I was referring to triceps french press aka skull crushers; not bench presses. I might do a separate post about important pointers for weight training. Pointers everyone knows and understands yet no one actually does…. The human mind is a wonderfull emotional mess.
Just found this thread, cool stuff! Have any of you done 5-3-1 for strength? I did it for about 6 months one year ago and PR’d every lift. I really liked that program for strength and applied it to some power lifts as well. At first it feels light on volume but it worked great for me. Going to start it up again and see what happens. Been focusing more on metcons but I’m now back to lifting in the morning then metcon in the evening.
Fair call. I am actually just below the shoulder and you may not be able to tell in the video but the grip is vertical (not horizontal). The vertical grip doesn't let you use nearly as much rear delt as it would appear.
More or less, yes it is indeed a great plan that is geared towards strength. Muscle growth is a side effect. With age, I notice that aiming for strength seems to become too much risk vs reward. I’d rather aim for muscle growth/maintenance/fitness than vs strength. I’ve got nothing to prove anymore to the guys in the gym or myself. I’d like to keep my joints relatively healthy. too many (waaaay too many!) older weight lifters are completely banged up. Not worth it. There are no gold medals for best bench presser in the gym; there will always be another mofo stronger than you. Have a look at Larry Wheels; he also looks the part. But be amazing with John Haak; whom looks ‘ okay-ish’ but warms up with Superman type weights.
I agree. At almost 52 I’m not looking to break any records. I do still enjoy pushing my limits occasionally and nothing feels better sometimes than lifting heavy ****. I get bored easily so simply training for aesthetics isn’t my thing too much. I do prefer to look muscular but it always comes second to being fit and fast. Keeping any size is tough for me with my level of cardio but I’m not ready to slow down just yet. It’s too much fun running circles around the young gym bros right now.
So many things you can do with weightlifting to keep your self entertained, things like challenge sets, drop sets, high interval weight training, rest pauze, 10 second rest breaks, etc.. Speed is also a by product of strength as well. Moving fast also means being explosive; you ca rain for that too. But yeah, showing the young guys how it’s done is often very much fun! Especially when dealing with inflated ego’s or those suffering from extreme ILS!
I do most of those and almost every session we are using one or more of them. I don't think I have done the same workout even one time in the past 3-4 years.
I also use alot of those techniques to create muscle confusion. I really enjoy tempo lifting and varying time under tension as well.
Sometimes after heavy bicep we drop set to what I call 555s (don't know the real name). Go pretty light, hold dumbbells at 90 degrees (never let them hang down, even when they are not the active arm), work 1 arm 5 reps on the lower half of the curl motion, other arm 5 lower half, 1st arm 5 upper half, 2nd arm 5 upper half, 1st arm 5 full curls, 2nd arm 5 full curls. Move slowly and deliberately. Holding them at 90 when not in use keeps time under tension the hole exercise. It gives you a wicked pump.
Try doing as a finisher 10 full range reps wit ha weight you can curl for aprox 15-20 reps. Do 10 reps, set the weight down and rest 10 sec do again 4 more times. Although this may sound like a finisher I typically use this technique to start biceps training. Great way to ge the blood flowing!
For finishers we often do drop sets where we keep moving down a couple of pins at a time so the rep counts gets ridiculous but at the end the pump is amazing. OR we do as you describe, THEN jump back to a very heavy weight for 3-5 more, then to super light for amrap. I generally start relatively light for warmup and use higher reps. We work our way up and warmup takes me 15-20 min to hit full stride. Too may injuries, tendinitis, torn bicep, etc. over the years. Not to mention that I am not 20 any longer (over 60).
Start your shoulder workout with rear delts and keep the volume high. Rear delts are overlooked by 99% of lifters. However they do wonders for your appearance and performance. Try doing at least 3 sets with 15-25 reps. Reverse pec deck is a great exercise. Try to focus A LOT when doing rear delts as your traps are many times stronger and thus easy take over. The late John Meadows is renowned for making rear delt training important again, I’ll let him explain:
Maximus is correct about defaulting to the traps. Position of the hands, more toward the head or toward the waist, plays a big role in helping you feel and focus on the correct muscles. Rotation of the hand also has a significant impact. Use light weight like a 5lb and try the motions; feel for activation of the correct muscles. If you are training with someone, have them touch the muscle you want to activate, it will will help you focus on that muscle.
HUM? Hard question and it depends if we are doing a volume day or pushing near (or for a new) PR. I will try to keep track of a workout and post everything I did; that will probably be more informative.
Last night we hit deadlifts. Sent up 275. It was a little slow at one point and when viewed by frames you can see that my hips got a bit too high. I could feel it during the lift so I lowered them slightly and leaned back to keep it in the glutes where it belongs. Then it went up smoothly. Arguably, I could have pulled the shoulders back a bit more on this lift too but given I didn't crown over it is more of a nit than big issue. The 260 before this lift flew up because the form was tighter. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1561798640902215
Maximus, to your earlier Q. Last night was light on volume since we were hitting my PR numbers. I warm up a bit slowly and my left knee has to be warmed up or it is prone to injury. We did the below in 1 hour. That is a lot slower than I usually lift when we are doing volume. I will post one of those soon. Notation I used: weight x reps x sets BW = Body Weight Warmup working these in circuits: Squats BW x 10 x 2 Leg extensions 80 x 15 x 3 Bulgarian lunges BW x 10 x 3 Curtsy lunge BW x 10 x 3 Leg press 80 x 10 x 2 Deadlift action: 135 x 10 x 2 (finishing the warmup) 165 x 6 185 x 5 205 x 2 225 x 1 245 x 1 260 x 1 275 x 1 I am missing something in the warmup section but it doesn’t change the total much. We generally do more after the main lift but ran out of time.
I’ve been focusing on four sets at 8-12 reps but I do every set to failure. If I can get 12+ I go up in weight the next set. I have to get at least 8 reps minimum though or I’ll drop the weight. Key for me is constantly pushing to failure and not just mindlessly counting off a set number. What do you think? I’d like to focus on adding some size.
IMO that’s too much lead up if you are trying to PR a deadlift. I know it would be for me. Typically I stretch and do mobility really well for 20-30 minutes then I jump in to my precalculated PR ladder keeping the reps very low. Last time I deadlift it went like this: 20-30 minutes of stretching 135 x 10 185 x 7 225 x 5 275 x 3 315 x 3 365 x 1 405 x 1 435 x 1 455 PR 465 failed