great article
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
fatigue the front delts if I do bicep curls a certain way.
[/quote]
Interesting you mention this. I don’t specifically aim to do it but sometimes when I’m curling dumbbells/cables my left arm mainly I sometimes feel a strain on my shoulder. What do you think I could do with my form to remedy this?
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
Seriously.
Listen to what Im about to say.
Your body does not know that you are doing a ‘bent over row’. It doesnt know that you are doing a ‘pullup’. Your body only recognizes the stress put on each particular muscle fiber. Whether rows hit your lats (they should if done a certain way(s)) is solely dependent on how effectively you can recruit the muscle fibers in your lats. I can make my upper back fatigued by angling my body a particular way during overhand pulldowns. I can also fatigue the front delts if I do bicep curls a certain way.
What you are reading is a general guideline. You are not reading ‘facts’. When someone says that rows target the mid back muscles they are speaking generally and referring to what the particular exercise has the best potential to accomplish (highest ceiling for progression).
Instead of getting confused by trivial shit, go to the gym and unconfuse your self by learning how YOU can target certain muscles best. [/quote]
This. I can wreck my lats by doing weighted chinups by focusing on them or i can switch the focus to the biceps. How you do the movement and what muscles you use is what matters.
To break it down simply, do a:
Vertical close grip underhand (or hands facing each other) pulldown
“Almost vertical” underhand row to the waist (I use ez bar for this)
Horizontal cable row
For good all around development (for back width and thickness). Those who are advanced may do more…
Some people here really need to read an anatomy book (not one of the crappy bbing ones), and find out what muscles there are in the back and what they do specifically…
And OP, weren’t you posting in PX’s thread like 5 years ago already or something… What have you been doing all this time? No offense or anything, but you still sound like a beginner with the threads you start (the arm thread for example… really…).
when talking about the BACK, all his does is mention his LATS… what were his upper back movements?
I’ve seen some really knowledgeable people in here (Dorian Yates!) so this is nothing new.
But to quantify what has been said about body placement/mind-muscle connection, here is what has worked for me:
To target ‘mid back’/ ‘scapular retraction/depression’: I would row with back more parallel to ground than my usual BB row. ‘Kelso shrug’ (look it up) shoulder blades down and back, before the main ‘pull’ occurs. Do this deliberately until it becomes perfunctory. I don’t let my shoulders round at the bottom of the rep.
To target rear delts: I do the same as above, but row with my elbows flared, and try to ‘pull the bar apart’. Don’t ‘tuck’ the elbows into your sides.
To target lat/similar: I let my shoulders round forward, and then try to pull with my armpit. Try it with light weight. It was a weird one for me to learn.
Hope that helps a bit