Aragorn: How Do You Train?

Aragorn I appreciate the write up. One thing I’m always curious about for experienced lifters, how to you feel those who are fairly weak/undeveloped should train? Do you think they should train differently starting out if their goals are just being as strong as possible vs. being as aesthetic as possible?

Basically, what is your belief for how newer people should train? Would the type of workout change depending on their goals?

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
Now this is going to sound weird, but as a trainer, over the years I’ve found guys are usually chest dominant, or shoulder dominant, and I adjust they’re training accordingly. Anyway do you find your shoulder’s get in the way of your chest training alot, or that it’s hard to isolate chest, say on a bench, whithout shoulder’s taking over.

Guy’s with great shoulder’s I’ve found, have a harder time building they’re chest, and have to use tricks like pre-exhaust, and what not, just wondering how this works for you, then I’ll stop harrassing ya :slight_smile: Thanks for shoulder info[/quote]

By all means keep bothering me lol. I love talking shop for any and every reason.

I have definitely found the same thing regarding shoulder/chest dominance to be true. I think any good coach should be able to adjust that. As for myself, I would consider myself partly shoulder dominant. I’d like to give you a straight answer but because I don’t train the bench to bodybuild I never really focus on trying to feel the chest while benching. Just arch, tight, leg drive, etc.

For the most part, I train chest to help the bench, not as a standalone goal. That said I definitely can feel my chest when I want to train it. I think a lot of it has to do with exercise choice to be honest–flyes really hit my anterior delts if I’m not careful of positioning and grip, but I can get a lot of chest activation out of them too. You just have to be conscious.

I am a believer in pre-exhaust for trouble mentally “connecting” to a muscle group in a compound lift. I like the term “activation” though because I try to not so much exhaust the muscle as just focus somebody’s attention on it. I 100% feel that as far as supersets go post-exhaust is superior, but I use a lot of exercises before a big compound for some people. Actually, this is one very rare instance where I like machines–they’re sort of a go-between for isolation and true compound lift (bench).

So for instance with one of my guys I am currently using the sequence: flye, manually resisted fly, hammer strength bench press. I do this after all the heavy strength oriented work because his goal is increased strength more than anything, but it is useful to be able to feel as well.

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Great info! OH Pressing 4 times a week G A S P! it makes me miss OH pressing so much. Cant agree with you enough with regards to the rear delts, it has allowed me to bench again pain free and even aesthetically I like what has happened from hitting them multiple times per week with face pulls, reverse flies and pullaparts. Its odd how such a relatively small muscle could take such a beating and make such a difference in look, health and strength.

Thanks for this.[/quote]

Hahaha. I know! This more than anything has helped me I think. Overhead pressing really needs proper mobility in the T-spine and shoulder to be there, but once that’s there it’s amazing how it can bring things up.

Also I like the fact that this way there is more heavy weight in my hands rather than simple 40 lb lateral raises or something. I noticed a dramatic change in how OH pressing felt when I took a good focused shot at improving T-spine and shoulder mobility and health. It never felt “bad” just…not ‘there’. But man, once you really take a hard look at that, and then ALSO start working hard on your rear delts/low traps in addition to mobility work…yeah. Good things happen to your shoulder growth.

When you think about it, it’s not too odd that it can take such a beating–you literally use your arms for everything, there’s major blood flow in the area from the arteries and they can recover very quickly. Small muscles + blood flow and constant use = quick muscular recovery.

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:
In on this. looking forward to seeing what your current training looks like. I remember you did HFS for a while and a lot of CT’s programs.[/quote]

Get to that real soon, right now I’m calling it a day pretty soon and going to go relax for a bit, just getting finished with work in about an hour or so!

[quote]Apoklyps wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
I’ll get some more detail in here soon but yes, I do train for a mix of aesthetics and performance. Primarily strength.

For most of my training life I have been training specifically for strength, and I have, quite honestly, found that aesthetic gains were quite acceptable for pretty much most means. I lack bicep size because I hate training biceps, but for most other things I feel ok (triceps get a lot of work from pressing).[/quote]

Strength and aesthetics, with strength as a primary focus AND hates training biceps. I knew I picked the right guy lol.

Holy shit dude, you write a lot! But I read it all twice. The amount of effort you put into those posts is much appreciated, and I definitely learned a few things. Your posts really made me miss doing power snatches twice a week. Think I’ll restart that after exams finish up. Out of curiosity, when you say you were power snatching twice a week, were they both from the hang? Would it be better for me to do one day from the hang, or maybe from boxes, and one day from the floor? I certainly wouldn’t mind trying my hand at an Oly comp at some point, but I don’t have any immediate plans. I’m currently on a beach muscles (which are lagging behind my legs and back) kick, though the majority of my training/present competitive interest is powerlifting focused.

