I’m following the HP Mass program. What do you think about adding in lots of eccentric-less work for upper body pressing muscles? Does adding volume this way work for these muscles as it does for lats, biceps, and legs?
The reason I’d do this is that my upper body pressing strength and size are severely lacking compared to my back and legs. My best lifts are squat: 650 (parallel, belt and wraps), deadlift: 700 (belt and straps), and bench: 315. I’ve also done barbell rows with 365-405 for reps using decent form. Even that bench was on a particularly good day when I was little fatter, and I normally struggle to feel decently strong and explosive working with 245-275. I was thinking about just doing lots of extra pressing with the sled, manipulating the angles to feel like a decline, flat, or incline press. Maybe I’d throw in some extension and front raise-type movements, as well. Your thoughts?
What do you recommend for people who are noticeably asymmetrical? My triceps, delts, pecs, and traps are smaller on my right than on my left, and the difference has gotten to the point where I just feel the left side taking over and doing more work on barbell movements. My right quads are bigger than my left, as well.
I was thinking a good solution might be to do extra volume with the sled for upper body, using only my right side for some pressing and face-pull movements. For lower body, I would drag the sled with both legs but emphasize the steps with the left leg and under-emphasize the steps with the right leg. I’ve started to use these strategies the last few sessions, but do you think they’re good? Anything else you would recommend?
Wow, I did not expect such a detailed response on a Sunday evening! Or whatever time of the day it is in Canada right now. Thanks!
Do I understand correctly that you still agree with Chek that pecs are tonic muscles, and simply train them for performance due to practicalities of training?
If that is the case, would you say that if someone wants to bring them up (or any other muscles that don’t “fit its group”) one should, in addition to the usual training (so performance for pressing), train them in isolation as tonic muscles?
Taking pecs as an example this could for example mean doing two supersetted isolation exercises for 6-10 reps and some sled work at the end of the performance session.
So does this mean we should do decline bench and lower body prowler on our lat/bicep day?
Also do you know which muscle make up phasic or tonic works better with isolation exercises and which work better with big compounds?
Thanks Mr. Thib, will defenitly try one rep up then halway down and up again. Have a question regarding volume, by moderate volume for biceps growth, how many sets do you think is the minimum?. Thanks in advance
CT, how do you plan 2 a days using the HPM system?
I’ve worked up to 2 upper and 1 lower lift per day the last 10 days or so - including assistance work - and i feel excellent. I have been waving the intensity though and my main goal is strength. I only took one day off.
One thing i realized during this experiment is how performing a light day - %60-70 1RM - prior to a heavy day using the same lifts make me feel alot stronger and ready to hit some PR’s!
With that in mind what do you think of light/explosive work with your main lifts - 1-3 in my case right now - for the AM session and Heavy work for 1-3 of the same lifts for the PM session?
Volume and fatigue are closely related but not the same thing… fatigue normally goes hand in hand with added volume (if you do more volume of the same intensity you will create more fatigue) but the reverse is not always true: you can create a lot of fatigue with minimal volume (by using advanced techniques).
I’ll tell you from my own experience, having had lagging biceps for a LONG time, that biceps respond best to FATIGUE loading with a moderate volume.
To do this I like to include a lot of constant tension work and double contractions (lift the weight all the way up, bring it back down halfway, lifting it back up… this is ONE rep).[/quote]
Thanks! This info helps a lot.
So to recap (and to make sure that I got the point) you suggest doing 4-6 sets of an exercise that you use constant tension and then 4-6 sets on something that focuses more on the brachialis with (for example) iso-holds and after fatigue work you add volume work (this is my interpretation of the things that you talked in the article and the forum. I hope I finally got the point of it.)
Maybe I overused the constant tension curl a little because I passed the point were my biceps were burning and did 4 sets (couldn’t do much volume after it).
EDIT: I was wondering how would you improve one’s shoulder strength. I observed that oh press is lower than my bench and almost equal to my close-grip bench. I guessed already that I should emphasize sholder movements and do it in both performance days, but what else should I do?
