Pumping Iron with Zemekone and Icehog3 - Page 64

Originally Posted by icehog3:
Some days the groove seems cut with a knife, and other times, I never find it.

Funny how that happens. There are some days I can't wait to get in the gym, and at times wind up aimlessly flailing about. This past weekend, I did a fabulous job of celebrating the arrival of Friday, needed to be driven home and all that. Saturday my girlfriend and I went to the gym, me a little green around the gills. Had a tremendous 1-1/2 hour workout. Weights for an hour, (new PB on the bench) followed up by an intense 1/2 hour of cardio. Felt awesome leaving there.

In light of that, I'm not about to substitute Bushmills for White Flood just yet.

Originally Posted by The Professor:
BTW, you're "light" bench is twice as heavy as my regular 5rm bench. :-)

Glad I'm not the only one thinking that! :-)

Originally Posted by PeteSB75:
Hearing a couple people talk about shoulder pain and have experienced it some myself. I'm just trying to learn some more about this whole thing, so am reading through Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore. From ll the reviews I have read on bodybuilding.com forums and other places, it is one of the best resources out there. They mention the chronic shoulder pain a lot of people get from lifting in their section on the bench press. From what they say, a lot of it has to do with the angle of the arms in relation to the shoulder when doing bench/chest work. As I understand it, if the angle is too high, arms parallel to the line of the shoulders, it puts more pressure on the rotator cuff, which causes/contributes to this pain. Pulling the elbows slightly closer to the body reduces this pressure and lets the chest do the actual work. This does also move the bar slightly further down the torso. I am making some adjustments to my bar placement, as I know I have been lifting it higher, more arms parallel than slightly angled. I'm starting to adjust my bar placement, but it's definitely something I have to concentrate on, as I've gotten so used to lifting it higher.

First off, you picked up a great book! Second, I believe what you mentioned aboce, low bar groove for benching has allowed me to bench heavy with ZERO issues. Also I find that the narrower your grip the better also. I often see guys benching with their index fingers outside of the smooth groove on the bar. While this may be great for use at a meet to decrease range of motion, it destroys shoulders. I personally pinky on groove on thumbs on smooth for bench.

Narrow grip, low bar groove, elbows in your gonna bench heavy for years
Wide grip, high groove and flared elbows = pain.

Watch next time you are at the gym at guys who bench most will bench the wrong way, and often you will hear them talk about their low bench because of shoulder issues, or such.

Originally Posted by The Professor:
Really sorry to hear that news, Dave. I'll keep my fingers crossed, hoping for the best.

BTW, you're "light" bench is twice as heavy as my regular 5rm bench. :-)

Same here Dave, hope ya feel good. Maybe that little bit of time off will serve ya some good.

Dont worry Prof! Ya got plenty of time.

Originally Posted by BigFrank:
Dont worry Prof! Ya got plenty of time.

Time?!? Time's what I don't have ... I'm an old phart!

:-)

Originally Posted by The Professor:
Time?!? Time's what I don't have ... I'm an old phart! :-)

Nice old Phart and Peter's smilie :-)

Originally Posted by BigFrank:
First off, you picked up a great book! Second, I believe what you mentioned aboce, low bar groove for benching has allowed me to bench heavy with ZERO issues. Also I find that the narrower your grip the better also. I often see guys benching with their index fingers outside of the smooth groove on the bar. While this may be great for use at a meet to decrease range of motion, it destroys shoulders. I personally pinky on groove on thumbs on smooth for bench.

Narrow grip, low bar groove, elbows in your gonna bench heavy for years
Wide grip, high groove and flared elbows = pain.

Watch next time you are at the gym at guys who bench most will bench the wrong way, and often you will hear them talk about their low bench because of shoulder issues, or such.

Nice to know about the grip placement as well. I've been putting middle finger in the smooth groove. Next time I do bar work, I'll try shifting to a closer grip and see how I do. Doing chest tonight, but was planning to do DB work. I also need to work on back arch, as I think I've not been doing that correctly either. Funny how I've been working with "trainers" at LA Fitness for more than a year now and not one of them mentioned this stuff.

Originally Posted by The Professor:
Time?!? Time's what I don't have ... I'm an old phart! :-)

Sure you do, case in point Lou Simmons. Guy as Old, granted crazy, but he is old and strong.

Originally Posted by PeteSB75:
Nice to know about the grip placement as well. I've been putting middle finger in the smooth groove. Next time I do bar work, I'll try shifting to a closer grip and see how I do. Doing chest tonight, but was planning to do DB work. I also need to work on back arch, as I think I've not been doing that correctly either. Funny how I've been working with "trainers" at LA Fitness for more than a year now and not one of them mentioned this stuff.

