+ 4 What is your lagging bodypart
Just so we can get some discussion going and hopefully others can see and learn what has worked for you to bring up lagging bodyparts, I would like to ask the following questions to get this started:
What is or was your lagging bodypart and what did you do to bring it back up to snuff or at least to the point where you saw some good progress?
I’ll start this off by saying I was always disappointed in my chest. I called it a pancake chest. Lift my arms up and the pecs disappear. It is getting better but still has a long ways to go. What really worked for me was to implement more dumbbell presses along with increasing frequency of training. I hit it at least every 5 days so I could utilize the overcompensation principle to get it to respond.
I really liked the dumbbell presses. What I would do is start out with the bench flat and every set I would raise the bench 1 pin until I was almost doing a shoulder press, then I would bring it back down the same. Great way to hit the chest at all those various angles. I would then do the same with DB flyes. This was a killer and coupled with correct frequency really made a change in my chest.
While we are on the subject, I would also like to throw out a few reasons why that bodypart of yours may be lagging. Time to self reflect and adjust if need be.
Double check your mechanics (form) of the exercise. Make sure you are at least doing it properly. Study some videos or whatever you need to make sure you are doing it properly. I see so many people doing shit wrong that it is not even funny. Study up on mechanics because it will make or break you.
Make sure you are fully contracting that muscles. Shitty contractions means shitty results.
Are you training frequently enough. To much time between workouts for that bodypart means slow results.
Do you have enough variety in your routine. There are lots of angles and movements a muscle goes through so be sure to hit it from all angles.
Are you doing enough volume for that muscle? You have to keep stress the muscle enough or it just gets used to the same ol same ol and won’t grow anymore.
Make sure you are using the proper training variables for your goal. Reps, sets, time under tension (TUT). Are you a bodybuilder doing a powerlifter routine (or vice versa) because that is the workout the guy at the gym gave you?
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Calves
Nothing. I don’t give a shit anymore
X2 that's my issue also...I hit em and they just refuse to grow.. and I don't care anymore either lol..
genetic bro, either you have them or you do not. sucks I know
Genetics play a part sure. My calves werent the best until I hit the standing calf raise machine 3 times a week with the whole stack for reps. Plus donkey calf raises work wonders.....and of course are always fun finding a couple of hotties to hop on for the ride. After months and months and months it was almost as if I woke up and Bam, Calves just appeared. So you never truly know.
Not saying you were, but I often find that people use word genetics as an excuse to settle.
My advice, you only live once. Never settle
Wish my gym had a standing calf raise. those donkeys sound like fun. May have to move on to more plumper ones as your calves grow, can only fit so many hotties on your back at one time.
Don’t think that’s necessarily true. Mine were lagging for years. Within the last few years I started training them daily. Now there one of my favorite body parts.
I still work them hard, not every work out but atleast 2-3x a week.
nice, I stand corrected.
A great exercise for chest size & thickness, plus front delts is deadpresses Makwa in a power rack. Although they are a powerlifting exercise they are great for isolating those area's, not brilliant for triceps as you have to use less weight but do 3 reps with 4 secs inbetween each rep to get rid of the stretch reflex and its great for chest thickness just by chance I found out.
I'll have to look those up.
Watch the repetitive steel on steel impact with the pin presses. Those fuckers will rattle your skeleton and connective tissues with no mercy; not great on the joints. Use sparingly
jayiskPress1 said Dead Press not Pin Press. Two different exercises. Sure you just read it wrong. If not I can explain it to you.
Yes, I would appreciate that! I thought a dead press was just a press done off the safeties from a dead stop with no eccentric. My bad
jayiskA dead press is done of the safeties but is set up at the bottom of the lift. so you would set up on the bench with your normal PL style set up and press a heavy weight from the bottom of the lift. usually just for 1 rep. then in another minute or so do another single.
a pin press is an overload exercise off the safeties but is set higher off the chest. more mid lift to almost lockout. i did find doing pin presses to be taxing on your joints esp. when doing more than a single.
dead press
https://youtu.be/tPc52rxOo_0
Ah, yes, I am actually aware of that difference. I was trying to figure out what I got wrong, haha. I was mainly referring to the steel on steel impact at the end of the movement, but it’ll obviously be less stress with a dead press than it will with pins since it’s less weight. But if someone is doing partial ROM pin presses, I’d wonder why he’s putting his joints through that when he could be using boards or bench blokz instead to avoid the steel hitting steel
jayiskWhile a dead press can be done with heavy weight its a matter if you do more than a single. Yes, i would agree that the partial ROM pin presses puts a lot of stress on the joints.
Personally as a raw PL i prefer a 2 board., not bench blokz.., as a great supplemental exercise. But if someone lifts by themselves and has no one to hold a 2 board a dead press would be ideal. I usually use a 2 board after my regular bench workout. i do 2 to 3 overload sets using 1 to 3 reps. I also like the floor press.
look at Spoto here doing pin presses and you can see it just doesnt look joint healthy. well at this weight nothing is joint healhty..,lol
https://youtu.be/ATPDjbVIjHk
Jesus - its amazing it doesn't actually push his shoulders out of their sockets when he's just holding it there for ages at the end Lol
jayiskSpoto put out some insane bench training vids. Repping weights that are insane.
But Kirill came along and just blow Spoto's world record bench away.
It still blows my mind on so many levels that Mendelson got 701 in the 140 kg class. Imagine benching over 700 lbs raw AND having to diet to stay in a weight class at the same time. Unbelievable. That’s the only raw 700+ bench in any non-SHW class that I’m aware of
jayiskyeah Mendelson at SHW held the raw at 715lbs and equipped bench world record. That 715 raw took a long time for someone like Spoto to come along and break it after 8 yrs.
