Overhead Flyes??

Training Bodybuilding
21

[quote]Professor X wrote:
bushidobadboy wrote:
MytchBucanan wrote:
Professor X wrote:
ShutUpAndSquat wrote:
Just thinking outside the box! Always looking for novel ways to stimulate a muscle group.

…and there is nothing wrong with thinking outside the box. No one told me to do hack squats the way I am doing them now. But they have made my legs grow so I will keep doing them this way for a while. However, that doesn’t mean try random shit without having a logical basis for WHY.

You don’t know if something is going to work unless you try right? How do you define a logical basis?

I think ProX is saying that you should have a rationale for doing what you are doing, before you do it.

BBB

Exactly. I am not going to change my entire routine for no reason just to see what happens if what I am already doing happens to be working. If I do something differently, there is generally a reason WHY I am even considering a change at all, even if that reason is relatively small.

I have gone up in weight drastically for certain exercises…simply because the weight I was used to working with was being used by someone else at the moment…so I grab the next dumbbell up and that instantly becomes my new “last rep max” even if I can only get 2-3 reps out of it.

I changed how I train legs because I was having knee pain from doing them the previous way and it felt like I wasn’t recovering fast enough…so I increased my rest days and focused on one solid mass builder and went all out on it. My legs got stronger and my knee pain is gone (aside from the day after legs). I clearly made the right choice.

I get the feeling some of you really think you need to change your entire routine every other week “just to see”. That’s retarded. You can’t track progress if you are constantly flipping everything around.[/quote]

Oh, but many of the great, knowledgeable internet-gurus say that you should only do a routine for 3-4 weeks before your body “adapts”. Clearly you don’t know what you are talking about.

On a more serious note, I agree… You’re never going put up impressive numbers/get huge if you keep throwing your entire routine out the window and start from square 1 every time you stall or even at arbitrary intervals of 2-4 weeks or some such bs… Not everything is going to be wrong (and most of the time it’s people’s diet anyway, especially in case of beginners and intermediates).

And avoiding adaption… That phrase is so idiotic since your body adapts by getting bigger and stronger and that’s what you want… You keep forcing it to adapt by increasing the weight on the bar and/or reps done with the weight…

22

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Der Candy wrote:
Professor X how do you handle stalled lifts. Say I stall on the inlcine barbell press… for like 2 weeks. Is it good to change it to a completely new lift, or what about decreasing the weight and then working back up to it over several workouts, or doing lighter weight or what? What would you recommend for that/how did you handle situations like that?

Plenty of ways to go about it… Swapping lifts and then coming back to the original after the new lift stalled, along with the occasional “deload” works well for me, all DC’ers and lots of westside lifters.

Px wrote about his way before if I remember correctly…

Oh yeah, here it is:

Professor X wrote:
NateN wrote:
This has been an interesting read, but I think the more useful question would be:

How did you train while you were building yourself up the fastest?

I’ve trained a lot of ways. My first real routine was from a box of Cybergenics. This current “try to find the one true way to workout” fad is a fallacy. There is no one true way to train that produces the best results because your body is adaptive. That means, what works for you right now, may not work the best for you when you gain another 10lbs of muscle. The one thing that has worked is balancing strength with form. I train to get stronger. Due to that and my diet, I also get bigger. Because you can’t simply get stronger forever, there have to be periods where your focus is more on form. One of the best ways to do this is to move up to a weight that you can only get maybe 3 times at the most. Continue working on form until you can get that same weight up for about 8 times and then move up again. There is nothing wrong with some cheating.

Some of the best advice you will ever get is to train with someone much stronger and more developed than you. Even if they aren’t the most educated, you can learn something from anyone with more experience than you…PhD or not.

And I even did the search for you man, you better send me some money… :wink:
[/quote]

I’ve read that before. My question was more basically on how to get through times when you are stuck on a lift, but I guess that the answer was pretty obvious. For example recently I added weight to incline presses bringing it down from 6 reps to 4, but I just seemed stuck at that 4 reps. But thanks.

