C_C, you’re not a fan of lower reps in the 5-6 range or so for pulling exercises?
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
C_C, you’re not a fan of lower reps in the 5-6 range or so for pulling exercises?[/quote]
Yeah, C_C… cough up a response; in all sincerity I would be interested in your reply as I have been thinking along the same lines regarding my extremely wide pull-up, rack chin, and even (believe it or not) push press movements.
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
C_C, you’re not a fan of lower reps in the 5-6 range or so for pulling exercises?[/quote]
Ceph is up the walls at the minute, so i’ll offer why.
Way to big a risk of pulling - tearing something when doing low reps with seriously heavy weight.
It’s grand at lower weight to build up, but there will come a time when the amt needed will put serious strain on your body.
Hence why you go higher reps.
(ps. Ceph doesn’t like low reps as he uses pink D-Bells for everything)
AccipiterQ long time no talk, hope your weight gain is still solid.
Though how your biceps are getting fried is frying my brain lol 
Any hope of a video PM it to me if needed, if you do not wish to show.
There is something drastically wrong somewhere.
While CC may be away and unable to respond, he has numerous posts in the DC thread where he describes his recommendations for both back thickness and back width exercises including rep ranges (typically moderate reps for back thickness, like dls, and higher reps for back width, such as rack chins). He’s probably mentioned it several times in his How Do You Train thread, as well.
The recent T-Cell thread on Back is another source, and the Rack Pulls vs Deadlifts thread in the BB forum contains valuable information from him pertaining to the back.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Again, please post a video if possible. Maybe you’re doing something that you are unaware of that we would be able to see in a video (like letting your elbows come forward like Shadowzz mentioned).
Can you flare your lats/hit a solid lat spread pose?[/quote]
I’ll post a video next time I do them this coming week! I can flare my lats…sort of. It never feels like they’re completely spread.
[quote]300andabove wrote:
AccipiterQ long time no talk, hope your weight gain is still solid.
Though how your biceps are getting fried is frying my brain lol
Any hope of a video PM it to me if needed, if you do not wish to show.
There is something drastically wrong somewhere.
:)[/quote]
yeah, I’m up in the 205-210 range right now, so that’s going well!
[quote]Ricochet wrote:
AccipiterQ wrote:
I tried them unweighted yesterday. Same thing. In fact my biceps were getting destroyed so bad they actually cramped up. That’s what stopped me during the set, it wasn’t my lats at all, they weren’t even flared when I was pulling myself up. I thought of my arms as hooks, but that didn’t seem to matter any. Maybe I should post a video after I do them again?
How long are your arms? Are either your forearms or biceps extra long or short? Are you arms proportionate with the rest of your body? [/quote]
My arms are a bit long for my body, nothing drastic. As for size, my upper arms are very large, proportionately. They just grow like weeds. I haven’t done a curl or direct tricep exercise in a couple years at this point and I added over an inch during the last 6 weeks of bulking.
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
C_C, you’re not a fan of lower reps in the 5-6 range or so for pulling exercises?[/quote]
I keep saying “low reps”, but I really mean working with, say, your 1-6RM or so. You can do low reps if you want, but with a load that actually allows you to keep the focus on the muscles the movement is supposed to train… And (most) rows are not meant to be primarily a lat or arm exercise.
As for pullups and such, nearly the same thing… Go too heavy and you’re unlikely to be able to do what you’re supposed to do with your scapulae, your body will just try to somehow get up there… And that path usually leads through the arm flexors and rear delts.
Many guys, when rowing, seem to just emulate a movement they saw in a vid or just try to get the bar to touch their body somehow and that’s it. They either don’t think about it in any more detail or hope that their body will somehow figure out how to do the movement in a way that will yield a great back. Got to be gifted in the back-genetics department for that to happen, and even then you can always improve…
Of course the muscles that are acting on the scapulae (most of them, anyway) will be much weaker than the lats and arm flexors in practically everyone who does nothing to strengthen them specifically. So if you start rowing wrong and you somehow miraculously work your way up to 375+ (unlikely) for reps, not only are you really doing jackshit to counterbalance your pressing and help your shoulder health, you’re most likely making things worse by placing more strain on the bicep tendon than it’s meant to be able to handle at your relative size.
And of course your backthickness will suck (unless you somehow get rack pulls or deadlifts right and add them to your routine).
