Lateral Delts on Push or Pull Day?

[dankid]

[quote]Matsa wrote:

What kind of athlete are we talking about here? You can’t just apply one rule to all athletes because unless you’re more specific we can’t know what he’s hoping to gain by training benchpress. Is he looking for more pushing power regardless of where it comes from or is he trying to strengthen his pecs? For all we know he might simply want some more mass on his chest as a protective armor of sorts.

Different athletes have different needs. By the way, most powerlifters would probably be thrilled to add 1-2 inches to their chest (or upper back) since it would mean shorter distance for the bar to travel.

[/quote]

Ya, I agree with you, and bench press isn’t even that specific to most sports. But it is a method to develop pressing power. The armor building example is probably one of the very few examples that I can think of where an athlete would favor hypertrophy over strength. But would they really? I mean armor proofing is a good concept, but what prevents injuries more, an extra couple of inches on your chest, or an extra 100lbs on your bench press? I dont think this can be answered, because armor building is not that clear of an issue, and having more strength may or may not make you less prone to injuries. But like I said, I can only imagine very few athletes that would take size over strength. Actually many times they migh be hoping for strength and NO size gains. Muscle has weight, and if you can increase your squat by 100lbs without adding in weight vs 100lbs and adding 10lbs of muscle, an athlete might choose the first option. But this is way off topic here in the bb forum

As for the Pl’er prefering chest size. They may take any chest size they can get, but if you give them the choice of 1" on their chest and +100lb bench, or 2" on their chest and +50lb bench they’ll all choose the first option. Strength and size are RELATED but not completely linked.

I can see reasons why you would want to make sure you are working the targeted muscles, but I think this is just people overanalyzing things. And this is ME saying something is over-analyzing. If you train for strength, and eat enough you WILL get bigger. If your bench goes up XXX amount of pounds but your chest isn’t growing, this probably means your shoulders or triceps are growing more. Just add some flys or DB bench and you are set. If you change the bench to work your chest, then you’ll be taking away from the shoulders and triceps, AND the overall amount of weight you can lift. Then you’ll be weaker, and have to add isolation work for both your shoulders AND your triceps, AND you’ll be risking shoulder and pec injuries targeting your chest more while benching.

[Schwarzfahrer]

Sometimes it’s easy to overcomplicate things.

This is not about wether putting deadlifts with pullups together. Do laterals however it feels best to you and go from there.
If it would be so complicated, nobody could make significant gains. For instance,
a typical split sometimes calls for shoulder work in nearly every workout:
chest day-bench press >shoulders
back-rows >shoulders
leg day >no shoulders
arms-narrow benchpress, even some curl variations can target the front shoulders so…>shoulders
shoulders >duh!
So it’s not perfect on paper, but it worked for many.
As long as you put the strain on the targeted muscles, it should work.

[dankid]

[quote]mr popular wrote:

Our proof is in the RESULTS, both the results we create in ourselves and the results of every other successful bodybuilder. (No I don’t mean competitive guys, I mean regular dudes we see around us that get big by doing the traditional stuff)

There is nothing wrong with bench presses, squats, deadlifts, dips, and so forth… but there is NO REASON WHATSOEVER to exclude curls and calf raises and lateral raises from that. These aren’t exercises that you “earn” the right to do once you can bench a certain amount of weight, they are part of the BASICS. That is what people mean when they say you are putting misinformation out there, and a lot of people on this website - myself included - are a little bitter because we followed bad advice when we were beginners.[/quote]

These are your OPINIONS. Like I said, I myself have experienced and have seen many that have gotten VERY poor results with the “traditional” approach. If you are going to say a small number of people’s results are proof, then I can easily say that the lack of success of many using traditional methods is PROOF that they dont work. Im not trying to say that. Different people respond differently.

If having big biceps is a huge priority to you then go ahead and do curls. But there are many that want big biceps and wont get them, even when doing curls. Sometimes it isn’t due the curls, but sometimes its because the curls are worthless (for them) and they should be just devloping strength in the basic lifts. People are going to naturally put more emphasis on the training of the muscles they want to develop the most, for better or for worse. And based on my experience this is mainly arms and shoulders. I see very few guys with overdeveloped legs and just tiny upper bodies.

You say there is no reason whatsover to not isolate these muscle groups. If you are going to say that, why not say there is no reason not to isolate ALL muscle groups. Are the arms and shoulders so special that they deserve more attention than the rest of the body?

