uh… I’m not sure if you know, and it’s not something I’m ashamed in admitting: I’m like really prone to being irritated and high strung at times, though at 37 I’ve calmed down a bit. So I’ve never been into pre-workout stuff and I watch my caffeine intake for the day. Hence I don’t exceed more than four cups of coffee per day, which actually is quite a bit. I now stick to usually three, really because I love coffee flavor and the way it makes me feel.
The first time I took Ripped Fuel back in the day I was out of my freaking mind. I’m like really not a good candidate for stuff like that. Lol.
BCAA’s with caffeine by Optimum Nutrition.
After a while you don`t tend to get sore anymore, though I think legs is a little bit different in that regard. Mostly, I think, you can get a bit tight.
I don’t aim to get sore anymore. The only times I get really sore are when I do a period of high-intensity, blunt force trauma style workouts, to which my body isn’t accustomed. Brick said it best: If you’re hitting bigger weights or doing more reps and if you’re seeing results in the mirror, soreness doesn’t really mean all that much.
For me, I was always sore for the longest time because I hadn’t quite figured out the secret with nutrition. Once I started keying off nutrient timing and peri-workout nutrition, I started stopping the muscle breakdown sooner, thus faster recovery times and less soreness.