Some of the movement patterns used to build a great body aren’t necessarily something the body would use automatically, and your body also just tries to get the job done… It’ll “think” something along the lines of “Oh, I’m rowing a heavy weight here. Well, my backthickness musculature is really wimpish, so I’ll just use those biceps and brachialis, and a bit of lat, and I could round my shoulders a bit or so, to make it all work better with my new movement/firing pattern…”, It won’t think long-term, i.e. that you may want to someday row 405 or more for a good amount of reps (hard to do with the completely wrong pattern you just developed as the involved muscles don’t have the right strength-potential… They’re just stronger right now because you haven’t done much for the muscles which should move most of the weight… And your body will not use them and thus not get used to using them.) etc.
Make sense?
[quote]kylec72 wrote:
While CC may be away and unable to respond, he has numerous posts in the DC thread where he describes his recommendations for both back thickness and back width exercises including rep ranges (typically moderate reps for back thickness, like dls, and higher reps for back width, such as rack chins). He’s probably mentioned it several times in his How Do You Train thread, as well.
The recent T-Cell thread on Back is another source, and the Rack Pulls vs Deadlifts thread in the BB forum contains valuable information from him pertaining to the back.[/quote]
Just want to mention again: Since I’m more of a 1-2 work set/rest-pause guy, I keep forgetting that other people like to do multiple low rep sets, not to failure, with moderate loads… So If you see me say “I wouldn’t do low reps on rack chins” or so, I really mean “I wouldn’t go too close to my 1RM on rack chins, rather stick with a 8-15RM or so”.
Of course in DC none of that matters as you’re doing RP to failure and all that, but I just wanted to mention it again.
[quote]300andabove wrote:
jehovasfitness wrote:
C_C, you’re not a fan of lower reps in the 5-6 range or so for pulling exercises?
Ceph is up the walls at the minute, so i’ll offer why.
Way to big a risk of pulling - tearing something when doing low reps with seriously heavy weight. [/quote] That’s one I actually forgot. Yeah, with rack chins and the better stretch, the danger of this may be higher.
With pull-ups, you’re in danger of irritating your bicep tendon either at the shoulder (particularly in the bottom part of ROM) as well as at the elbow…
Also, the long head of your triceps connects to the shoulder and sort of works with the lats… You can tear that as well, on all kinds of vertical pulling exercises like pulldowns, pull-ups, etc. Easily done by having a too-heavy weight on there, it moving very fast on the negative and overstretching your muscles/shoulders and if you then even try to jerk the handle back down, well… Kind of like how people just sort of let the weight drop on the negative of preacher curls and then jerk/bounce it back up, starting with their arms totally straight (or overstretched). [quote]
It’s grand at lower weight to build up, but there will come a time when the amt needed will put serious strain on your body.
Hence why you go higher reps.
(ps. Ceph doesn’t like low reps as he uses pink D-Bells for everything)[/quote] ← You didn’t have to mention that.
Jeez Ceph i give a nice simple answer, you come along with a 10 page essay !
Are you being paid per letter typed or something ??
[quote]300andabove wrote:
Jeez Ceph i give a nice simple answer, you come along with a 10 page essay !
Are you being paid per letter typed or something ??
:D[/quote]
I wish!
That’d make me a millionaire in no time flat…
Exactly what I was thinking… as well as feeling. Usually, when I feel my posterior deltoids firing I will stop the set if it is not a form/technique issue. I mightily irritated my elbow after performing Pavel’s ladder sets on both weighted wide grip pull-ups; took a good two months before the pain and tenderness subsided.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
…And that path usually leads through the arm flexors and rear delts.
With pull-ups, you’re in danger of irritating your bicep tendon either at the shoulder (particularly in the bottom part of ROM) as well as at the elbow…
[/quote]
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
jehovasfitness wrote:
there is none. I’m sorry, a bigger guy can say all he wants on this, but from a biomechanical standpoint it ain’t gonna make a difference, assuming all other things equal. Just use a belt if you want to use more weight for a chinup.
But hey, variety in exercises makes things fun. Rather than only doing 1 or 2 great exercises, you have another variation.
there I said it.
That’s like saying that there is no difference between a back squat, a front squat, and a zercher squat. From the waist down they’re all identical movements. But, the placement of the resistance and the angle of pull changes which muscles get targeted/emphasized.
The same can be said of rack chins as opposed to regular pull-ups. Also, as many have already said, the stretch on the lats is far greater at the bottom of a rack chin than at the bottom of a regular pull-up.[/quote]
win.
-chris
I think they suck, Personally, the physics are all wrong. I prefer (of course pull-ups/chins)but also the supplemental work of weighted horizontal pull ups (youtube it) depending on the relationship beetween the horizontal plane of your feet and hands, you can make the exercise harder or easier the higher or lower your feet or arms are in relation to each other. “Band” assisted chins are pretty bad ass too. BTW, i think rack chins suck so bad, id rather jump on pull up assist. lol