General weights thread (1 Viewer)

[Omie Jay]

As opposed to the 'strength training thread' (which is supposed to be about strength training), this thread shall be about general weights, where we can ask questions about our technique/form, different workout types, and possibly bragging about our e-stats.

Let me start off, i've noticed i can get pretty good chest growth, but my arms are not as big as i'd like em to be.

What's a good set of bicep/tricep/shoulder/forearm workouts that someone can recommend me to do?

Yes i know that to get one muscle bigger u need to work out ur whole body, i'd just like to know what the best arm workouts (with dumbells/barbell) involve full use of the particular muscle.

 

[cannibal.horse]

I object to the notion that there are different types of lifting. Whether you bodybuild, powerlift or 'weightlift' in the initial stages the more weight you can lift the bigger you'll get (this is not counting elite atheletes who eat calorie restrictive diets to stay underweight but the majority of the population).

Anyways, if you want to get bigger arms and shoulders I'd suggest you do the rippetoe program. I hit 87kg yesterday, up from 78kg when I started.

If you won't do it then play around with these exercises:
Biceps: Bent rows, pull ups, chin ups, barbell curl.
Forearms: Deadlifts, bent rows, pull ups, chin ups, bench press, overhead press, barbell curls.
Triceps: Dips, overhead press, bench press, close grip bench press (in my experience tricep extensions are shit).
Shoulders: Power clean, dips, overhead press, bench press (and despite what people tell you a shoulder press hits all 3 heads of the delts).

I like low reps because they make progression easier, and argueably lead to more hypertrophy, but whatever.

 

[CountVonChocula]

lol omar

be smaller irl please

 

[quik.]

I recommend curling double quarter pounders for as many reps as it takes to eat the whole thing.

 

[Wearingmyrolex]

curls wont make you grow taller boy

 

[Hagaren]

man i had my mad workout/fitness plan all set then holidays came around and i dropped it.

Uni games are 35 days away.

I need to drop 10kg before then, thats 300g a day basically.

Gym, here I come.

 

[Boxes]

lately, i've just been doing pull ups, ballerina push ups, and bicycle sit ups because my brother took my bench to canberra.

motherfucker.

 

[Monstar]

i'm pretty much opposite.. small chest , thicker arms.

I find smashing up back exercises tend to promote good arm growth.. so any back/bis programme should be sweet.

 

[Omie Jay]

for chest i do benching or dumbell chest press immediately followed by chest flys, and i used to do heaps of pushups.

 

[CountVonChocula]

for chest i do benching or dumbell chest press immediately followed by chest flys, and i used to do heaps of pushups.

and what do you do to get taller

 

[Omie Jay]

nothing

 

[yer8899]

and what do you do to get taller

 

[cannibal.horse]

for chest i do benching or dumbell chest press immediately followed by chest flys, and i used to do heaps of pushups.

Dumbell presses = inefficient to novice lifters (ie those who can't press over 1.5xbodyweight) as they don't allow sufficient loading.

Flys are also shit as they are isolation, why do them anyway if the press hits the whole muscle body of the chest?

Pushups have a pretty shit ROM and once you get above 15 reps are pretty useless imo.

Why don't you try heavy barbell presses and weighted dips?

 

[Omie Jay]

um i get pretty good chest growth, and i currently bench with all the weights added on, meaning we need more weights >.<

what would u recommend as the amount of reps? Currently i do 3 sets of 10 reps, should i use a heavier weight (if i get a gym membership or something) of around 7-8 reps?

 

[cannibal.horse]

um i get pretty good chest growth, and i currently bench with all the weights added on, meaning we need more weights >.<

what would u recommend as the amount of reps? Currently i do 3 sets of 10 reps, should i use a heavier weight (if i get a gym membership or something) of around 7-8 reps?

There used to be a lot of talk about myofibrillar (growth of new muscle cells) and sarcoplasmic (increase of fluid in muscle cell) hypertrophy, the former occuring within 1-6 reps whilst the latter occured within 6-10. You want the former.