Volume and fatigue are closely related but not the same thing… fatigue normally goes hand in hand with added volume (if you do more volume of the same intensity you will create more fatigue) but the reverse is not always true: you can create a lot of fatigue with minimal volume (by using advanced techniques).
I’ll tell you from my own experience, having had lagging biceps for a LONG time, that biceps respond best to FATIGUE loading with a moderate volume.
To do this I like to include a lot of constant tension work and double contractions (lift the weight all the way up, bring it back down halfway, lifting it back up… this is ONE rep).[/quote]
Thanks! This info helps a lot.
So to recap (and to make sure that I got the point) you suggest doing 4-6 sets of an exercise that you use constant tension and then 4-6 sets on something that focuses more on the brachialis with (for example) iso-holds and after fatigue work you add volume work (this is my interpretation of the things that you talked in the article and the forum. I hope I finally got the point of it.)
Maybe I overused the constant tension curl a little because I passed the point were my biceps were burning and did 4 sets (couldn’t do much volume after it).
EDIT: I was wondering how would you improve one’s shoulder strength. I observed that oh press is lower than my bench and almost equal to my close-grip bench. I guessed already that I should emphasize sholder movements and do it in both performance days, but what else should I do?
[/quote]
Check your external shoulder rotator strength in comparison to your pressing strength.
Are you doing the rear delt, trap and rhomboid work staggered with pressing movements?
Check your external shoulder rotator strength in comparison to your pressing strength.
Are you doing the rear delt, trap and rhomboid work staggered with pressing movements?
[/quote]
Assistance work is something new to me and because my strength (even on bw exercise) improves because of it I do it staggered (rhombs and some rear delts but I don’t get enought traps work so I’m thinking on a max reps circuit at the end of the workout so that I fully hit them).
I just saw that from all the exercises the standing one (for sholders) has lower pondage than the bench (so in order to get a bigger bench I need more shoulder strength, right?).
With all the assistance work and pressing work it will improve over time (considering that it get plenty of volume because it’s the firs exercise and I ramp on it and then continue the multi-exercise ramp). Hey it’s my first (full) HPM training cycle so it has time. I guess that the lack of strength in the shoulders is because I used to do more isolation work and very low strength work. I’ll do OHP in both performance days and I hope that’ll do. I was wondering if I should still do some isolation because my sholders are’t the size I want them.
(if you refer to the rotator cuffs I used to train them in a period so I guess they aren’t the problem. I guess I’m just not used to do OHP ramping not for fatigue.)
Anyway if you have anymore suggestions in mind I’d be glad to hear them.
Check your external shoulder rotator strength in comparison to your pressing strength.
Are you doing the rear delt, trap and rhomboid work staggered with pressing movements?
[/quote]
Assistance work is something new to me and because my strength (even on bw exercise) improves because of it I do it staggered (rhombs and some rear delts but I don’t get enought traps work so I’m thinking on a max reps circuit at the end of the workout so that I fully hit them).
I just saw that from all the exercises the standing one (for sholders) has lower pondage than the bench (so in order to get a bigger bench I need more shoulder strength, right?).
With all the assistance work and pressing work it will improve over time (considering that it get plenty of volume because it’s the firs exercise and I ramp on it and then continue the multi-exercise ramp). Hey it’s my first (full) HPM training cycle so it has time. I guess that the lack of strength in the shoulders is because I used to do more isolation work and very low strength work. I’ll do OHP in both performance days and I hope that’ll do. I was wondering if I should still do some isolation because my sholders are’t the size I want them.
(if you refer to the rotator cuffs I used to train them in a period so I guess they aren’t the problem. I guess I’m just not used to do OHP ramping not for fatigue.)
Anyway if you have anymore suggestions in mind I’d be glad to hear them.[/quote]
Obviously this guys weight amount selection is for a girl, but I have seen some trainees (men) have to start there because their external rotators just aren’t firing and/or are severely underdeveloped. Start with a slow tempo, higher reps per set to feel it in muscle - then once used to the movement tempo can be sped up and more weight/less reps per set used.
