Hey, have you been working out?

[Jon Miller]

Attempts to follow. I felt a bit 'blah' for various reasons. Also, my thumb was still not 100% from slicing it up real bad last Thursday, so I didn't want to use free weights (I still had it wrapped, although it hasn't bled much for a while).

5/4/3 pullups
5/5/5 leg press (144/154/154)
6/3/3/5/4 iso-lateral machine bench press (negative) (80/90/85/80/75) (1.4x weight for negative)
stomach
4 chinups
10/10 machine lat pulldowns (negative)
8/6/6 machine vertical press (negative)

JM

[Al B. Sure!]

A lot of back exercises do arms to, how to do you isolate the back?

JM

Well you can't. Your back muscles are used in conjunction with other muscles. If you do back extensions or straight-legged deadlifts or good mornings, you're still using your hamstrings and glutes in conjunction with your erector spinae. If you do pullups or rows, you're using your arms and deltoids as much as your traps and lats.

[SpencerH]

The small muscle most at risk with back workouts is the bicep. You'll never completely isolate the back but with practice you can minimize bicep involvement though. When performing back exercises (rows, pulldowns, etc), focus on moving your elbows back or down (depending on the exercise) since that motion is dependent on back muscles and ignore how your hands are moving. I try to pretend that I dont have biceps (especially when deadlifting, which can be a bicep killer). Also focus on a moving through a long range of elbow motion since that will increase the % that the back muscles contribute compared to the short motion of the bicep. Think of it this way, if you do a back workout and the next day your biceps are killing you but your back is not, then you're doing it wrong!

[Jon Miller]

A lot of back exercises do arms to, how to do you isolate the back?

JM

[SpencerH]

Jon

"Body parts" are variable. I'd say that most people train
1) chest and arms with shoulders seperate
2) chest and shoulders with arms seperate (usually guys with naturally big biceps or bodybuilders IMO)
3) Chest shoulders and arms
4) Legs
5) Back
6) Legs and Back

Over the 35 years I've been lifting I've done pretty much every version but I mostly do 3 and 6. There are a lot of small common muscles used in most lifts and I would overwork them when training more than four days a week (two groups x two workouts = 4 days a week). In order to get variation I work light back with heavy legs and vice versa and do something similar for upper body (although I always bench first for safety reasons). That way I never do the same workout twice in a week and I dont get bored. You have to vary what you're doing to keep getting strength gains.

[SpencerH]

I'm guessing that Jon is not going as deep as he could/should on the dumbell bp. Thats why the first rep is the toughest, and he either gets it up or not, it's the deepest rep. A lot of guys will have a spotter lift their elbows for the first rep for that reason then they'll pump out a few less deep reps. Nothing the matter with that but it kinda nullifys the reason for doing dumbell bp over bar bp, ie the added depth that you can get with dumbells. I never really did much dumbell bp, with the weights I've used over the years they're just too unwieldy and dangerous.

Jon mentioned his shoulder popping so rotator could be an issue (as anticipated my left one is sore right now) and it can certainly have weird effects on your mind (and lifting). Prior to them allowing bench shirts in the IPF I had chronic rotator issues. I'd hit 125 Kg for 3 x 6 but my max in competition was only 137.5 Kg or more normally 135 Kg (I mostly competed at 82.5 Kg). What happened was that my rotator didnt hurt while lifting 125 so I could rep out. In competition though you have to pause the bar on your chest. The extra stress of a totally motionless bar plus the added 10-15 kilos caused sharp rotator pain as I started to push. The pain broke my concentration and I'd miss the lift. The problem ended when the IPF allowed bench shirts. While learing to use the shirt I couldnt do as many reps and I started to pause while training. In addition, the shirt holds the shoulder in position tighter. Anyway, my rotator healed up and I never looked back while benching until age caught up with me. Now I'm in slow decline.

[Al B. Sure!]

It could also be a form issue for the sudden decrease or some sort of weakness like a rotator cuff weakness or a flexibility issue exacerbated by the weight. Jon does say he struggles to get deep on dips.

[Pekka]

Thanks

These are kg (in europe right now). In 2008 I was stuck for a year doing 15/15/15 of 70 lbs or 65 lbs depending on how well I had been working out recently, I really pushed in late winter/spring of 2009 and got up 75 lbs on 5 separate occasions, on all occasions I did 6-10 reps.

It's odd and very frustrating.

I have had issues with getting exhausted during workouts (even with eating ~1 hour before hand, if I didn't do that then I really couldn't do much). I am hoping that it is at least partly due to the thyroid issues.

Body parts are biceps, triceps, chest, back, shoulders, and legs?

Right now I am trying to get up to doing cardio 4+ times a week, once I am back there I should probably try to increase my weight lifting frequency.

JM

Without knowing your size, workout history or anything I'll say what caught my eye first.

You've been doing 15/15/15 for a year. No matter what the weights are, you could change the pattern a bit. The longer ones (less weight) is good for stamina sort of strength, the lean thing. If you want strength as in pure strength and muscle mass, I suggest you go for lesser repetitions and higher weights. 5/5/5, something like that, or even less, 3/3/3, with maximum weights. Put it your maximum and add few pounds. Lift it with pure adrenaline. Rage. Put your mind into it first, focus on the iron, don't even think about quitting or letting it defeat you. It's mind over matter, and give it your all.

You say you feel tired, do you work out often? If so, maybe you can lessen the days you work out or use some extra nutrition, those shakes and stuff. You really need them if you work out a lot, otherwise your body won't recover in time and you will feel tired working out and also you will be stuck and you think the weights you used to lift the week before have become heavier.

