1-2 times a week and 2-4 sets is more than enough for isolation exercises. The growth of smaller muscle groups usually follow after the growth of bigger ones. That said, have you ever seen someone who benches 2x bodyweight with small triceps and lagging shoulders? My experience shows that adding in a couple of sets of isolations isn't gonna hurt the gains but it will never be the main factor of growth. Unfortunately the only way of adding serious inches to your arms and shoulders is through heavy compounds such as military press and chin-ups.

(08-16-2014 12:56 PM)Bilboswaggins Wrote:  1-2 times a week and 2-4 sets is more than enough for isolation exercises. The growth of smaller muscle groups usually follow after the growth of bigger ones. That said, have you ever seen someone who benches 2x bodyweight with small triceps and lagging shoulders? My experience shows that adding in a couple of sets of isolations isn't gonna hurt the gains but it will never be the main factor of growth. Unfortunately the only way of adding serious inches to your arms and shoulders is through heavy compounds such as military press and chin-ups.

Isolation/assistance exercises go together with the compound lifts. The compound lifts (especially the ones involving your legs and secondarily the ones involving your lats) are the most effective at producing hgh and testosterone which is what actually allows all your muscles to grow. The assistance and isolation exercises help you do the compound lifts better so that you can lift heavier things and produce more hgh and testosterone. It's a nice symbiotic relationship. My PRs go up significantly faster when I hit all my assistance days.

I guess this thread should be moved now?

I have tight hamstrings, always have as well. On lower weight like under 230 lbs on a weighted squat I can hit bellow parallel. When the weight goes up to say 245 I can not hit the same depth. I physically could probably lift more than 245 but I don't like doing shorter depth squats since in the long run it results in knees problems. Is there anything that would help with going deeper in the squat? Never was able to hit an ass to heel squat even without weight.

Are your knees caving in at the heavier weights? The key to deep squats is to keep your knees out.

Box squats worked wonders for me but my issue was tight calves, not sure if they'd do the same for tight hamstrings.

Its more my hamstrings will tighten up even more preventing more movement downward. If I do manage to go past a point, I have almost no drive upward. Granted I'm only about 2" from full parallel when this happens at high weight so its better than it used to be.

Don't think it's your hammies holding you back. Might be the way you squat (if you ATG squat like a low bar Rippetoe style, you will never get there due to simple biomechanics), or other things.

Towards the ATG squat position, the hammies contract, not stretch. What stretch there are the quads and hip flexors, and being tight in those places will stop you from going ATG. Tight hammies will make you struggle in positions like the standing hamstring stretch, the sit-n-reach, or good mornings, but not the regular ATG squat.

Have a look at the animated GIF here for a visualisation: http://www.bandhayoga.com/keys_recip.html

Now there could be other issues, like how wide your standing and how much your feet are opening out vs the anatomy of your hip joints, but tight hamstrings are definitely not a primary factor.

Tight hamstrings for the ATG squat generally make for a serious butt wink.

Kbell my guess is that you have no power in "the hole" of the squat. There are a lot of potential reasons for this, generally really good deadlifters who never squat are god awful at squatting low - all of their power is somewhat higher up, the point being is that you have to train to be strong while stuck in a low position. Consider the Anderson squat.

I have pain in my shoulder, on the top, towards the tip of the shoulder blade, quite a lot. It hurts when I move my shoulder up and back or rotating and also when I do pullups and such, but not really pushing. Had it for a month, what do you think it could be?

Any tips on getting up to the next level? Hit 90's on incline DB bench for 4 clean reps. Tried to get up 95's and my arms would not budge whatsoever. My sets working up were 25's, 40's, 50's, 65's, 75's, 85's, 90's. All for 3-5 reps each. Should i cut out one of the sets and start heavier? I mainly use the light weight to get a stretch and prep my body.

This has happened the last 2 workouts, granted I've only been lifting steady for the last 10 weeks I only started strength training again a few days ago. But I usually get really strong really quick so this probably isn't a plateau and I'm just impatient.

P.S some guy today tried telling me I'm not gonna get strong unless I lift with 8 reps minimum jajaja mal conocimiento

He's somewhat right. You need more volume in your training. Adding some drop sets at the end with 8-10 reps and a lighter weight will do you good.

You also need to lift faster. If you can do 90 for 4 and 95 won't even move once, it means you were producing barely enough force to move each of the 90 rep, but happened to have trained yourself to sustain this force production for multiple reps. Lift the 90 with maximal force as fast as possible for every rep as if you're attempting 100.

I do the mark rippetoe style one. Why would that prevent you from going lower?

Also was is a serious butt wink? I though the only asses that had eyes on them were women's? A trainer saw me do a kettlebell as to the grass, and said my calves were extremely tight as well.

What's the difference between an anderson squat and a normal squat? I saw a picture of a guy squatting in a giant hole.

Quote:I do the mark rippetoe style one. Why would that prevent you from going lower?

It's a style that was created by powerlifters in supporting equipments to squat to just a tiny bit below parallel to get passed in competitions.

Because you're sitting back with your shins as close to vertical as possible, you will never get to the ATG position, which is where your butt touches your calves / heels, and your knees go way over toes (not possible with close to verticle shin and butt going back). There are physical limitations holding you back: your hip flexors can only stretch so far, your hip joints can only allow you to fold so much, your femur length vs lower leg length ratio, how wide your stance is (wider = less depth) etc.

If you try to squat too deep (how deep depending on firstly your build, then your mobility) with this low bar style, your butt will get pulled forward & down on the descent, then "wink" upward on the ascent. That's called the butt wink. There are many things that can cause it: tight hip flexors (most common), tight hammies, tight hips in general, but IME, the single biggest cause is simply the way you squat is not an ideal match with the depth you're squatting to.