And finally (and I’m sure I’m speaking for everyone else here too), thanks for this. This is already shaping up to be a great thread![/quote]

Yeah…sorry about the novels haha. It’s a combination of a) loving to talk about anything related to this stuff all the time and b) having a lot of down time today in the lab with suddenly caffeinated brainpower.

I’ll try to dial that down about 10 notches to make it more helpful for anybody that cares to read.

Generally speaking 2x a week means 2x a week heavy, not only doing the motion 2x a week :). The snatch is very sensitive to timing and technique changes so even if it’s only 40-50% of your typical weight it pays to do them–that’s actually how I started putting them in my warm-up circuit. I knew I needed to drill every bit that I could but didn’t want to take a ton of time if it was a bench day. I found out by doing that for one purpose that it also really helped delt growth, opening up the chest before bench pressing, pretty much about a dozen different things.

I prefer the hang myself. Pretty much everything I do is from the hang or from the floor. Although when the weight gets heavy I will often put blocks under, then rack pull and go from the hang…because I’m lazy!

The hardest part of the lift is the transition around the knee. If you’re not going to be competitive I suggest hang anywhere above the knee because it’s easier to focus on the drive and catch. Do some warm-ups from the hang, then same warm-up weights from the floor focusing on the positioning and transitions more than the speed from the ground , then when the weights get a bit heavier just go from the hang.

The true question of the hang vs. boxes vs. floor is really dependent on goals and weaknesses. CT has written pretty often about it, but I believe the floor is almost the only way to go for a true competitive oly lifter (“almost” being key here because you can use blocks for a bunch of useful things, but the majority of training should always be there from the floor IMO)

I’m lucky enough to be around some great olympic lifters, including my brother who is competitive and his coach who was a Soviet National Team member and coach. It’s crazy because he can tell you stories about Vardanian Alexeyev and the rest.

[quote]fisch wrote:
Aragorn I appreciate the write up. One thing I’m always curious about for experienced lifters, how to you feel those who are fairly weak/undeveloped should train? Do you think they should train differently starting out if their goals are just being as strong as possible vs. being as aesthetic as possible?

Basically, what is your belief for how newer people should train? Would the type of workout change depending on their goals?[/quote]

Man you opened up a can of worms with that question! Lol. I have a lot of thoughts on that, but in my attempt to curtail a novel length answer I’ll say 1) it very very much depends on goals. ALWAYS. 2) I firmly believe the new guys need frequency and volume more than heavy intensity. Now, I’m defining heavy as heavier than 5 RM here, so I’m not recommending “light” weight, and I am assuming you don’t have access to a coach. I consider 5 rep maxes “normal”, not heavy.

Things I do with people I can personally coach are different by necessity from general guidelines obviously. Also, I’m not saying that intensity is unnecessary–remember in the book length posts earlier I mentioned I pretty much started Westside from scratch as a brand newb. That included maxing every week to a single. I’m saying if you had to pick 2 of the 3, go with frequency and volume.

I define volume as a weekly thing, not necessarily a per workout thing. Honestly that question is hard to answer because of two things: I believe Starting Strength is incredibly, incredibly undertraining people for the most part (some exceptions), and I believe that body part splits are next to worthless for a brand new trainee (not that they’re worthless for everyone). This is because they can’t do enough weight on these isolation exercises to really really make a big difference at first.

So somewhere in the middle. I’m a fan of whole body workouts and upper/lower splits for new guys. That was one thing Westside did perfectly for me. Intensity, 2x weekly frequency, and volume of assistance work.

In general we have two extremes of brand new people–those that are paranoid about this “overtraining” thing they’ve read/heard horror stories about, and those that would work themselves into a coma because “more is better brah!”. Starting Strength for me is bordering on reinforcing some of those silly notions about overtraining, and body part splits are just asking for a guy to do 15 different exercises of worthlessness without a plan.

So long/short answer I guess: Upper/lower split or whole body, and definitely definitely depends on one’s goals. People can handle so much more than they think they can it’s silly–but they also tend to get super distracted if there is not a solid limit on some things (cough isolation exercises cough) and just spin their wheels.

There are 10 year old kids that can olympic lift 5 days a week. Why would a 24 year old die if they tried that? Ya dig? Bottom line–overtraining is real, but overrated. HOWEVER, you need to spend the time as a new guy hammering the basics with frequency because of a lot of science reasons I won’t touch on (if you ask I will, but that means a longer post haha).

This thread just keeps gettin better, thanks for answering my questions above, and some cool story telling/answers that followed. I want to switch to lower body since your working on 600, and I’m just comming back in this department. I know the current trend right now is to be slow and steady, working everything evenly, but I’ve never had much luck personaly making big gains with the squat, and dead at the same time. I like to focus, say 6-8 weeks at a time, on the squat, multiple sessions a week, then park the squat, and repeat with the dead. Matty’s helped me alot with this, putting me onto Mike Turshnerer. Was wondering your feelings on this, once the number’s get heavy, making strength gains on more than one lift at a time.