It's probably, though, in your program. You probably do too long sessions. Are you going over 1 hour? Try to do it in less than that. Take 30 seconds between repetitions, and 90 seconds between different exercises. Make sure you drink enough so you won't be dry and cold.

Also, you have done the same thing for a year now? Man, time to spice it up!!! No wonder it's getting boring or feeling like you're stuck with the results. If you do the same exercise, you should at least vary the patterns (how many times you do it etc.), grips, and overall how you are doing the exercise itself, you can, for example, usually have 5 to 6 different grips on dumbbells alone, and then the stimulus to your muscle is different. This is really important if you do the same moves all over again for a long time, give your muscle a different stimulus.

These are things that might help you or might not help you. What you describe is normal given what you have just said, it would be expected and not necessarily a health issue.

[Jon Miller]

Thanks

These are kg (in europe right now). In 2008 I was stuck for a year doing 15/15/15 of 70 lbs or 65 lbs depending on how well I had been working out recently, I really pushed in late winter/spring of 2009 and got up 75 lbs on 5 separate occasions, on all occasions I did 6-10 reps.

It's odd and very frustrating.

I have had issues with getting exhausted during workouts (even with eating ~1 hour before hand, if I didn't do that then I really couldn't do much). I am hoping that it is at least partly due to the thyroid issues.

Body parts are biceps, triceps, chest, back, shoulders, and legs?

Right now I am trying to get up to doing cardio 4+ times a week, once I am back there I should probably try to increase my weight lifting frequency.

JM

[SpencerH]

Jon

Its hard to know what to say. My first thoughts were that you're just not doing enough work but I looked back a couple of pages and saw that you had a thyroid deficiency and I dont know how that effects you. In general though, a good rule of thumb is work out each body part twice a week with roughly 9 sets/bodypart (not counting warm-ups). Not every set has to be maximum intensity but if one does 3 exercises with 3 sets then try to do the last set to exhaustion (no matter how many reps it is).

I'm 51, and I've not been able to really push it for about 10 years. Here's the chest and arm workout I just finished

Stretched at home
Cycled on machine burning ~100 cal in about 10 min
Bench Press Warmups
4x 15 X 135 lbs (four different handgrip widths from ~14" to max allowed for powerlifting)
4 X 3 X 225 (four different handgrip widths all benchs are with a 1 sec pause on the chest)
1 x 3 x 255 (I only do this set cos I need the xtra warmup these days)

Work sets (wide grip only with a 1 sec pause on the chest)
5x 275
4x 285
3x 295

My rotators felt kinda stressed at this point so I shortened the accessory work (normally I'd do more tricep and bicep exercises)

3 X 10-15 reps with 4 45 lb plates on a dip machine (real weight is hard to gauge but it's moderate intensity)
4 x 10 reps tricep pressdown (last set is whole stack ~ 95 Kg and high intensity but strict so dont hurt rotators)
5 x 10-20 reps light cable curls (each set to exhaustion increasing weight each set starting at around 40lbs)
12 sets of light shoulder work (3 exercises) aimed at rehabing/maintaining my rotator cuff

If I read your last post you did 1 rep with 34.5 (Kg or lbs?), then 0 reps then you went down to 32 and did 12! then a final set of 7! That's just weird (if I have the sequence correct)! If you can do a set of 12 at 32 then you should be able to do at least 10 at 34! If you cant do that, then you need to work on your confidence (cos you can do it !!!!!!).

[Jon Miller]

6/4/4 pullups
5/5/5/5 leg press 139/149/159/168 (I don't really remember the middle two weights, they were equal distant roughly)
1/0/12/7 dumbbell bench press (34.5/34.5/32/32)
5/4/4 chinups
stomach
6/4/8 vertical press (16/16/13.5)

I was really surprised on the 34.5 dumbbell press, it is the most I have ever gotten up on dumbbells. It is also the first time I haven't been able to do 10 of whatever I could get up, I went down and started going up again and then I lost it and dropped them. My next try didn't go near as well, and I returned to 32 to finish up. I expect I had adrenaline initially and was a bit shocked and didn't put enough into my second rep (not being able to lift it was expected).

JM

[MOBIUS]

I forgot to mention, the modest increase in Cardio in my gym sessions have massively improved my 5-a-side soccer fitness! I was awesome (by my standards) on Monday...

[Jon Miller]

Any advice for me?

jM

[SpencerH]

Thats a start; confidence is half the game. I've trained with lots of steroid and HGH abusers and I'd say that a lot of the drugs value for younger lifters comes from the increased aggression/confidence.

You may want to vary your workout intensity. If you squat max, dont deadlift max on the same day (its ok once in a while though). The idea is to vary your workouts to train one muscle group with maximum intensity (and their are different ways to achieve that) and "rest" the others. For example, I tend to do light squats (8-10 easy reps with my ass nearly on the ground) with heavy deadlifts (1-3 reps/set until I reach that days goal) and vice versa. I bench varying light, moderate, and heavy days on seperate days from back and legs.

[Al B. Sure!]

Squats 3x5x255 then with 3 minute rests between sets I kept trying to get 1 good deep rep with 5 lb increases... 1x260 1x265 1x270 1x275 1x280.
Bench 3x5x180
Deadlift 1x5x255 same as squats but with 10 lb increases... 1x265 1x275 1x285 1x295 1x305 1x315

I totally failed at 285 on the squats... I could have probably gone higher on the deadlifts but my grip was getting to be the limiting factor and then I tore the crap out of the skin under my fingers on that last rep, complete with blood on the bar Couldn't get 325 up except like an inch off the ground.