Don't Know What to Do Next

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

I’ve been slowly but surely increasing my strength in the 3 major lifts as of late.

I made a 100kg squat yesterday (twice!). Quite pleased - previous best was 95kg.

I’m going for/have (I plan to reach my goals before next year):
Dead 140/140
Squat 105/100
Bench 85/75 (why does my bench suck?!)
Chin 20/25 (why are my biceps still shit?!)
Pullup 20/17.5
Dip 20/30 (but my bench still sucks?!)
DB bench 35/32.5 (really notice my shoulder failing!)

I’m getting very close to my original goals. This eating more advice is good stuff. I’m eating ~3500 calories day. 1g/pound BW of protein, lots of fruit & veges. I also take creatine.

As you can see my bench is shit. I do have unstable shoulder joints which are beginning to piss me off (I can pop and crack them like you crack your knuckles). Chest is strong enough just my shoulders fail on the lift. Any ideas to bring my shoulders up?

Anyway, when I reach my 1RM goals (i.e. when I’ve gotten stronger) my plan is to drop the weight down to 80% of my 1RM and starting doing a 4x6 scheme on all my lifts (of course going for progressive overload still - increasing the weight I can do for this rep range). I want some hypertrophy along with the strength gains.

Think thats a good idea?

Oh and why are my biceps less than 13" when I can chin a decent amount of weight. I’ve been misled my T-Nation! (OK, perhaps I have misunderstood).

Cheers!

2

[quote]Spry wrote:
I’ve been slowly but surely increasing my strength in the 3 major lifts as of late.

I made a 100kg squat yesterday (twice!). Quite pleased - previous best was 95kg.

I’m going for/have (I plan to reach my goals before next year):
Dead 140/140
Squat 105/100
Bench 85/75 (why does my bench suck?!)
Chin 20/25 (why are my biceps still shit?!)
Pullup 20/17.5
Dip 20/30 (but my bench still sucks?!)
DB bench 35/32.5 (really notice my shoulder failing!)

I’m getting very close to my original goals. This eating more advice is good stuff. I’m eating ~3500 calories day. 1g/pound BW of protein, lots of fruit & veges. I also take creatine.

As you can see my bench is shit. I do have unstable shoulder joints which are beginning to piss me off (I can pop and crack them like you crack your knuckles). Chest is strong enough just my shoulders fail on the lift. Any ideas to bring my shoulders up?

Anyway, when I reach my 1RM goals (i.e. when I’ve gotten stronger) my plan is to drop the weight down to 80% of my 1RM and starting doing a 4x6 scheme on all my lifts (of course going for progressive overload still - increasing the weight I can do for this rep range). I want some hypertrophy along with the strength gains.

Think thats a good idea?

Oh and why are my biceps less than 13" when I can chin a decent amount of weight. I’ve been misled my T-Nation! (OK, perhaps I have misunderstood).

Cheers!
[/quote]

Good work Spry, keep it up.

As for your final statement/question, you haven’t really misunderstood anything. It is misleading for people to tell others that they don’t need to include direct arm work if they want to reach their arm size potential.

True, some people can get away with not hitting biceps directly, but those are the exception to the rule, not the “norm”. Either that, or they are arm dominat pullers (meaning that their arm flexors due the majority of work during pulling exercises, and not their back muscles). Those people generally have sub par back development though.

Also, no matter what exercises that you do you aren’t going to have 20" arms unless:

a) you have the genetic potential to, sorry but it’s the truth
b) put on a significant amount of muscle all over the body

Now, before anyone jumps down my throat for saying that chins won’t build biceps, they will. But, doing pulling movements alone (while neglecting direct arm work) isn’t going to allow the majority of people to reach their potential arm size.

If sports performance is your primary goal, feel free to neglect direct arm work (or if you’ve got great arm genetics). But, if bodybuilding/building muscle is your primary goal, then I’d strongly suggest doing some direct arm work.

3

Cheers, mate.

Yeah, I’ve just started doing some reverse grip EZ-bar curls (25kg total weight - nothing huge) in the past 3 weeks at the end of workouts. I do 4x6 on this lift. Not really a strength exercise so I didn’t mention it.

Supposedly, this exercise should do the trick!

I only want 14" arms (OK … 15"). They used to be 12 now there almost 13! Just a little longer…

I’m only going for some decent weekend warrior strength.

Dead 2xBW, Squat 1.5xBW, Bench 1.25xBW.

And a decent looking body as well!

Thanks, Sentoguy.

4

Chinups are going to utilize a whole slew of back muscles; primarily your lats. See http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/LatissimusDorsi/AsChinup.html

You can utilize your biceps more by brining your grip in closer.

I expect chinups to really work my back. The fact that they stimulate my arms is a plus, but “hyoge gunz” isn’t a priority for me.

5

Building strength will have an effect on size but you still need to add some volume to build size. Once a week, before a 2 day break, blast your arms with basic exercises with about 50 total reps to the biceps and 50 to the triceps. See if that doesn’t make a difference.