How you approch this, cookie cutter programs, and what not. If this gets answered with just explaining your current training, I’m good with that. By the way, I love picking the brain of guys stronger than me. Thanks for the detailed explanations. I don’t think anyone’s complaining about the wordyness, probably not a word, were all enjoying/learning, keep it up if you don’t mind

Ya I agree with everybody else.Thanks for going into such detail and I’m loving the long ass posts Aragron.Keep em coming haha.

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
I don’t think anyone’s complaining about the wordyness, probably not a word, were all enjoying/learning, keep it up if you don’t mind[/quote]

Nope, I was just teasing. I tend to do the same thing. If you want to write novels, please do because this has been most educational.

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
This thread just keeps gettin better, thanks for answering my questions above, and some cool story telling/answers that followed. I want to switch to lower body since your working on 600, and I’m just comming back in this department. I know the current trend right now is to be slow and steady, working everything evenly, but I’ve never had much luck personaly making big gains with the squat, and dead at the same time. I like to focus, say 6-8 weeks at a time, on the squat, multiple sessions a week, then park the squat, and repeat with the dead. Matty’s helped me alot with this, putting me onto Mike Turshnerer. Was wondering your feelings on this, once the number’s get heavy, making strength gains on more than one lift at a time.

How you approch this, cookie cutter programs, and what not. If this gets answered with just explaining your current training, I’m good with that. By the way, I love picking the brain of guys stronger than me. Thanks for the detailed explanations. I don’t think anyone’s complaining about the wordyness, probably not a word, were all enjoying/learning, keep it up if you don’t mind[/quote]

Re: stories–oh man do I have some stories about my brother’s coach! Sooo funny. Picking on one of Russia’s top lifters on facebook “You think you special because you snatch 170 kilos! You not special! You can’t even beat your dad! He was 77 kg lifter…” talking about people we know as legends like they were in the room (well, I wasn’t privy to this but Vardanian did come visit him alittle while ago, and some others, so I guess it holds). I wasn’t joking when I said there are 10 year old kids oly lifting 5 days a week…well actually its “she” & she’s 9 :P.

Anyway I’ll make sure to get the rest of your post tomorrow sometime, more to say than thumb typing on my phone allows.

Random thought relating to thd shoulder question and also training programs–I really, really can’t stress how much the power snatch has done. I mean not just shoulders but mobility and back strength and a shitload of stuff. I keep thinking on it and it and the high. pull have probably had the most profound effects on my health ever. I mean just so many things, you just FEEL better after nailing them crisply. Anyway, off for the nightas far as long posts go.

Awesome thread & loving the conversational dropping of knowledge (y)

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
HOWEVER, you need to spend the time as a new guy hammering the basics with frequency because of a lot of science reasons I won’t touch on (if you ask I will, but that means a longer post haha).
[/quote]

This is me asking :wink:

Aragorn did you take your name from the famous German slave who took part in the spartacus revolts?

Great thread! Thanks for all the in-depth replies Aragorn.

EDIT: I’m guessing your username inspiration comes from Aragorn of Tolkien fame (rather than Agron from Spartacus). Are you a big Tolkien fan? It sounds stupid but reading the Hobbit way back when was what initially got me interested in training. I was, and still am, inspired by strong heroes like Thorin, Beorn and Bard etc.

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]fisch wrote:
Aragorn I appreciate the write up. One thing I’m always curious about for experienced lifters, how to you feel those who are fairly weak/undeveloped should train? Do you think they should train differently starting out if their goals are just being as strong as possible vs. being as aesthetic as possible?

Basically, what is your belief for how newer people should train? Would the type of workout change depending on their goals?[/quote]

Man you opened up a can of worms with that question! Lol. I have a lot of thoughts on that, but in my attempt to curtail a novel length answer I’ll say 1) it very very much depends on goals. ALWAYS. 2) I firmly believe the new guys need frequency and volume more than heavy intensity. Now, I’m defining heavy as heavier than 5 RM here, so I’m not recommending “light” weight, and I am assuming you don’t have access to a coach. I consider 5 rep maxes “normal”, not heavy.

Things I do with people I can personally coach are different by necessity from general guidelines obviously. Also, I’m not saying that intensity is unnecessary–remember in the book length posts earlier I mentioned I pretty much started Westside from scratch as a brand newb. That included maxing every week to a single. I’m saying if you had to pick 2 of the 3, go with frequency and volume.

