where in which muscles/parts do you feel the deadlift working the most when you do it
most people treat deadlift like a squat, it isnt. especially romanian deadlift (RDL for short)
knees stay above your ankles the whole time (shins vertical). They dont moce forward and they dont move backward.
your hips move backward only. they dont move down much at all in RDLs. just pushing atraight back.
the bar should stay IN contact with your legs all the way down from your hips to you kneecaps. No more than 1 inch away from your shins after passing your kneecap
for dumbbell versions this would mean your hands slide down IN contact with your upper legs.
you only have to go a few inches below your knee cap–you dont have to go all the way down to the floor when learning. In many cases that makes it harder to learn.
Why don’t you check out videos on form. Nick Tumminnello has some good ones. He’s somebody you can check out for other exercise ideas as well. He is reliable. His book Strength Training for Fat Loss is excellent for someone in your position.
Follow those 3 technique pointers and watch some videos. you could also video yourself doing the lift to get feedback.
I’m giving you authors and trainers to look up so you can begin to get practical tips. Check 'em out.
No your arms are not in a great routine but I really dont have time right now.
pointers
you want an upper body day, not an “arm day”. Your back has more muscle than your arms and bigger muscles. If you want to lose fat, you should work as many compound movements as possible, not isolation stuff. too many curls and flyes not enough push ups, presses, rows, carries.
dont do stuff that twinges your shoulder blade badly
you arent doing any fundamental movements. You literally don’t have a SINGLE upper body exercise that is a compound movement except for lat pulldowns.
You dont have any rows, no push ups, no carries, nothing but machines. You need to focus on these things much more. I good row involves something like 20 muscles, a bicep curl involves like 2. a chest flye involves like 3. A good push up involves as many or more than a row.
You need back strength. Short version–your shoulder twinges because youre not training your back enough and youre not doing work for the small muscles that stabilize the shoulder. Youre not injured but you’re ignoring 80% of your upper body and training 2 things that typically make shoulder aggravation worse: lats and pec flyes. That doesnt mean theyre bad to train, it means theyre out of balance–not being counterweighted.
start everything in the upper body day with a horizontal back movement like i showed in the leg day with glutes. Less arm work and more whole body work. I can’t diagnose your shoulder over the internet in limited time, but I can tell you that youre making it gradually worse by ignoring 80% of the muscles in your upper body.
both 2 days upper 2 days lower (notice i DIDNT say arm days) and 3 ehole body days are good ways to train. Depends on schedule time and personal preference.
thanks so much. You’ve been of great help. so you think diet, stick with what I"ve got going on right now? And do you have a good link of a good “upper body” workout I could start with now, so at least I"m not killing my poor shoulders?? Any good examples of upper body? Man, and to think this workout came from another online trainer, Hitch Fit for another $200 bucks. I’m so off getting a decent person to train me. Thanks
Andrea
Getting good people to train you is hard, especially because they will almost never be as cheap as other options (its a specialized knowledge and skill set, and good ones are almost always in demeand). That doesn’t mean that you cant becpme that knowledgeable yourself either. Thats how I began. It takes time though, time and a lot of dedication to learning and trying stuff. some didnt work, some did. Over time you become more knowledgeable. Same as learning anything in school or a new job or sport or whatever.
Again, you can post videos on here of your form on squats and deadlifts up to get feedback. And rows or pushups or whatever else.
try making your own upper body workout and posting it up. it might be intimidating but the quickest way to learn is to do it yourself sometimes. It makes you apply all the things you read. lots of links on here to pre-made workouts, I don’t have any off the top of my head to link to but if I sat to think of some I could probably come up with them.
List of horizontal back exercises to get you started:
face pull
cable row
rear delt flyes (dumbbell or cable)
dumbbell row
lying Y T L s
barbell row
band/tube standing Y T L s
T-bar row
dumbbell external rotations (rotator cuff)
Keynin every single one of those is thinking about the shoulder moving back. NOT the elbows. Doesnt mean the arms don’t move or the elbow doesnt actually bend, it just means you think about “driving” the motion from your shoulder blades pinching back and together and your shoulders stretching away from your chest and towards your back.
