I do take the majority of my working sets to failure. Of course once you’ve suffered any sort of injury, it’s always in the back of your mind not to get sloppy for the sake of one extra rep in a set.
OKay,… to some other questions that were brought up…
Favorite exercises?
I love doing Barbell Rows. I just get into that whole beastly/guttural nature of it. THere’s also something about doing an exercise that is regarded as difficult that I think spurs me on.
So many trainers do the seated cable row, or the supported row machines… I’m certainly not saying that advances in equipment is a bad thing, but thinking that I’m doing the same thing Yates did, that Arnold did, that Mentzer did… it’s like some sort of connection.
You look around at the average joe’s doing their easy exercises, and then you realize that you’re practically on the floor, wheezing, and feeling truly spent after a hard set and you know you’re working harder.
When it comes to Shoulders, of course I like doing DB presses, probably because I’ve always been really strong at them, and it looks great when you sit in front of a mirror, but I think seated laterals are the better overall exercise.
My shoulders were always a strength, I’ll reiterate that before going on, but I attribute the laterals with adding meat on the sides of my shoulders (making me look wider, as well as thicker), and creating that really cool shadow/division between the delts and the upper arms.
Unless you’re front delts are especially a weakness for you, I don’t think they need a lot of stimulation if you’re doing heavy chest (incline) work. Sure, I still do presses, but I like to start off with the laterals, which probably also gives a nice little pre-exhaust effect.
Actually, this morning, I did a complete shoulder workout which involved all isolation work before a couple sets of DB presses at the end… -Seated laterals, Bent laterals face down on an incline bench, front raises with a plate, and lastly a few sets of DB presses (still move the 100’s though! -lol).
For Chest, I’ve always been a big fan of incline barbell work. Even though I used to do heavy flat, it always seemed to affect my tris and delts more than my chest (even though my chest would get sore as hell the next day).
The incline just seemed to give me a better stretch feeling at the bottom, and as my training partner and I look back at earlier pics (before my contest cut), my upper chest looked pretty thick compared to most gym rats.
Eventually, I started ding DB work, then alternating between the two, then switching angles, from 45 degrees to 30 degrees until my current approach which is
Incline Barbell (45 degrees) followed by a few sets of Incline Dumbbells (30 degrees).
This way I’m at least hoping to preserve some of the real upper thickness I used to have, while the lower angle allows for more upper/middle chest development, which I feel I may be lacking due to flat work not really being an effective choice for my build.
For Triceps, I’ve always liked doing dips between benches. Yes, I know everyone does them with the dipping bars or similar situated machine, but the positioning of the hands (fingers facing front, palms back) just feels more natural to me.
I will typically do them with my feet elevated on one of the dumbbell racks, or even occasionally in the squat rack. What I don’t do is pile a ton of plates on my knees hoping to impress the hell out of everyone. If they seem a little easy on a given day (which is rare, as I always do them last, after rope work, and non-lockout french presses), I will really slow down the negative portion, as well as shift my torso a little more forward so that there is no ‘resting’ lockout at the top of the movement.
For biceps, I feel the most effective exercise for me over the years has been incline dumbbells curls. I actually like to scoot the incline bench right up to the dumbbell rack, and have my feet up on the rack. I find that this allows you to completely relax the rest of your body,
also keeps your head back against the bench so you don’t actually hunch forward like so many guys do in an attempt to swing the weights up. The point of the movement is to get that deep stretch at the bottom (myostatic reflex anyone? -lol), and then curl up just to the point where you biceps are about to disengage (resting the weights on your bones when you’re perpendicular to the floor!), squeeze hard, and then lower.
For anyone who’s biceps won’t grow from tons and tons of BB curls,… do these first, and then do your BB curls. After you stop whining about having to lift lighter weights, you may notice some growth.
For Quads, I’m a big believer in front squats. I spent many many years doing back squats, and again, although moving heavy ass weights, did not look like I thought I should. It was only after a couple of lower back injuries, and actually not training them for a whole year did I discover how amazingly the front squats target your quads.