23

[quote]Der Candy wrote:
I’ve read that before. My question was more basically on how to get through times when you are stuck on a lift, but I guess that the answer was pretty obvious. For example recently I added weight to incline presses bringing it down from 6 reps to 4, but I just seemed stuck at that 4 reps. But thanks.[/quote]

I thought that’s what he meant… Stuck at a lift-> go heavier/low rep and work on it till you get back into your regular rep range…

Have you gotten past the 4 reps by now or are you still stuck?

24

[quote]Der Candy wrote:
Professor X how do you handle stalled lifts. Say I stall on the inlcine barbell press… for like 2 weeks. Is it good to change it to a completely new lift, or what about decreasing the weight and then working back up to it over several workouts, or doing lighter weight or what? What would you recommend for that/how did you handle situations like that?[/quote]

2 weeks is nothing. Your body could very well just be adapting more to the movement…or you could need more calories…or you could need more rest. The bottom line is, 2 weeks is too soon to come to some conclusion that you need to change something drastically just because your weight didn’t increase UNLESS YOU ARE A RANK BEGINNER.

If you think I am still going to the gym and going up on all lifts every single session, you are mistaken. The more you gain, the longer it takes to see even more progress and the more effort it takes.

The post C posted is exactly what I meant by this. Maybe now is the time you need to concentrate more on form…or diet…or rest…or about 100 other things from stress at work or school to simply being upset at a girlfriend.

25

Consistency and continuity are essential. Variety for varieties’ sake can be very much counterproductive to your goals.

Generally, your body will adapt to predetermined repetition brackets prior to the exercises you select to train. Considering as well, most trainees will feel stagnant with a specific set / rep bracket for an exercise on its’ 4th rotation, then you can see why people think that they need to change exercises. This is pretty much crap though, it just means you should look at how many sets and reps you perform.

If your goal is to get stronger in a lift consider that strength is fundamentally a product of neural adaptation, and is much a skill as any other fine motor pattern, then consistent reinforcement is essential.
The more you perform it the more skilled and the more economical you become.

Also, consider that sufficient variation can be achieved by altering hand / foot placements, as well as loads, recovery periods etc etc, then really ther is actually little need to alter your exercise selection.

Ronnie Coleman hardly altered his exericses throughout his career. The biggest and strongest people I know similarly stay consistent with their exercises.

And to the OP. Quite a few PLs I know perform that movement as a bench accessory exercise.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Der Candy wrote:
Professor X how do you handle stalled lifts. Say I stall on the inlcine barbell press… for like 2 weeks. Is it good to change it to a completely new lift, or what about decreasing the weight and then working back up to it over several workouts, or doing lighter weight or what? What would you recommend for that/how did you handle situations like that?

2 weeks is nothing. Your body could very well just be adapting more to the movement…or you could need more calories…or you could need more rest. The bottom line is, 2 weeks is too soon to come to some conclusion that you need to change something drastically just because your weight didn’t increase UNLESS YOU ARE A RANK BEGINNER.

If you think I am still going to the gym and going up on all lifts every single session, you are mistaken. The more you gain, the longer it takes to see even more progress and the more effort it takes.

The post C posted is exactly what I meant by this. Maybe now is the time you need to concentrate more on form…or diet…or rest…or about 100 other things from stress at work or school to simply being upset at a girlfriend.[/quote]

26

I don;t use it for hypertrophy per se. I use it to strengthen the lowest point of the seated DB shoulder press.
If someone wanted to use this movement as a massbuilder or for getting a pump at the end of the session, I agree - cables would be far superior.

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
tribunaldude wrote:
I have been using these for a while now after I learnt this from one of the dominican powerlifters I train with, and was able to bust through a plateau on my seated BB (and DB)

shoulder press with doing these for volume - along with some decent progress on the HS shoulder press and one-arm cable pull-down (for improved lat-upper arm support - you will not see great improvement in your military press without heavy lat development to “support” your upper arm at the bottom if that makes sense).