I find Mendelson quite a scary character - seeing him willing to bleed through his eye sockets when he's training from the levels of gear he ran is insane. There are times he can't even see when you watch him benching from the amount of blood running down his face! Still thats what it takes at that level I guess...
Pretty sure I’ve seen footage of Meeker and Kennelly bleeding from their eyes, too. The amount of gear, the body weight, the weight on the bar, talk about some serious abuse. But yep, that’s what it takes. Crazy
jayiskDo they actually bleed from the eyes?
i've seen the vid of one of the top equipped benchers get up from the bench and it looked like he was bleeding from the eyes but he said it was the blood from his nose that dripped back.
I'm still waiting to get a nose bleed from deads. Like a badge of honor..,lol
think thats from hypertension.
I believe it’s the capillaries popping from pressure around the eyes
jayiskmakes sense.., when things go wrong in PL.., and his bench was a no lift with that bloody face
https://youtu.be/WEty94KQrpI?t=18
They are great when done no more than once a week.
Left lower lat. What I've been doing is an extra rest pause set or two at the beginning or the end of the back session with one arm pulldowns on a lat pulldown machine, or a hammer strength machine using the left lat only. Also using the heaviest weight I can handle for 6, pause for 20sec and pump out a few more reps, pause again for 20sec and maybe squeek out 2-3 more. It has improved and plenty of offsesson to go for more improvement. In a few weeks I'll switch out those exersices. There's only so high in weight you can go untill too many other muscles start assisting with the poundages and you start to lose the connection to the specific muscle that is the intended target. Most likely the latter was why the lower lat ended up lagging or could of been from an previous broken clavicle injury I got in football many moons ago.
Sage advice right there. Im the same with my right bicep versus left.
I had been focussing on mind muscle, initiating with the smaller right. It made a bit of a dent in the difference but not too much, so gonna give your approach a go. Nice 1.
basskiller89My left calf has a higher insert, I'm training to bring it down, thicken it up
What type of training are you doing to bring it down? I don't know if there is much we can do about insertion points.
basskiller89I agree, it's just getting bigger not longer, I've been doing slow low donkey calf raises heavy holds and then high reps until I can't take it anymore. Maybe I should bump carbs see if gaining a little bit of fat helps the growth, I'm unsure, what do you think??
My upper inner chest sucked. So i did decline diamond pushups with hand out front as far as comfortable. Deck of cards. Aces is 15 decline diamonds. Jokers 20. Face cards 10. Numbers would be the number. After the whole deck that would be most of my chest workout. Also the old school octagon(i think thats the shape) dumbbells...those you can set them right together parallel long ways. They lock in. and do presses right in the middle of your chest. Slight incline and it gives a crazy squeeze on that upper inner chest. My calves well. I have dennis wolf calf genes hahaha
Sounds like one way to keep the workout interesting.
Yeah definatly another added benefit. A break and somthing different. Wrist dependent my buddy hated it his wrists didnt agree
Like you my chest sucks! I have a torn left pec for many years which looks like Gyno. I found the best way to make it stay proportional to my arms and shoulder which are big is to do it twice as often. So, i do two chest workouts to every shoulder/arm workout. Also I incorporate negative reps on the bench, and do extreme cable crossovers covering a large range of motion to crossing as far as I can overlap. This has all helped, but I'll never be known as "Mr. Pec",
This is good you got it figured out. How often do you incorporate the negative reps? Every workout? I would like to throw some in here and there but I workout by myself which makes that difficult.
Negative reps only on one workout of the two. If you do too many negatives they can overstress the muscle and have a reverse effect.
Yeah it is definitely tough on the muscles and I think the CNS also. One of those tools that works best in moderation.
I'm never happy with my shoulders. I've always been wide up top but never felt the depth was there.
I rotate my shoulder routine, one session I will do dumbell press, the next barbell along with standard lateral raises, front delt, rear etc... Ive added a couple things though that have helped me. At the end of my training I like to run a gaunlet. I'll grab a plate, depending in how I feel 25, 35 or 45 and raise it all the way overhead then slowly back down. I shoot for 15 reps, then to the cable machine. Light weight maybe 10lbs lat raises leaning away from the weights, again 15 real slow. Then face pulls, 15 again. Rest a min then do it 2 more times. This may be overkill, but it works for me. If nothing else I leave the gym with a hell of a pump.
Getting a good lactic acid burn can definitely help with growth.
My arms was my weakest link...
https://www.eroids.com/forum/training-nutrition-diet/workout-exercise/bu...
See if this post can help you make the guns get huge. I hope it helps.
Was?
Was is correct... I started doing negatives and caught them up
My ass always seems to be pulling up the rear.
my triceps and since I do free dips and close grip benchpressing they grow very good!
Neither of those exercises hit the long head particularly well, which is the largest head and the one that usually lags. The overhead barbell press hits the long head of the triceps better than just about anything. Any movement where the bar goes over or behind the head will hit the long head hard. OHP is the big, bad motherfucker of upper chest, delt, and triceps exercises
How close is your grip when doing close grip benches? Shoulder width, just inside shoulders, 4" apart? I'll hit just inside shoulder width otherwise it kills my wrists.
Not too close cause otherwise it kills my wrists like u say.
I take the barbell always very close and then I go until I have a painfree grip - too close is also not the best cause then the bar starts to bob up and down which is very risk with 2x45's on each side.
If you get the elbows as close as possible to the side, it negates needing to have a close handgrip and improves the focus on the tri's by taking delits out. Close elbow rather than close grip.... far better for stress on the elbow too.