Also, face pulls excellent for shoulder health - do you do them?
Also excellent if you have access to blast straps:
[quote]Mutsanah wrote:
Obviously this guys weight amount selection is for a girl, but I have seen some trainees (men) have to start there because their external rotators just aren’t firing and/or are severely underdeveloped. Start with a slow tempo, higher reps per set to feel it in muscle - then once used to the movement tempo can be sped up and more weight/less reps per set used.
Also, face pulls excellent for shoulder health - do you do them?
Also excellent if you have access to blast straps:
[/quote]
I guess you missunderstood me whe I said that I performed exercises for rotators. I did external rotation standing and with 25 lbg pounds db’s not with 2 lbs db’s like that guy. In the assistance work I always include face pulls with more of a twist at the end wich really hit the external rotators and rear delts too. I wish I had blast straps.
I think you mss understood my problem for dead start. My MTW for OHP is 56 kg, for bench is 65 kg and for aditional triceps work is 45 kg.
(I know it’s not much of a weight but every day when I go and train remembers me that I once was weaker than that guy and training big lifts with those weights and complaining after 3 sets that makes me smile, and the fact that after the next 3 weeks those 56 kg will turn into 60 kg and so on, now that makes me happy for sure.)
I was waiting for an answer to tell me if I should add extra isolation work for sholder (as if those will improve strength somehow) or NOT to!(stuff like lateral raises, inverted flys, front raises etc. not exercise for dummies)
DO you recommend your hp mass to some one who cant bench 200 yet?? i know in your article it states if you cant get 200 then do this but im not sure if this program will build me substantial strength if i stick with it or if i should move along…
CT I was wondering what advices can you give me on isolation work? (you said that isolation work can be added after the main workout - in the UB article)
Now I like circuits a lot so I’ll structure it that way, I don’t know if that should be done for volume, fatigue or a max rep circuit {or maybe even strength}?
Hey CT, for the next month or so I’ll have a lot more free time which I plan to take advantage of with some extra workouts. In addition to my current 4 workouts per week I was thinking 2 days would be neural charge workouts while the other day would be an eccentric-less Bicep/Lat workout.
For the eccentric-less bicep/lat workout I was thinking something like eccentric-less pull ups for back. But for biceps what do you think of the following:
Doing the concentric portion of an EZ-Bar curl and dropping it onto a bench after each rep
As a sled I have a bed sheet wrapped around a tire with weight inside, I was thinking of tying the sheet around my hand and doing pinwheel curls dragging it up from the side
Normal curls with the sled
What do you think? I’m interested in trying the pinwheel curls with it as I haven’t seen this done before.
Also I guess it doesn’t matter that the sled work inherently goes against the whole constant tension idea for bicep work?
Thibs, you’ve posted the best bang for your buck websites in the past for buying bars, racks and equipment for home gyms. Do you know any such sites that offer good deals on olympic plates? I’m having a difficult time finding any decent deals.
Thibs, how can I ideally add in jogging doing HP Mass training? I have six months until I have to report to BCT for the Air Force, and I would like to be able to jog 3-5 miles rather comfortably since the military LOVES running. I was thinking doing my running on the neural charge workout days. Would that work?
1_ Wouldn’t be better if we do MONDAY upper body (secondary lower) and TUESDAY lower body (secondary upper). It seems overkill to do back to back days with the same moves ?
2_ What exactly is the Neural Charge Training ?? I haven’t seen it explained anywhere ?
[quote]ronald1919 wrote:
Thib, just some questions about the setup:
1_ Wouldn’t be better if we do MONDAY upper body (secondary lower) and TUESDAY lower body (secondary upper). It seems overkill to do back to back days with the same moves ?
2_ What exactly is the Neural Charge Training ?? I haven’t seen it explained anywhere ?
thx[/quote]
Could you PLEASE actually spend 5 minutes looking for the answers? Both of these have been answered multiple times. Hint: start with the livespills.
