[quote]maraudermeat wrote:
been reading through your log and i think your view of training is dead on. in my opinion, if you look big you had better be strong. just training machines doesn’t make one strong. free weights make you strong, machines are a good variation and good for hitting muscles at different angles.
when people start talking about the advantages of machines for strength i laugh. if i can bench 405lbs with free weights, i can most certainly bench that or more on a machine. now do you think the same is true of a machine??
still do’n 5/3/1 at all??[/quote]
Thanks, meat. That you think my training view is even viable means a lot. Just to be clear, I’m not ditching free weights at all. I think they’re vital! However, I have to play deads/squats by ear and listen to my body. Some days are “no-go”. My log is full of those days.
Bench, squat, and deads aren’t going anywhere from my routine, in fact, I’m as determined as ever to get that 405 bench. I treat the machines as secondary and hopefully to recruit more growth but with less chance of injury.
Upper back is a great example-- I’m resigned to the fact that BB rows are not ever going to be staple in my routine. Discomfort and instability prevents it and I’m not going to risk having to take a week off every month just to do them. DB’s are only so heavy. That leaves T-Bars, Pulldowns, and HS equipment for heavy loads (the only way to get big/strong.
I’ve built my shoulders with dumbells. Period. In that respect, the HS stuff is complementary as well.
I’ve been approaching this strength/size thing with a somewhat hybrid approach with the idea that at least getting to a 400-500 bench by any means means that some muscle is going to get packed on. However, I need big round shoulders and bigger bi’s/tri’s to offset my thick waist, so I train those primarily “BB style”.
Legs/Back? Whatever it takes. I grow from squats. That’s been my main leg exercise and LP secondary. However, again, I’ve approached the squats much more conservatively than I have in the past because of the load on my back. I took last week off from the gym (f*cking back flair up), so this weeks leg workout was higher rep and machine heavy. I’ll ramp the load on my back over the next couple weeks.
I love leg/back days-- probably why my arms are small 
5/3/1: Love it. I felt like I was slowing down with it, just hitting the minimum numbers. Work travel has been throwing my cycles off as well, so I’m going to change up for a bit then hit it again. I’ve been starting with incline bench to bring that up and I may do my next cycles on incline.
