I liked the westside post, makes sense. I have a question…when I squat with the regular bar, the bar does not rest in a straight-ine accross my back…the bar is at an angle…the left side is ahead of the right. Almost like my body is rotated to the left? I don’t where the imbalance is, if any? My Chiro/ART guy say’s this is prety common…but it bothers me! I am just curious if you have experienced anything like this? I guess the bar just rests at an angle accrss my back! Thanks BM [/quote]
Don’t just look at your shouders…an imbalance in the frontal plane usually starts due to restrictions further down the kinetic chain. There could be restrictions in the hip and/or calf/ankle region. If one side is a lot tighter than the other it could cause the frontal plane imbalance you are seeing. Get assessed by a profesional as it is hard to do this over the net. Dont let this slide, ignoring this problem is asking for an injury.
Its best if you think of weak point training like this there are 2 ways to train a weak point you can train the muscle or you can train the lift…for example triceps if you want to train the lift you will train the lock out this is better done with weights in the 80-90% range for reps in the 3-5 range this will train the lift and train the triceps to do abetter lock outs…no to train the muscle you would want to use the rep method just like a body builder with reps between 8-20 and moves like extensions, push downs , ect…now the key here is to have balance between the two how tyo do this is read your body…if your heavy load took a lot out of you and you fell like shit train the muscle if your felling great and can do alittle more train the lift…about your weka points being the lats yes i fell you can train your lats 4 times a week it may take you a while to get in the shape to do it and bring up your work capacity but it should be a goal…i train my upper back and lats 4 times a week and my traps twice a week…it has taken me 2 years ot build up the toleraqnce to do this…try something liek this first to build up work capacity…
work out 1
3 sets of lats in warm up for high reps
5 sets of lats in post work out for 5 medium reps
work out 2
2 sets of lat warm up high reps
3 sets of lats post work out for medium reps
work out 3
2 sets of lats high reps pre workout
4 sets of lats post workout hgih reps
work out 4
5 sets pre work out high reps
5 sets post work out medium reps
this is what i started out wiht now there are days where i do 25 sets of lats in a work out just form building up my tolerance…and one thing this really helps with is deadlifts makes so your lats and upper back never get sore from pulls wich will allow you to do them more often than most people.bm[/quote]
BM, thanks for the clarification. This is one of the finer points of Westside that is not entirely obvious at first.
Now, what you suggested about training the “lift” and “muscle”, is there a good/proven way to rotate them other than just going by intensity of other exercises that day. For example, is it better to train the “lift” as the 2nd exercise (and go heavier) on DE days and train the “muscle” on ME days (as the 2nd exercise). I’m sure a better way will be to mix both the techniques in an optimal way. Do you also prefer certain exercises when it comes to training the lift and the muscle ?
personally i have tried for years to do what your talking about and i cant find a great way except by instinct…personally i try to train the lift as often as i can and your very correct always as the first exersice on both max eff and dynamic days…for example tonight i set a pr tonight on the shirted 2 board press and really strained during my last set for well over 5 seconds… to say the least this took a lot out of me…so instead of doing chain suspended 4 inch lock outs for a few heavy sdets of 5 wich i had planned to do after my max eff move i did 3 sets to failure going all the way to 18 reps on the dumbell floor press wich really hit the pressing muscles hard and filled me up with blood wich made me fell a lot better…i had ot use my brain and not beat my self up…this will allow me to hit the lock out really hard after speed benches sunday…so no i cant give you a specific format other than to train by instinct and let your body be your guide…bm
ok forgot to talk about the moves for both training the muscle and the lift…for training the lift focuse on the aspect where you missed…so for the bench its usually 4-5 board press, 4-6 inch lock outs, decline bench press, close grip bench, are usually the best…my favorites based on my weak points are 4-5 boards with mini bands, 4-6 inch lock outs, and declines these all have worked well for me…for the muscle training i use extensions, push downs, dumbell work, dumbell floor press, push ups, flys, sometime even machines like hammer press machines are great for this…
for the squat… lift-good mornings there are about 6 diffirent kinds i do and its all you really need ot tell you the truth espicially if you have and special bars…muscle training for the squat - band gm’s, glute ham raise, rev hypers, ab work, sled dragging, band leg curls, pull throughs
deadlift, lift-rack pulls, good mornings of all kinds, snatch grip deads, ultra wide sumos, zercher squats…muscle - band gm’s, glute ham raise, rev hypers, ab work, sled dragging, band leg curls, pull throughs
Thanks for the advice. I will continue to try different things out…ART, stretching, and work on my form. Yeah, I know ha your saying about unracking the weight, and walking it out…not only do I probably lose that upper back stability…I feel that it’s takes me forever to get the right stance! I will try the technique with the 2x4’s out? Where exactly do you place the 2x4’s in the power rack with the DB’s holding them? Thanks man, I appreciate your help.
Thank you for the insight. I too thought that tightness in the hip flexors was a possibilty. I think that I am tighter on the right side(piriformis) when I cross my left ankle over my right knee in a seated position…torso upright, vs right ankle over left knee, I can’t drop my right knee down nearly as low as my left knee…without leaning way the hell back, and it’s still nowhere as flexable a the left? hopefully that makes sense? It’s the basic seated piriformis stretch…Maybe I’ll just do that stretch on the right side throughout the day, and have my chiro continue o work on it. I’ll also use Big Martins advice…Thanks again, bro. I appreciate your help
We place them up against the sides of the rack and hold them in place with dumbells then take your stance all the way out to the boards if the rack is too wide use 2 boards or even maybe 3 boards until you get into the right position…then when you get your feet up against the boards make sure they are at or under the bar…then just push up and arch the weight out i do this and it fells just like a mono lift…bm
BM - thanks for your time it is great to see that some of the old-timers still around. For the rest of you newbies show some respect…this guy has had a lot of great posts through the years and has taken the time to set a lot of you straight. His information fills-in alot of the gaps that many of the Westside articles are lacking.
[quote]big martin wrote:
personally i have tried for years to do what your talking about and i cant find a great way except by instinct…personally i try to train the lift as often as i can and your very correct always as the first exersice on both max eff and dynamic days…for example tonight i set a pr tonight on the shirted 2 board press and really strained during my last set for well over 5 seconds… to say the least this took a lot out of me…so instead of doing chain suspended 4 inch lock outs for a few heavy sdets of 5 wich i had planned to do after my max eff move i did 3 sets to failure going all the way to 18 reps on the dumbell floor press wich really hit the pressing muscles hard and filled me up with blood wich made me fell a lot better…i had ot use my brain and not beat my self up…this will allow me to hit the lock out really hard after speed benches sunday…so no i cant give you a specific format other than to train by instinct and let your body be your guide…bm[/quote]