I would recommend to learn to keep your upper back tight and use that as a base, and get your lats involved before working on a back arch. Arch isnt going to do much but decrease your range of motion. I personally only arch hard for low rep sets 90%+. Anything else I would rather get more work out of. Plus once you learn to keep your upper back tight, and ride high on your upper back getting a good arch is cake. Also, last note, be careful when arching or setting up high on your upper back at most gyms. The benches are hard, slippery and WAY to narrow.

Originally Posted by BigFrank:
I would recommend to learn to keep your upper back tight and use that as a base, and get your lats involved before working on a back arch. Arch isnt going to do much but decrease your range of motion. I personally only arch hard for low rep sets 90%+. Anything else I would rather get more work out of. Plus once you learn to keep your upper back tight, and ride high on your upper back getting a good arch is cake. Also, last note, be careful when arching or setting up high on your upper back at most gyms. The benches are hard, slippery and WAY to narrow.

I noticed that last night. I tried pulling my lats together, that put a slight arch in my back, but I had a very tough time with stability on the narrow bench. Even with keeping tension on my legs and pushing up into my body, I was moving around. All in, it was still a good workout, but I could wish for a better bench.

DB Chest Press
55x12 65x12 70x10 75x5
DB Incline (u)
40x15 3 sets
Pushups
15 - 5 sets
Cable Fly
22.5x15x2 27.5x15x2 - kg, not lbs.
Overhead DB extension
40x12x3
Suicide Tri - superset of skull crusher, close grip press and bench dip
50x10x3

Barely squeezed out the last set of cable fly and went to failure on the last two sets of bench dips. Felt like I had a damn good workout.

Originally Posted by PeteSB75:
I noticed that last night. I tried pulling my lats together, that put a slight arch in my back, but I had a very tough time with stability on the narrow bench. Even with keeping tension on my legs and pushing up into my body, I was moving around. All in, it was still a good workout, but I could wish for a better bench.

I usually always have my legs tensed and my shoulder blades pulled together. IMO, it helps with the bump off the bottom, gives elasticity. That being said, I don't bench with barbell every week. I switch it up from dumbells to barbells and I believe this helps with my stabilizer muscles.

what other workouts can be done for the chest? right now am doing db bench, db decline, machine incline, seated butterfly and "hulk hogans" i dont know what they are called but it looks like your doing the hulk hogan flex.

Whoa. My friend found the coolest website I've seen in awhile. Check it out:

http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/users/

This is a food journal/calorie calculator. Free and very informative. I've had 267g of protein today. ...a little overboard maybe? From what I've read though keeping a food journal can make dieting (not that I'd say I am dieting) 80% more effective.

Originally Posted by cvm4:
I usually always have my legs tensed and my shoulder blades pulled together. IMO, it helps with the bump off the bottom, gives elasticity. That being said, I don't bench with barbell every week. I switch it up from dumbells to barbells and I believe this helps with my stabilizer muscles.

:-)

Shoulders last night.

Side/Front Lat Raise - neutral grip
20x10 3 sets

Front Raise (L grip) - this was a wierd one, seems to isolate the rear delts more than a regular front raise
10x15 2 sets
15x15 1 set

Cable side raise
20x15 3 sets

Upright Row
60x15 3 sets

Cable Front raise (bar) - the bar links to both sets of weights on this cable machine
(7.5x2)x15 3 sets

Finished up a 4week 5x5 workout last night. The final lifts were:

5x5 Weighted chest dips (35lbs over)
5x5 Upright row (110lbs)
5x5 Renegade Rows (50lb dbs)
5x5 Plyometric vertical jumps (2ft 8in)
5x5 Overhead Press (125lbs)
2x15 Inverted crunches with fitness ball
1x50 Reverse grip preacher curl (65lbs)
1x50 dumbbell kickback (20lb dbs)

This coming week we start a HIT workout! Can't wait!

Legs this morning.

Squat
45x12 185x12 205x10 225x6
Lunges
85x10 95x10(2 sets)
Bench Step-ups
50x10(3 sets)
Seated Calf Raise
90x15(4 sets)
Standing Calf Raise
20(4 sets)
Wall Sits
2x30sec each

Haven't done wall sits in ages. Those things kill me at the end of a leg workout. Gotta start doing them again.

Howdy, old gym buddies...back from vacation and back in the gym.

Decided to do a different workout to "ease" myself back into it. Started inclines with the 100lb dumbbells for 18, and just worked myself down the rack by 5's, trying to add reps every set. Hit the wall as 75's for 22, so I moved on to some dips and ended it with reps on the flat bench. Chest is still bumped 2 hours later. :-)

Glad to see you back Tom.

Ive been battling a nasty chest infection thing. Fever and chills gone now, just coughing up the leftovers:-)

Meet first week in April is a maybe right now, my training buddy is going to only bench. So I will be his handler at that meet. If I competed, I would have to weigh-in Friday, compete all day Saturday then ride back up Sunday and be a handler. So that is looking like a no at the moment.
Meet I am debating about now is first weekend in May. Full Meet.