Then training would look like this:

Arm day:

CG bench
tricep ext
overhead tri ext.
Chinups
bb bicep curl
seated curl
wrist flexion
wrist extension
grip strength work

Leg day:

squat
leg ext.
deadlift
leg curl
hip flexion
hip extension
hip adduction
hip abduction
calf raises
tibialis raises

Thats just arms and legs, and you get the point. Sure its exaterated, but its sorta true.

Why do all those exercises for legs, when you could just do squat and deadlift and maybe some form of lunging. Then, after developing some strength, you might notice your hamstring development is lacking. This means that using the compounds they probably aren’t getting enough work. So you can add some RDLs or leg curls. YOU HAVE EARNED THE RIGHT TO USE THESE ISOLATION MOVEMENTS. Its not really a right that you earn though, its a NEED. Why do something if it isn’t needed. There isn’t a huge learning curve for isolation exercises when compared to compounds. People always say, “i made a huge mistake not doing curls, and when I started doing them finally my arms blew up”. Maybe, just maybe, it was time for them to do curls, and all the previous strength building set the stage for curls being useful.

So you didn’t really disprove anything ive said, and I dont expect you to, as I cant prove anything ive said.

I’ll say that exercise selection should be based on a needs basis, and for most people this is mainly compound movements, and some isolation movements to target the muscles that dont get enough stress during the compounds. I can agree with that, but I also know that every novice/beginner lifter thinks that their arms, shoulders, and calves are lagging and thus deserve special attention compared to everything else. So I do feel that you need to earn the right to use certain exercises.

[BONEZ217]

[quote]dankid wrote:
BONEZ217 wrote:
…admit that your ‘advice’ isn’t actually suitable for more than just a small handful of individuals.

You’ve made a habit of spewing misinformation and it’s the reason why this isn’t the first thread that you’ve been completely corrected in.

The advice I give is for people similar to myself, and this isnt a small handful of individuals. I imagine there are a lot more people on this forum that are more similar to me, than the few jerks that im not even trying to give advice to. Sure im not going to give advice to a guy that has 20"+ arms, thats just silly. But there are a ton of people on this forum, many of whom might not even post, that can benefit from my advise.

And I haven’t spewed any misinformation whatsover. Everything is opinion on here, and if it wasn’t you guys that “know everything” would have some proof. But you dont. Instead you rely on insults and arguing to try to make up for this. If you dont like my advice, ignore it, or disagree with it and state why, but if you are just going to try to talk crap, i’ll just keep ignoring all of you and keep giving my advice.[/quote]

What proof do I need other than to look at people with aesthetically complete physiques and look for commonalities in their training.

There is not a single reason in the world for a 17 year old beginner to ONLY train bench press, squat, deadlift, OH press, lunge. The only thing this will accomplish is an imbalance somewhere that will UNDOUBTEDLY have to to be corrected later on. Every single big person with a complete physique trained all muscles from as early as possible. I know some guys who didn’t train their hamstrings and some who didn’t train legs and a few who didn’t train horizontal pulls BUT it wasn’t because they thought they needed to establish a base of other lifts first; it was due to ignorance. You are telling people to purposely avoid trainin certain muscle groups. It’s absurd. Obviously the bench press should be the base of a chest workout for the first 5 years of most people’s lifting careers. Dumbell and cable work should also be included. This can be applied to every other major muscle group.

Anothe reason to include isolation movements is because of neural efficiency of young trainees. This next point is almost universally true. A beginner will not be able to recruit muscle fibers as efficiently as an advanced person. Guess what happens when the beginner focuses an overwhelming amount of time on the bench press instead of using a variety of chest movements? One of two things happen: If the kid his chest dominant, his chest will grow at a decent rate OR he isn’t chest dominant and his bench will get stronger and stronger without much chest growth. The shoulder dominant bench presser will develop a massive aesthetic imbalance if the problem isn’t addressed early on. For this person it will be terrible to avoid isolation movements in favor of more bench pressing.

And everyone reading this knows that it is extremely rare to find someone who has the ability to effectively stimulate the target muscles with the “main compound lifts” only. It just doesn’t work that way in real life. No matter how ‘typical’ the person you are preaching your nonsense to is, there is going to be a case where isolation movement are needed to complete the physique IN EVERYONE. Why on earth would someone want to waste time avoiding isolation just for the sake of it??

I know for a fact that many people have been able to drastically reduce their volume over 15+ years of lifting. This is simply because the more advanced you get the more effective you are able to make each rep. So tell me again, why should beginners limit themselves? The opposite point can easily be made and proven just by looking at the habits of successful bodybuilders.

You just don’t get it.

Why don’t you have any pic of your aesthetically complete physique posted?

edited

[dankid]

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
Obviously the bench press should be the base of a chest workout for the first 5 years of most people’s lifting careers. Dumbell and cable work should also be included. This can be applied to every other major muscle group.

