Weight Lifting techniques and tips

All you can do is eat more protein, vary your lifts, recover and back it. Theres always HGH for more volume as well. Personally my shoulders have responded well to heavy dumbbell presses - much better than barbell. My shoulders are relatively weak (70lb dumbbells) is as high as I go but Ill max out with 5 to 6 reps every 2nd shoulder workout. When I say weak, this is in comparison to my other body parts.

 

I think one thing to keep in mind, esp. with shoulders, is not to overwork them.

Basic laws of biology and physiology tells us that hypertrophy is required to build muscle. And in order for hypertrophy to work you need to allow for sufficient recovery and rest.

With the shoulder muscles, it is a complex that is involved in almost every other upper body movement one does, from pull ups, rows, push ups, bench presses, etc.

So then focusing on a targeted shoulder complex increases the risk of overtraining them, which minimizes the possibility of hypertrophy and growth in the shoulder.

One thing you might think about trying is not to have a specific "shoulder" workout (or shoulder workout day); instead to simply incorporate shoulder finishing exercises on your other body part days.

One finishing shoulder exercise I really like, as it's very different from most popular shoulder routines (presses, raises, etc.) is the shoulder "uppercut" exercise, which you can see from the video below. The video uses a barbell plate, but I prefer using a kettlebell.

TL;DR Don't overwork the shoulder, less is more, try the shoulder "uppercut" exercise below

Good luck, hope that helps.

 

Also try adding in a few exercises focusing on the posterior deltoids like high pulls on the cable machine or using a rear delt machine. These really help to round out the shoulders and give them that extra volume you're looking for.

 

Weight training and that entire industry is how I make my living...
Stop doing oiblique training; it will make your waist become more muscular/bigger. Ab training is what it's all about as it's both functional (important as wwe get older) and also what defines your look the most.
Great channels for lifting advice are:
Mike van Wyck
Mountain Dog (John Meadows)
Both guys have a 'scary' look for some, but are straight up information goldmine's in a smoke screen riddled industry of "know-it-alls'.

 

Again, I would seriously ditch the plated obliques; even when mentioning yuou are doing them to stretch an entire differnet region. There are better exercises to do so.
You have a great physique which is well defined, I would however focus first on lowerr abs and than upper abs. Obliques get enough stimulation from regular ab work; if done correctly.
Key with ab work is doing it corrrectly. Choose exercises that cause you fatique in the 12-25 rep range. anything above that and you're eitehr doing the exrcise wrong or it becomes cardio.
Abs react very well on 'heavy training'. Like hanging legg raises or V-ups. In most gys across the world I see 99,99% of epope, train abs incorrect. They are all about proper breathing and thus focus. No focus means zero results.
From all my work and training with top trainers and body builders (I am friends and have trainined with the past 20 years Mr Olymipia's) I can tell you virtually no one does oblique training.
Oblique training is only required for very sports specific training. Your abs take up the biggest part of stabalizing your core. Obliques get enough stimulation. there is zero worry for a muscle imbalance. So comparing it to chest and back is apples vs pears.

 

I have found varying my routines has made a big difference. Two years ago I was doing *push-leg-pull-day off* for about 3 months and my elbows begged for mercy (I’m 56). So I changed to a 5 day routine:
chest-tri-abs-calves
Back-bi-forearms
Legs-abs
Shoulders-and then 2 sets of bi-to-forearm to reinforce what was done on days 1 & 2.
Day off.
My joints are much better for it.
About every other months or so I change it up to a cycle of “centenary sets” (100 reps per set per muscle) x 1-2 sets. I make the first weight get me to about 25 reps then drop set up to 100 reps without any breaks...really burns and pumps.
I also vary it by occasionally doing 1 muscle per day and do 20 sets with doing just one type of exercise (db chest slight incline for 4 sets at highest weight to get ~10 reps, drop weight and do another 4 sets, continue to 20 sets). It’s just fun to shake things up or it becomes to routine.

About to hit the gym now and do 20 sets of tri.

 

I’d love to hear some ab ideas. I noticed my left groin really aching (strained) from doing crunches with my feet fixed under a bar.
Right now I’m using cable pull-down ab crunches, but I do set of 50...I should being doing something differently?
I’d appreciate any help you can offer.
Thanks!

 

One of the best ways to work your abs, and to increase your overall core strength, stability, and muscle balance, is with kettlebells.

The Turkish Getup is probably the best exercise for this.

The link below has a series of good kettlebell exercises for abs and the core.

https://kettlebellsworkouts.com/kettlebell-ab-exercises/

 

Yeah, that's unfortunate about your back.

I find kettlebells really enjoyable as I can get a cardio and weight lifting session in one training session. Plus, it's great metabolic conditioning.

But to go back to your point, I think any exercise done without proper form runs the risk of great injury, even something as basic as a biceps curl.

Here's hoping your back continues to improve.

 

Sounds you got it figured out.

60 injuries? Whoa, that’s more than the lives of six cats combined.

 

Here’s a great video that has John doing sit ups correctly. If you do these fully focussed on the contraction and isolating abs, you should not be able to do more than 25 repetitions. Doing more and you are either olympic material or you are training lower tendons and not abs.


Fixing your feet shifts the load towards your hip flexors which are far more stronger than your abs. Hence why you strained yourself.
When training abs fully focussed it is impossible to strain your ab muscle; it’s 100% of the case a flexor.

I do cable ab pull downs as well. Do them with 80 pounds and can do about 15-20 reps fully, fully focussed until I gas out and my abs are burning and cramping.

 

Try to do hanging leg raises.
Or if you want to be the bad @ss of the gym try to do/learn one of the most awe inspiring exercises you can do. Made popular by Bruce Lee only to be made even cooler by Stallone… The Dragon Flagg!

Being so tall isn’t very favorable for weight training. I’m 6,2 but notice my lower back has become an issue as well after 30 years of weight training with the first doing too much stupid $@%$! But we learn as we get older and I have had the privilege of learning from the best coaches and athletes.