That's a pretty dead arguement though.

You need to pick a weight which will allow progressive loading (that is, you will get stronger in a linear fashion) hence why I'd recommend 5.

 

[quik.]

Flies are hardly useless, isolation exercises have their place just like everything else

 

[Omie Jay]

There used to be a lot of talk about myofibrillar (growth of new muscle cells) and sarcoplasmic (increase of fluid in muscle cell) hypertrophy, the former occuring within 1-6 reps whilst the latter occured within 6-10. You want the former.

That's a pretty dead arguement though.

You need to pick a weight which will allow progressive loading (that is, you will get stronger in a linear fashion) hence why I'd recommend 5.

yeah i've heard of increase number of muscle cells vs increasing the cell size.
5 eh, i'll see if i can increase weight somehow, thanks.

Flies are hardly useless, isolation exercises have their place just like everything else

yeah flys kinda do the inside of ur arms too, as in bicep/forearm.

 

[cannibal.horse]

Flies are hardly useless, isolation exercises have their place just like everything else

Maybe when you have 5 solid years of lifting behind you and a significant amount of bodymass you might use them to focus on areas which are lacking (eg rear delts).

I just dont see the point of trying to focus of trying to hit every muscle head, which is not only done by compound exercises anyway but is extremely inefficient and loses sight of the bigger picture (lifting and gaining more weight).

Good summary:

Keep in mind you can't do everything all the time. Your rowing power should be at least reasonably comparable to your bench i.e. not benching 315 and rowing 160. You don't have to row all the time though, it's just nice to make sure there isn't some drastic imbalance. This is why BBers have 'everything and the kitchen sink' in their programs because they are trying to address 10,000 possible things all at once that might go wrong someday in the future (got to hit those side delts don't want concave shoulders), rather than focusing on really getting good at a few things that really matter now.

 

[quik.]

Maybe when you have 5 solid years of lifting behind you and a significant amount of bodymass you might use them to focus on areas which are lacking (eg rear delts).

I just dont see the point of trying to focus of trying to hit every muscle head, which is not only done by compound exercises anyway but is extremely inefficient and loses sight of the bigger picture (lifting and gaining more weight).

Are you kidding?

You can use them to pre fatigue a muscle, you can use them to hit a muscle that has been worked through previous compound lifts to really fatigue it, to work on feeling a particular muscle and it's contraction, to take out dominant muscles from the equation, plus there are probably others that I can't think of right now/don't know.

Keeping an overall focus on big lifts and increasing the weight on the bar is great, but considering them the be all and all, at any point in someones lifting career, is short sighted.

If you have a variety of tools at your disposal, why would you only ever use the hammer?

 

[cannibal.horse]

You can use them to pre fatigue a muscle, you can use them to hit a muscle that has been worked through previous compound lifts to really fatigue it, to work on feeling a particular muscle and it's contraction, to take out dominant muscles from the equation, plus there are probably others that I can't think of right now/don't know.

Fatigue =/= strength or hypertrophy.

Keeping an overall focus on big lifts and increasing the weight on the bar is great, but considering them the be all and all, at any point in someones lifting career, is short sighted.

Why not?

The reason why I'm 87kg and Percy Montgomery is 94kg is because he can bench 150, squat 220 and deadlifts 300.

Strength = muscle mass. Compound exercises hit more muscles and stress the central nervous system to a greater extent which forces the body to get bigger. The focus of every lifter should be getting their bench, squat, deadlift, pull ups, rows and cleans higher.

Isolations are only relevant in that in the intermediate/advanced level they can help a lifter improve these lifts (for example, heavy core work) or for a bodybuilder can hit muscles which lag. But bodybuilding is gay.

If you have a variety of tools at your disposal, why would you only ever use the hammer?

Because the hammer hits the muscle the other tools do anyway, and does a better job of it. And if you use too many tools you won't get the job done.