[/quote]

I can agree to this and most everything you said, but I dont think this is how most beginners go about things. If a beginner puts most of their focus on the big compound lifts, then isolation movements are fine and a good idea. A worst case scenario would be wasting their time. But as I said I dont think this is usually the case. They’ll want bigger arms and a bigger chest immediately and will not be willing to put the effort into developing a big bench. They’ll likely end up spending 10-15 minutes on a couple of sets of questionable bench pressing, and then another hour or two hammering away at the chest, arms, and shoulders. This is just my observation though.

And I DID say, that I think there is nothing wrong with isolating for beginners, as long as it doesn’t take away from developing your main lifts.

I think we are in agreement for the most part, just to different extents. I prefer using the least amount of extra stuff necessary and spending that extra effort on developing the main lifts, and you and others would rather isolate to cover your bases just in case it is necessary.

[Professor_X]

[quote]dankid wrote:
BONEZ217 wrote:
Obviously the bench press should be the base of a chest workout for the first 5 years of most people’s lifting careers. Dumbell and cable work should also be included. This can be applied to every other major muscle group.

I can agree to this and most everything you said, but I dont think this is how most beginners go about things. If a beginner puts most of their focus on the big compound lifts, then isolation movements are fine and a good idea. A worst case scenario would be wasting their time. But as I said I dont think this is usually the case. They’ll want bigger arms and a bigger chest immediately and will not be willing to put the effort into developing a big bench. They’ll likely end up spending 10-15 minutes on a couple of sets of questionable bench pressing, and then another hour or two hammering away at the chest, arms, and shoulders. This is just my observation though.

And I DID say, that I think there is nothing wrong with isolating for beginners, as long as it doesn’t take away from developing your main lifts.

I think we are in agreement for the most part, just to different extents. I prefer using the least amount of extra stuff necessary and spending that extra effort on developing the main lifts, and you and others would rather isolate to cover your bases just in case it is necessary. [/quote]

You two aren’t in agreement at all. He is speaking from clear experience. You are simply a wannabe.

[BONEZ217]

[quote]dankid wrote:
BONEZ217 wrote:
Obviously the bench press should be the base of a chest workout for the first 5 years of most people’s lifting careers. Dumbell and cable work should also be included. This can be applied to every other major muscle group.

I can agree to this and most everything you said, but I dont think this is how most beginners go about things. If a beginner puts most of their focus on the big compound lifts, then isolation movements are fine and a good idea. A worst case scenario would be wasting their time. But as I said I dont think this is usually the case. They’ll want bigger arms and a bigger chest immediately and will not be willing to put the effort into developing a big bench. They’ll likely end up spending 10-15 minutes on a couple of sets of questionable bench pressing, and then another hour or two hammering away at the chest, arms, and shoulders. This is just my observation though.

And I DID say, that I think there is nothing wrong with isolating for beginners, as long as it doesn’t take away from developing your main lifts.

I think we are in agreement for the most part, just to different extents. I prefer using the least amount of extra stuff necessary and spending that extra effort on developing the main lifts, and you and others would rather isolate to cover your bases just in case it is necessary. [/quote]

Every point you are making is based on a hypothetical situation. You are ‘creating’ a beginner with little desire to build a complete physique and are trying to come up with ways to compensate for a lack of dedication. You are also crazy to think that doing extra compound lifting will compensate for someone who only wants bigger arms and chest.

[smokotime]

[quote]dankid wrote:
Smokotime I see where you are going with this, and I myself do in fact do some “light” stuff for prehab and such, but we are talking about building muscle and Curls. You over-generalized my statement about light weights being useless.

It is my opinion based on my experience that if you are doing a movement to build muscle, then the weight better be heavy. And it is my opinion that for many people, its much easier to increase your strength focusing on fewer compound exercises than having a bunch of exercises to target each individual muscle.

Sure there are people that will get huge doing sets of 20 on curls and hitting 5 different exercises to hit the bicep at every angle, but I feel this isn’t the majority of people. And im entitled to my opinion just as much as everyone else on here.[/quote]

I also was talking about curls and building muscle. Firstly non-specifically:

3.If you have already done heavy shit, it’s more volume. If I do 5x5 with weighted chins and then some 12-15 rep sets on lat pulldown it’s light, but you’ll still get bigger than if you didn’t do it.

And secondly specifically

I’ve gotten bigger and stronger by doing lighter work, and I’m free of constant chronic pain. 3 sets of bicep curls at least once a week, and my forearm and elbow pain is gone and my arms are half an inch bigger.