I think it’s a huge factor. Everyone online has an equal stage, whether their background justifies it or not
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Thanks Rob, these sessions aren’t really too exciting, but it’s nice to do some different movements and not feel so beat up. Should be ready to start building strength again in a few weeks.
Uhm… I hate to bring it with all the great lifting going on in here but we haven’t had a puppy pic in quite some time 
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Sorry chicken, here is one from the other day when my daughter son decided to spray him with the hose!!
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Oh he’s getting big! Looks like he’s not terribly happy about being wet… lol
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We carry a little squirt bottle around to give our dogs a reminder when they forget their manners. That pup just got a whole day of lessons
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Wasn’t just the dog, the kids, the house, anyone walking near the front of the house. They all got sprayed!!! Wasn’t until one of the girls ran in the front door screaming that we realised he has turned the hose on. 
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It never ends!
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So last week was the first real arm training in yonks and it was fun to get a good pump. I have a question for @BrickHead and or @The_Mighty_Stu if you don’t mind helping an old man out. Whilst the arms were pumped and certainly sore after Friday’s arm session. I still find It a struggle with feeling the bicep work during the training. Even just flexing the arms in general, I don’t feel the bicep that much. Forearms yes and although I can flex a bicep it doesn’t feel the same as when I squeeze my Quads or glutes. It may just be because I am not used to training them or it could be something else. So I guess my question is what am I doing wrong and is there a simple way to fix this ??
Firstly, I’m glad you’ve noticed a positive difference at least in terms of getting a solid pump and feeling the soreness of a new stress.
Some people will always have difficulty feeling certain individual muscles, while others can be more “in touch” I suppose is a good term. I always think back to when I first started training, and while strength gains came fairly easy (I could bench a lot, curl a lot etc etc), the individual muscles didn’t pop, or grow at a pace that made me confident I was doing everything correctly.
Learning to intelligently target the muscle groups with the correct movements that worked for me, performing them in a correct manner to get the most out of them, and honestly just focusing on what I was trying to accomplish made a huge difference.
What that translates to was this:
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Isolation movements are great in terms of hitting a small muscle group, or something like the bicep where pretty much 99% of what you can do involves a single joint movement. It doesn’t need to be complicated. For most of my most productive years as well as competitive ones, I would always start my bicep work with single arm, non-support concentration curls. Nothing fancy, or impressive in terms of weights, but effective.
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Really getting a good squeeze, and very controlled negative, and making just the target muscle work. With my bicep conc curls, I would brace my entire body with my “no-working” arm, and nothing else would even be tensed aside from that one working bicep, that I could see with my own eyes, straining as it lengthened and shortened. I didn’t twist my wrists or any other silliness that might deload the main muscle belly, it was simple, repetitive, and it hurt, and I would lock into that feeling with each rep.
-Something else that in hindsight might have helped reinforce my “mind/muscle” connection was that I liked to flex and hold each muscle a few times after and between each set. Whether this had any effect on actual growth is debatable, but I do think it helped me get more into feeling the muscles go through the ROM and tight contractions.
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I know you weren’t asking me, but “Spider-Man hands” sometimes help me - basically let your hands drop down away from your wrist and hold that position.
Also focus on keeping your elbows back - they’ll like to travel forward and use more delts.
I think drag curls can be a good primer exercise to get those two habits down.
I’ll stop clogging this up now and let the actual bodybuilders talk!
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I assume this is the one where you are bent over and the arm is hanging like Arnie does in pumping iron? I did them last week seated with the arm on the inner thigh. Is there a reason you prefer the non support type??
The idea of slowing down and controlling the negative sound interesting and something I expect to make me even more sore this week. Bring on arm day.
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Lol, exactly where I got it. I always liked to start with that, or incline DB curls which can help take any type of cheating out of the movement, as well as allow you to really feel the full stretch before each contraction
I found this old video (can’t believe it’s from 2011, but at 3:04 you see the non-support curls)
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Mate that vid is awesome, as are your guns in that vid. Thanks for sharing that, seriously cool.
lol, thanks. I was hoping to find a more recent one, that was only leading up to my 2nd contest, and while in hindsight, I looked pretty good, I’d LIKE to think that I improved more by the time I hung up the trunks 
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Do you have a load of vids of different preps and comps or is it something you wish you’d filmed more of ?
I’ve got a decent amount I guess. I do have a journal for every prep (every days food, training, injuries mood etc etc), and more than a handful of videos of some of the training sessions as well as actual contest footage.
Social media wasn’t huge back then so I wasn’t trying to make a name for myself or anything. I competed for myself, always trying to improve, but really only took most videos to share with people Who wanted to see what I training looked like at the time.
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Thursday 1st October - resto week 2
Bulgarians
65 x 10 x 3 sets
OMG !! Big pump and lungs burning !!
Trap bar deadlift
Bar x 10
70 x 5
100 x 8 x 3 sets
Didn’t feel heavy but made me dizzy!! Sure I read somewhere that high rep deadlifts are the devil !!
Chest supported row
16 x 10 x 3 sets
Slow reps with a good squeeze at the top
Leg curl
35 x 8 x 3 sets
Ouch !! Calves and hammies really felt these.
Hanging knee raise 15 x 3 sets
SS
Lateral raises
SS
Bent lateral raise
Another good pump session. Did some good work but nothing was too heavy. Happy days.
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They’re the worst aren’t they??
Mate they are just plain nasty especially anything over 8 reps !! Urggghh
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