They have a place to be sure… but for MYOPS / Hypertrophy I think they’re very suboptimal. Definitely a gut check !
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I have read much weightlifting advice over the years, much of it here, a lot of it conflicting, some of it useless, things which I incorporate for a time since they seem reasonable and like or don’t, some gems which really worked very well for me which I use when I remember them. Will these “best practices” work well for you too? I have no idea.
I can do enormous amounts of work in the 50-80% range. It’s how I’m wired, and how I sometimes train. Doing 100 reps on the leg extension or hack squat machine with far more weight than the article recommends isn’t painful or terribly difficult for me.
Did doing 100 reps work for me? Kinda. I was more focused, and thought I got more out of subsequent leg exercises. I just did it to increase blood flow and wasn’t expecting massive hypertrophy. It is a decent warmup. It’s worth a try. I might start doing it again. It is probably smarter than doing heavy leg curls before compound lifts.
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but is it smarter than doing heavy leg extensions before a compound like squat?
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Not sure. Didn’t go so heavy that it was exhausting. Just more than the “no added weight” recommended in the linked article. I have no trouble doing 1800 lbs. on the leg press for multiple reps and sets. I was doing maybe 20% of that, if that. A hundred reps gets the legs pumped, but I don’t usually try to “feel a pump”.
But if you truly exhaust a major muscle group, surely you have to lower the maximum weight?
Triceps are definitely not the limiting factor for me on bench, I don’t lock out each rep. I have a sort of “tension zone” that I try to stay in for my chest. I go to about 3/4 lockout and I’m generally able to lock out that last rep when I know I can’t get another without failing to get it back on the hooks. That really goes for any benching variation like incline, decline or dumbbell. The lift is definitely hardest out of the very bottom, where the pecs are challenged the most.
If you feel that you didn’t recruit all of your chest fibers, you can definitely do a different exercise to challenge differently angled fibers or even just do an isolation fibers, as has been mentioned but I find pre-exhaustion to be unnecessary. It could be useful if you really hate loading up as much weight on the compound exercise.
I would also note that it’s very unlikely that your rear delts are what’s getting the brunt of the work on your Pull-downs. Your biceps will get a good amount of work in almost any row, pull-down or pull-up but as long as you use good form and train to or very close to failure, your back will be very adequately stimulated to grow. Yesterday, I did 2 arm wide dumbbell rows, weighted pull ups and Meadows rows and my lats are extremely sore today, which is a good indicator that I at least hit those muscles well. Some people struggle to connect with their lat muscles, but I could send you a few videos that could help!
I found that with straps much of my forearm involvement doing barbell bent over rows is removed.
I was a week and a half out from the Masters Nationals Bodybuilding Championship (I believe around June) and doing my last leg workout. I was near the end of my leg presses, when I ruptured my right biceps. After I was out of the brace from biceps rupture surgery, I decided to do no curls of any kind for quite a period of time, and work in different exercises. I focused on a November contest. I started with behind the neck barbell press, and gradually adding more exercises that didn’t seem to cause much biceps involvement. I found, to my surprise, that bent over barbell rows didn’t seem to involve much biceps involvement. In a couple months I was back to my top working weight (two sets of 8 reps with 405lbs).
It should be added that I prioritized bent over barbell rows because I believed that the weakness of my back was thickness. It was my belief that “front to back” back exercises build thickness and “top to bottom” back exercises build width.
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I never had the biceps fatiguing before back on back stuff… It could be because i envisioned my hands as hooks and drove back with my elbows as opposed to “pulling” back with my arms. Straps always helped too
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This is a great cue that I use with a lot of my clients who struggle to use their back on rows and pulldowns and even pull-ups. Most people who are new to lifting don’t even know what lats are, let alone how to “feel them” And activate them during an exercise and they’ll pull mostly with their biceps/brachialis. No amount of pre-exhaust in the world can fix that, it’s just about really perfecting their form and trying to help them with cues to keep the focus actively on the lats, such as the one you mentioned.
