I consider it a hip hinge myself.
I’ve pretty much settled into a daily back work approach with one “big” movement for the back each day. Have to ride it out a bit longer to see how the approach works compared to what I’ve done before.
I do things like pullaparts, facepulls, external rotation stuff, etc. with bands a few times a week too, but I’ve stopped giving any mind to that stuff in terms of volume/recovery. This may or may not be the right mindset, but it’s just reinforcing good movement patterns to me rather than causing muscular damage.
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Sensei level post.
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^this. I used to do heavy deads and while I developed decent strength they contributed almost nothing to a bodybuilding physique. When I got serious about trying to look like a BBer I stopped doing heavy deads, sometimes Keeping a few sets of DB partials at the very end of a Workout, but never thinking they’d seriously contribute to a big wide back.
Almost every good BBing competitor I have known stopped doings Heavy deads upon coming to the same realization.
NOT saying it’s not a good movement or doesn’t have benefits, but assess your goals and ask yourself if what you’re doing is moving you in the right direction.
S
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I guess the confusion comes when a strength guy wants to do some physique work.
When you’re doing deadlifts and power cleans it’s normal to keep track of the reps. Like 30 deadlifts or 30 cleans. That could take a bunch of sets, and might be the majority of the workout.
To “balance out” the back work after deadlifts, maybe you do 50 chins or 50 rows, divided over a bunch of sets, not to true failure. After all that heavy stuff you’ve got to be careful not to overdo it.
Physique/mass/BB guys often keep track of the sets. A workout for the lats or rear delts could be like 3-6 sets(or more) to failure, divided over a couple exercises. That makes number of reps kinda irrelevant. The 30 reps might be 1 set of rear delts or like 1 or 2 sets of rows.
If you try to simply blend the two styles, like doing 30 Deads for strength then 6 sets to failure for lats/mid back/traps and rear delts you’re gonna have problems.
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This is why I struggle to find the right balance. I can always do more, but is it worth the effort? I love deads and cleans for performance reasons. I don’t care too much about any other lifts when it comes to strength goals.
I think the best way to describe my goals is to say that I want to look like a muscular athlete who has some power/explosiveness. I can’t say bodybuilder because I’ll never do what it takes to add any significant size. I also care about performance which is why I can’t drop the deads and cleans to focus on other back work.
I’m trying to find the balance between the two goals.
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I do deadlifts from time to time when I’m bored and need to start chasing numbers to motivate myself in the gym or I’ll end up doing something stupid like piling on the plates and doing corner t-bar rows in a way that even Branch Warren would start laughing at me if he saw me in the gym.
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Alright, y’all. I decided that I could make some adjustments based on the above discussion.
I’ve been doing cleans and clean pulls on both pull days, but the workout I copied actually splits them. I can keep the rows and do cleans or clean pulls.
I started looking for DIY chest supported rows online today and realized a cable row setup is smaller and cheaper (maybe). I used that motivation and built this…
The low row pulley is attached to a horizontal cable for now but I’ll be replacing that with a 2x4 that has dowels that go into the holes on my rack. That will be more secure.
Rows without low back fatigue for the win!
(I just have to buy a handle now)
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I love it. Theres nothing quite like making yourself something
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I was prepared to be a lot more terrified for your health. That looks pretty slick!
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Cool man! I like 3 exercises per muscle group whether it’s bodybuilding or powerlifting, but with bodybuilding the sets tend to look like 3x8 or 4x10, and powerlifting they are 5x5 or 3x8