I define volume as a weekly thing, not necessarily a per workout thing. Honestly that question is hard to answer because of two things: I believe Starting Strength is incredibly, incredibly undertraining people for the most part (some exceptions), and I believe that body part splits are next to worthless for a brand new trainee (not that they’re worthless for everyone). This is because they can’t do enough weight on these isolation exercises to really really make a big difference at first.

So somewhere in the middle. I’m a fan of whole body workouts and upper/lower splits for new guys. That was one thing Westside did perfectly for me. Intensity, 2x weekly frequency, and volume of assistance work.

In general we have two extremes of brand new people–those that are paranoid about this “overtraining” thing they’ve read/heard horror stories about, and those that would work themselves into a coma because “more is better brah!”. Starting Strength for me is bordering on reinforcing some of those silly notions about overtraining, and body part splits are just asking for a guy to do 15 different exercises of worthlessness without a plan.

So long/short answer I guess: Upper/lower split or whole body, and definitely definitely depends on one’s goals. People can handle so much more than they think they can it’s silly–but they also tend to get super distracted if there is not a solid limit on some things (cough isolation exercises cough) and just spin their wheels.

There are 10 year old kids that can olympic lift 5 days a week. Why would a 24 year old die if they tried that? Ya dig? Bottom line–overtraining is real, but overrated. HOWEVER, you need to spend the time as a new guy hammering the basics with frequency because of a lot of science reasons I won’t touch on (if you ask I will, but that means a longer post haha).
[/quote]

Thanks man. If you want to go into all the science reasons I’ll read every word 10 times lol, and I’m sure others would too.

I’m not new to lifting, but I’m coming back from a couple major surgeries and some health problems over 3 years and am basically starting from a newbie state because of those issues. Though, I basically read something training related every day and have been doing that since I started 5 years ago so lots of information in my head but was too injured to use it.

I’m starting to shift my mindset similar to yours it seems about how newer people should train. Hell, reading through your posts here it seems like my whole belief about training is similar to yours, new people or experienced. Since coming back from my injury I’ve been doing a body part split and while I have improved some, it’s slower then I think it should be. I switched over last week to a upper/lower split, trying to focus on bringing up my strength while still focusing on aesthetics. I figure very few people ever look big without putting up somewhat respectable numbers.

Anyway, please keep responding to everyone’s questions! And write as much as you want, I seriously doubt anyone is complaining about learning more.

[quote]fisch wrote:

Anyway, please keep responding to everyone’s questions! And write as much as you want, I seriously doubt anyone is complaining about learning more.[/quote]

Definitely this!

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Great info! OH Pressing 4 times a week G A S P! it makes me miss OH pressing so much. Cant agree with you enough with regards to the rear delts, it has allowed me to bench again pain free and even aesthetically I like what has happened from hitting them multiple times per week with face pulls, reverse flies and pullaparts. Its odd how such a relatively small muscle could take such a beating and make such a difference in look, health and strength.

Thanks for this.[/quote]

I noticed a dramatic change in how OH pressing felt when I took a good focused shot at improving T-spine and shoulder mobility and health. It never felt “bad” just…not ‘there’. But man, once you really take a hard look at that, and then ALSO start working hard on your rear delts/low traps in addition to mobility work…yeah. Good things happen to your shoulder growth.

When you think about it, it’s not too odd that it can take such a beating–you literally use your arms for everything, there’s major blood flow in the area from the arteries and they can recover very quickly. Small muscles + blood flow and constant use = quick muscular recovery. [/quote]

Can you explain how you went about improving T-spine and shoulder mobility and health?

Geez Louise, tons of great info in here, man. No surprise though, ha.

Can you share your take on nutrition and supps - what you’ve found to work for you and/or your thoughts in general?

Sounds like you’ve put on 80-90ish pounds and filled out a pretty tall frame. What’d you do to get there and what’re you doing to stay where you are?

Just want to say that there is gold in almost all of your posts that I have read (not just in this thread). So if your feel the urge to write a novel, please do and be aware that there are those who are grateful that you take the time to do so.

[quote]furo wrote:
Great thread! Thanks for all the in-depth replies Aragorn.

EDIT: I’m guessing your username inspiration comes from Aragorn of Tolkien fame (rather than Agron from Spartacus). Are you a big Tolkien fan? It sounds stupid but reading the Hobbit way back when was what initially got me interested in training. I was, and still am, inspired by strong heroes like Thorin, Beorn and Bard etc. [/quote]

Indeed yes. Glad to hear a fellow fan! I’ve always been in lovewith Tolkien’s work; it is my favorite trilogy of all, tied with my favorite authors in Frank Herbert and George Martin. I read LOTR in 7th grade, and have managed to re-read the trilogy at least once almost every year since. They are old friends. Aragorn is one of my favorite characters as a hero because he is unsparing, not shiny or flashy, and hidden in the background doing the dirty work by himself without thanks or praise until…well, until he is forced into the limelight/front.