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Exactly… I also use cues for each exercise. For back it’s… hands are hooks, drive the elbows back forcefully but under control, slow return, repeat, imagine squeezing a golf ball between your shoulder blades.
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my lats are very sore from 1 set only of negative only pulldowns, im not sure why you’re denying the failure of your rear delts in a pulldown. It is commonly thought that the biceps are the weak link but it is actually the rear delt and grip, so you use straps, and you can do more weight. I believe that the biceps are sufficiently stimulated but i am having my doubts about the lats, even though i do chinups with 100lbs tied to me it is only making my lats take better shape, it isn’t growing them to the same degree as deadlifts do.
Anyways im not saying the rear delts get the brunt of the work i am saying it is a weak link. The lats remain strongest, the biceps remain stronger, and the rear delts remain weakest in that movement, there’s assistance from your upper chest and abdominals. I full and well understand the exercise. I suggest you give me more credit than thinking im just here making excuses for shitty rear delts, actually my rear delts activate like crazy on deadlifts. so i have no problem engaging them.
the lats do not need focus or angle , they need to be loaded heavy.
Everything needs to be loaded heavy.
If you’re doing both deadlifts and pull ups and pull downs, how are you determining what’s making you grow and what isn’t? I have a hunch that all 3 are working together to create back growth.
no i am speaking from different routines iv run and am running. I even went as far as to eliminate all exercises and perform only 1 set of 1 exercise every 11-20days to see which is doing what.
My main goal for my own physique was to determine the least required. And 3 back exercises would’ve been in theory too much, i have not had to do more than just deadlifts for my back to grow, and i have not had to do more than chinups for my biceps to grow, and i have not had to do more than dips for my triceps, front delts and pecs to grow, however the triceps longhead did require an extra tricep set of skull crushers to return growing. I would also point out that the triceps longhead is stimulated during the chin up movement, but it may not be sufficient enough which was in my case, and as any experienced lifter knows when in doubt add more triceps. I don’t think the triceps overtrain easily.
your hunch about 3 back exercises is about the same conclusion many people come to which is a vertical movement, a horizontal movement, and a deadlift. Chins, Rows, Deadlifts, however if you had to remove 1, which would it be?
For back purposes, if I HAD to eliminate one, I’d personally probably remove the deadlift. I love a stiff-legged deadlift for hamstrings and rack deads and row stop deads for back, but I feel like I could get most of the mass for my back out of rowing and chinning variations.
Part of my reasoning here is that a deadlift trains the lats isometrically, but rows and chins train the lats through a full eccentric, concentric and isometric range of motion.
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but also consider the stimulus of growth is greater from the deadlift than from the row. nothing can get you thick like a deadlift it is hypertrophic and the body grows as an entire unit, the greater the stimulus of growth from one exercise the indirect effect of growth takes place in other areas. What you’re describing is based on the theory of muscle growth happens from mechanical tension, what im describing is that it happens from an intensity of effort. And pulling the bar off the ground is not an isometric range of motion, it is the most difficult part of the deadlift. Essentially how you train this part of the exercise(deadlift) is by doing a bunch of pendlay rows, which will make you strong enough to lift a heavier weight off the ground. I have heard the arguments of deadlifts being a test of strength and not a hypertrophy exercise, but that is all talk. Nothing gets you thick like a deadlift, it is the best stimulus of growth , the issue is recovering from it. So despite all the talk of it being an isometric rom, it still gets anybody you put on it thicker. Hits the lats pretty hard, hits the hamstrings pretty hard, hits the glutes pretty hard.
but you are correct all three would develop the back appropriately without gaps.
Well your question left me with the impression that you were asking which one I would remove strictly from a back growth perspective, as opposed to the other muscles it trains. And the lats are trained isometrically during the deadlift as those are the muscles responsible for holding the bar in tight to your body during the lift.
Also mechanical tension and intensity of effort are heavily tied in together because mechanical tension is only achieved by the muscles in the final reps to failure
Mechanical tension stimulating hypertrophy isn’t a theory
it has been disproven time and time again
By whom ? This should be good