Back muscles attach at and move the shoulder blades–thinking mostly about pulling your elbow or hand super far back just turns it into a glorified arm movement instead of a back movement. Again, Nick Tumminnello is a great source here. Videos with him are great. the T-nation exercise library archive/playlist on youtube is also great, but less instructional. Still gives very good form and/or pointers.
I did the legs yesterday and I plan to put a video up of my deadlifts and goblet squat in the evening if you can check those out please. For arms, would I just start with stronglift 5x5??
I don’t feel confident enough to do my own and why invent the wheel when there are lots of good ones out there??
Finally, do you think I should stick wtih 1400 calories/ 121 protein 139 carbs and 40 grams of fat?
Caloric deficit is #1 for fat loss. You can find out how much you need to eat by eating a given consistent amount, while being consistent with your activity level, for ~3 weeks and adjusting the amount based on how your weight moved.
A good place to start is 1800. If you lost weight after 3 weeks, you know you’re in a deficit. If you gained weight you know you’re in a surplus. And if your weight stayed the same you’re probably at your TDEE. Only the initial amount is guess work. You eat based on results. You can make adjustments of ~150 calories in the appropriate direction.
Do not lose more than 1-2lbs/week. Give it time. Do not over complicate it.
121g of protein is too high for you; 1g/lb of lean mass is a good start. That’s probably closer to 90-100g. Get used to eating and going to the gym consistently before worrying about macros. Those two things alone are a huge change.
I’m too lazy to cite sources. Go check out the stuff by Dr. Mike Israetel.
Here goes my “kind of made up” upper body
For a power day
Bent over DB 4X 3-5
BB BEnch press 4X3-5
Face pulls 4(6-10)
Incline DB bench 4(6-10)
dumbbell press (3 (5-8)
chinups 4 (6-10)
BB curls 3 (6-10)
skullcrush 3(6-10
the ones together, superset, and two are straight sets. One thing I’ve learned today, supersets don’t mean 0 rest in between exercise, just minimal, so say 45 sec between each exercise and then a minute between each “superset” No one ever explained that to me, they had me go quickly from one to the next, nothing of rest in between.
I was at 1300 and not losing, so now I’m going up and going to see what happens at 1400. . . .I’ll drop protein, but then raise carbs or fat?? I’ve been doing this for a while so I am ready for macros. But seeing my pics, do you all think CUTTING is what I should be doing?? VIDEOS coming up soon. Thanks to all who have helped me. I see another girl who I know, in town, who has gotten total transformation but she has a trainer. … . it’s hard on your own, especially with form. so thanks to all!
Thanks so much. How many 10 pounder plates do you think I need under each foot?? What is causing me to go forward. . ankle mobility or what do you think? I hope i don’t have to always use this crutch, but at least for now it will help me not keep having patellar pain. I will also try and keep my toes up in the air as I go down, so that I keep weight on heels. Do you think 20 pounds is good, or should I go lighter, (it was 10 in the video) Was that the only exercise that had any real issues??
In time, you could re-comp your body with serious weight training and increased calories of the right kind, But scale weight would most certainly go up.
so you think I should bulk? What do you think my bf is?? I was trying to lose cuz of my lovehandles. With clothes I weigh 119-120. but i have another friend saying I should totally bulk. But I can’t lift super heavy because my form is not on yet on many compound activities.
But I’m lost if I don’t track calories, it helps me not mindless eat. So you think I should just eat maintenance and work on lifting as hard as I can. Any opinions on my form from the videos above, because today I do legs and would like some more feedback. . .
OK, well for your deadlift you need to get those hips lower and arch your back more. Also, reset after each rep. Let the bar rest on the floor and reset your back arch.
For the goblet squat, push your ass back further.
As for counting calories, well, it’s kind of a sucky way to live but if it’s working for you then keep doing it. Personally I’d just try and get like 120g of protein, 100g or so of carbs and let the fats take care of themselves (don’t be scared of fatty meats, cook in olive oil/butter/coconut oil, eat avocados, etc). Eat tons of fruit and veg.
I personally think that counting calories is only necessary to get to extremes (either in size or leanness).