Yes it is awkward as hell. Yes you will have some bruising on your collarbones once you start raising the amount of weight you’re lifting. Yes the bar will be pressed against your throats sometimes and you may panic… but suck it up man! You will feel the soreness in your quads the next day just like Flex magazine tells you you’re supposed to feel it when you back squat (but instead, only your ass hurts the next day)
For Hamstrings, without a doubt, stiff legged dead lifts. I was totally scared of doing these for along time, thinking they were just an accident waiting to happen, but really, any exercise in the gym poses a good amount of risk.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend anyone start with heavy weights, especially if they’re not used to the movement, they’re inflexible, or they’re just an idiot who won’t pay attention when some chick in tight shorts walks by.
Originally I would do these with a barbell, eventually using the smaller plates (25’s) instead of the bigger ones so that I could get a better stretch at the bottom without banging the plates on the floor (yes, I know I could stand on a box!). THe past year, I’ve moved to using dumbbells.
They just feel a lot more natural the way my arms hang down, sometimes rotating in front of my body, and sometimes rotating to my sides. Th real trick I’ve found to doing these though, is not allowing the back dominant part of the ROM to take over the movement. I do this by actually staying in the lower portion of the movement.
Before people scream at me about how dangerous it is, I will emphasize that if you keep your back straight, and do not allow it to round when you are at the bottom of the movement, or even at the ‘top’ (which isn’t very high), you should not feel a lot of stress there. IN fact, the real trick, is to stop the movement just about the point where the Dumbbells reach your knees.
This pretty much ensures that your hams are working though out the entire shortened ROM. Think of it as focusing on providing continuous tension to the muscle, yet getting a great stretch (myostatic reflex again!) at the bottom. I try to move in a slow, rhythmic almost ‘pumping’ motion. Try this before doing your usual routine of just leg curls, and watch what happens over the next couple of months.
Calf training is really pretty boring. I know I’ve been asked a hell of a lot on here about what I do, and let me tell you that there aren’t any real secrets I’ve discovered. What I have learned is this:
1- Angling your toes doesn’t do a damn thing. What can make a small difference is whether your typically place your foot stress at the top of the movement (full contraction) on the inner ‘balls’ of your feet, or if you tend to rotate outward naturally. I’m sure most of you are sitting down now, press your feet into the floor, first angled in even so slightly (not your ankle!
Don’t bend your ankles doing this or you WILL hurt yourself), then outward soooo subtly. See what I mean?!
2- I most people, the gastrocnemius can handle heavy weights, and will be best suited for low rep work (employed during knees straight calf exercises). The soleus, on the other hand, can handle lighter loads, but for more prolonged intervals of time, and is best suited for higher rep work (employed during knees bent calf exercises).
This is true MOST of the time, but unless you get yourself a muscle biopsy, you will never know with 100 % accuracy what you fast/slow twitch muscle ratio is. I like to go with the odds that I’m in the majority, only occassionally varying my rep schemes just to shake things up a bit.
3- If you insist on doing ‘calf’ work after a grueling leg workout, there is no way you will do them justice. The best thing I figured out, and this was only in the last 5 years (which means I wasted 11 years thinking I couldn’t get my calves to grow), was that if I split my calf workout into two separate sessions (one for the gastroc, and one for the soleus), I could hit them harder, and with enough volume to get some sort of adaptation response. I know do straight leg calf work after chest, and bent leg calf work after upper legs.
I’ll readily admit that most of the year (hell, most of my lifting career) I don’t do direct ab work. I find that not using a belt when doing heavy squats, shoulder presses, even stabilizing myself for BB rows or Pullups, has enabled my abs to be pretty strong.
Obviously I’ve been doing some work as I prep for a show. I’m hoping that by intentionally thickening up the front section, it will look better all depleted. My approach though, is that it’s not comfortable, and I will rather endure a short, really painful training session, than wasting tons of times doing zillions of crunches.
My partner COrey and I like to do what he calls Dragon Flags (not sure if it’s the technical name). If you’ve see Rocky IV, you know what I’m talking about. They truly hurt like hell, and I have yet to see anyone else in our crappy little gym approach us, ask what they are, and then actually be able to do one correctly -lol.
Whfew! Okay, that’s a lot of typing, hope I actually answered some questions in there! I’ll try to get to all of them, and any new ones… keep 'em coming, I’m kind of enjoying having a little forum on here 
S