The only way to squat to ATG is to do a high bar squat. Olympic lifters train it for a reason: they are pushed to ATG position during their competition lifts. It's also the same squat style you see for example in Asian countries where people squat ATG as part of daily life.

I need more volume??? Lmao that was just the warm up part of my work out. I went on to do 4 sets of weighted (80lb) dips with some bodyweight dips, then over to the bench superset flies with pushups (6-12 reps each) for 4 sets. And i finished off with a smiths machine drop set until failure. That seems like enough volume for me. Strength training and hypertrophy at the end

You need more volume specific to the movement you want to get stronger at. But LMAO all you want... Is what you're doing working for you?

I will try to be more explosive though and just keep trying every time im back in the gym. Admittedly my reps felt a little weaker cause im hitting every bp twice a week.. Legs, Chest, Back OFF repeat split with shoulders and arms thrown in here.

I was laughing because I posted 1/5th of the workout and you reply like thats all I did for the whole day...

I did more DB work and benched on the smiths machine for negatives and a drop set too.. its all relatively the same movement. Anyways what do you suggest then for more volume

Edit*

didnt read your first post properly, I do make sure to throw in dropsets every work out though, its a nice burn out for the muscles

I believe what they mean is more volume reps wise with your bench. Try to squeeze more reps out at 90 or drop down to 80-85 and push out more reps.

Set new PRs on all my lifts today... OHP, squat, bench. Great feeling. Starting to look more defined even though I'm bulking. Might start a cut at the start of 2015. I was 155lb April 2013, 195lb now. Probably 12% BF if not more.

Yeah good point, instead of moving on to 95's ill finish with 2 sets of 90's and try and crank out more reps until i feel comfortable i could get the next set up. Then instead of flies maybe return and do a drop set at the end (leaving hypertrophy to the end and still being able to do dips in a 4-10 rep range)... does that make sense?

Like,

Bench - For strength
Dips - For strength
Dips - Bodyweight drop set
Bench - Drop set?

Strength is very specific to movements. The more volume you do in a given movement, the better skilled (read: stronger) you get at it. Doing a different movement, even if it works similar muscles, is not quite the same. The less this secondary movement deviates from the original one, the more strength transfer you get. e.g incline bench and flat bench are closer than dips and flat bench.

If you do lots of volume in other movements, you will build strength in them. For that strength to transfer to your favourite one, you need to practice it more to dial in the groove.

It's somehow not that obvious in lifting, but if you think about it in terms of sport or athletic skills, it's much clearer. If you want to kick a football hard, you need strong lower body, but there are plenty of people with very strong lower body who can't kick very hard because they don't have good kicking skills. Same with say jumping or boxing.

Check out this video TravellingSoldier, applicable to all lifts.. not just squats. Was an eyeopener for me, hope it helps.

(08-19-2014 01:31 AM)TravellingSoldier Wrote:  Yeah good point, instead of moving on to 95's ill finish with 2 sets of 90's and try and crank out more reps until i feel comfortable i could get the next set up. Then instead of flies maybe return and do a drop set at the end (leaving hypertrophy to the end and still being able to do dips in a 4-10 rep range)... does that make sense?

Like,

Bench - For strength
Dips - For strength
Dips - Bodyweight drop set
Bench - Drop set?

Poliquin suggests that plateaus can be broken with pause reps. Hold the barbell at lockout for a few counts and pause for another few counts at the chest. I don't really think db bench press is worth doing.

(08-18-2014 08:15 PM)kbell Wrote:  I do the mark rippetoe style one. Why would that prevent you from going lower?

Also was is a serious butt wink? I though the only asses that had eyes on them were women's? A trainer saw me do a kettlebell as to the grass, and said my calves were extremely tight as well.

What's the difference between an anderson squat and a normal squat? I saw a picture of a guy squatting in a giant hole.

Butt wink is not really anything to worry about (biomechanics can play a role here) but it can make a deep rep look pretty ugly. You really have to reach out behind you with your ass and flex your lumbar spine while squatting to reduce it.

Anderson squats are when you set the barbell on the pins very low, load up weight, and get down in the hole under the barbell and burst upwards through the "hole". What I mean by "the hole" is the lowest position of the squat.

Paul Anderson did innovate in training heavy partial reps by digging an actual hole in the dirt floor of his squat cage but that term (while an interesting concept) is unrelated.

(08-18-2014 07:44 PM)TravellingSoldier Wrote:  Any tips on getting up to the next level? Hit 90's on incline DB bench for 4 clean reps. Tried to get up 95's and my arms would not budge whatsoever. My sets working up were 25's, 40's, 50's, 65's, 75's, 85's, 90's. All for 3-5 reps each. Should i cut out one of the sets and start heavier? I mainly use the light weight to get a stretch and prep my body.

This has happened the last 2 workouts, granted I've only been lifting steady for the last 10 weeks I only started strength training again a few days ago. But I usually get really strong really quick so this probably isn't a plateau and I'm just impatient.

P.S some guy today tried telling me I'm not gonna get strong unless I lift with 8 reps minimum jajaja mal conocimiento

You could also try tying on 1.25kg plates, or strapping on some ankle weights, so that it's not such a large increment. Works for me.

Just saying. If there is a squat rack or bench press set up you shouldn't be using the smith machine. Come on guys...

I have never seen anyone strong in a smith machine unless they were doing rehab work. Machines are for injured athletes and were seen as a good money maker so they're all over now.

Smith machine is dangerous as the bar path is perfectly straight up & down while the optimal way we move is not quite so. The machine forces us to move in its set way which could really fuck our body up.

Some machines are useful, but there's very little use for a Smith machine.