The key is not to do it for fuck’s sake without rhyme or reason. Do it if you know what muscles need to be strengthened/need extra volume/mid-muscle connection for a certain purpose - and HOW to execute said movement using the appropriate muscles - and most importantly, if you can see yourself making solid progress in said movement.

Pictures from Berardi’s site

http://www.johnberardi.com/updates/apr112003/na_mechadv_2.htm

if you do this as languidly as the chick in the pictures, I wouldn’;t expect much benefit, if any.

If you keep your palms-in and go heavy AND low enough (to the point where your body starts shaking to keep them steady) - you will greatly improve your medial delts participation in overhead pressing, which will result in a heavier military press.

I have done an exercise like this in the past, but only with cables, since using DBs is pretty ineffective IMO.

Much like DB pec flyes, as the arm approaches verticle, stress is transferred away from the delts, towards the arms. Using a cable will allow you to maintain stress on the delt.

BBB[/quote]

27

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Oh, but many of the great, knowledgeable internet-gurus say that you should only do a routine for 3-4 weeks before your body “adapts”.[/quote]

When charging $3000/hour or whatever, it doesn’t do to have the client not constantly “needing” the latest overhaul to the workout program.

Additionally, if the program doesn’t change every few weeks the client would find proof he is not in fact gaining 5-10% strength per week every week, therefore hundreds of percent per year etc. And would Daddy pay $3000 per hour when realizing his son was in fact going up far slower in strength than this?

Nope, if the last couple of weeks was Decline Kettlebell Bench Press, this must now change to Unilateral Incline Swiss Ball Cable presses with Ben-Wa balls stuck up the ass! This way weights can keep increasing constantly and dramatically, impressing everyone.

28

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Oh, but many of the great, knowledgeable internet-gurus say that you should only do a routine for 3-4 weeks before your body “adapts”.

When charging $3000/hour or whatever, it doesn’t do to have the client not constantly “needing” the latest overhaul to the workout program.

Additionally, if the program doesn’t change every few weeks the client would find proof he is not in fact gaining 5-10% strength per week every week, therefore hundreds of percent per year etc. And would Daddy pay $3000 per hour when realizing his son was in fact going up far slower in strength than this?

Nope, if the last couple of weeks was Decline Kettlebell Bench Press, this must now change to Unilateral Incline Swiss Ball presses with Ben-Wa balls stuck up the ass! This way weights can keep increasing constantly and dramatically, impressing everyone.[/quote]

Hell, I want to know who gets away with 3,000 an hour.

29

That is a figure I was told for a given famous trainer – known for insisting on the need for constant change – for personal one-on-one training, as of several years ago. I don’t have outside verification that it is correct. However, the source does know the man personally quite well and is a reliable one so myself I expect it is right.

30

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
That is a figure I was told for a given famous trainer – known for insisting on the need for constant change – for personal one-on-one training, as of several years ago. I don’t have outside verification that it is correct. However, the source does know the man personally quite well and is a reliable one so myself I expect it is right.
[/quote]

NOBODY is worth that. Nobody. There is no knowledge or experience secret and elite enough to justify that kind of fee even if you have the money.

If he can get it more power to him, but I can’t fathom anything somebody can know special enough to be worth 50 bucks a minute.

31

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
That is a figure I was told for a given famous trainer – known for insisting on the need for constant change – for personal one-on-one training, as of several years ago. I don’t have outside verification that it is correct. However, the source does know the man personally quite well and is a reliable one so myself I expect it is right.

NOBODY is worth that. Nobody. There is no knowledge or experience secret and elite enough to justify that kind of fee even if you have the money.

If he can get it more power to him, but I can’t fathom anything somebody can know special enough to be worth 50 bucks a minute.[/quote]

Ha… Sure that Bill isn’t just talking about some Call-Boy ?
You can come out and admit it now Bill… Your “source” was just telling you what’s on the market… “Trainer” for 3000 an hour, we get it man… :wink:

32

Ugh, what a thought…

33

Wow thanks guys, CC, Prof etc. Today is the third workout and I’ll stick with the incline presses and see what happens.