Lo/Rez Training

[quote]The Rattler wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
overhead barbell pressing has been the absolute best thing for my shoulders. I used to rely on dumbbell presses and lateral raises, and I never had good shoulders. I didn’t like barbell pressing because it was uncomfortable. Now that’s pretty much all I do for my shoulders, and they look 10 times better than they used to. I do them strict, and standing. As for the shoulder girdle width thing, forget about that. You don’t know if that’s an issue for you until you’ve actually got some muscle. Put on significant muscle in your shoulders, and then decide if that’s really an issue. I always thought my structure sucked for adding muscle and looking good, until I added the muscle. Basically, those sorts of issues tend to work themselves out.[/quote]

I found the exact opposite with overhead BB pressing. I got pretty strong on it (and DB pressing) but my shoulers never really grew all that much. I haven’t overhead pressed in a while now (maybe a month ago but with real light DBs for very high reps) and I’ve focused on high rep lateral/rear delt raises with good results. I also always found that overhead pressing made my shoulders feel dodgy, it could have been a form issue but there’s nothing wrong with my shoulders anymore.

Lorez: keep up your training man. Prove me wrong about your methods. As for the creatine, CEE tastes like absolute shit and I noticed no benefit when I used it a while ago. I have been meaning to start using creating mono again recently but haven’t got round to it. Are you using a creatine product that has lots of other stuff in it too? Maybe try just straight creatine.[/quote]

I like this post. The same exercises don’t work for everyone. You have to try things and figure out what works for you. No book or article or study is going to tell you which exercises will be best for YOUR shoulders to grow.

Also agree on the creatine mono by itself, forgot to mention that.

[quote]LoRez wrote:
I will be dropping legs from the rotation for a bit, since (per proportional measurements), my upper body needs to grow quite a bit. Legs are still small, but most of my pants are now fitting very tight. I’m going to focus on upper body mostly, just to head back toward the mccallum-inspired proportions listed earlier.[/quote]

Never. Ever. Do this. You will lose strength and conditioning rapidly - putting you way back when decide to start again. At your stage everything needs to get bigger, save proportions until you add 50lbs lean mass

[quote]caveman101 wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:
I will be dropping legs from the rotation for a bit, since (per proportional measurements), my upper body needs to grow quite a bit. Legs are still small, but most of my pants are now fitting very tight. I’m going to focus on upper body mostly, just to head back toward the mccallum-inspired proportions listed earlier.[/quote]

Never. Ever. Do this. You will lose strength and conditioning rapidly - putting you way back when decide to start again. At your stage everything needs to get bigger, save proportions until you add 50lbs lean mass[/quote]

x2 can’t believe I missed this.

[quote]The Rattler wrote:

[quote]caveman101 wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:
I will be dropping legs from the rotation for a bit, since (per proportional measurements), my upper body needs to grow quite a bit. Legs are still small, but most of my pants are now fitting very tight. I’m going to focus on upper body mostly, just to head back toward the mccallum-inspired proportions listed earlier.[/quote]

Never. Ever. Do this. You will lose strength and conditioning rapidly - putting you way back when decide to start again. At your stage everything needs to get bigger, save proportions until you add 50lbs lean mass[/quote]

x2 can’t believe I missed this.[/quote]

Good news is I said it but didn’t actually do it. If that means anything. Lol.

I’ll just keep on pushing to 1.5xbw with the 20 rep squats.

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]The Rattler wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
overhead barbell pressing has been the absolute best thing for my shoulders. I used to rely on dumbbell presses and lateral raises, and I never had good shoulders. I didn’t like barbell pressing because it was uncomfortable. Now that’s pretty much all I do for my shoulders, and they look 10 times better than they used to. I do them strict, and standing. As for the shoulder girdle width thing, forget about that. You don’t know if that’s an issue for you until you’ve actually got some muscle. Put on significant muscle in your shoulders, and then decide if that’s really an issue. I always thought my structure sucked for adding muscle and looking good, until I added the muscle. Basically, those sorts of issues tend to work themselves out.[/quote]

I found the exact opposite with overhead BB pressing. I got pretty strong on it (and DB pressing) but my shoulers never really grew all that much. I haven’t overhead pressed in a while now (maybe a month ago but with real light DBs for very high reps) and I’ve focused on high rep lateral/rear delt raises with good results. I also always found that overhead pressing made my shoulders feel dodgy, it could have been a form issue but there’s nothing wrong with my shoulders anymore.

Lorez: keep up your training man. Prove me wrong about your methods. As for the creatine, CEE tastes like absolute shit and I noticed no benefit when I used it a while ago. I have been meaning to start using creating mono again recently but haven’t got round to it. Are you using a creatine product that has lots of other stuff in it too? Maybe try just straight creatine.[/quote]

I like this post. The same exercises don’t work for everyone. You have to try things and figure out what works for you. No book or article or study is going to tell you which exercises will be best for YOUR shoulders to grow.

Also agree on the creatine mono by itself, forgot to mention that.[/quote]

Yeah, I’m using the six star stuff I picked up at CVS/Walmart/Walgreens, which has a bunch of other stuff in it. I was looking for pure CM, but they didn’t have any. I’ll just go pick up some CM from somewhere and try that instead.

My shoulders just need to grow. My arms are growing (finally), my shoulders are not.

I think I’ll just go back to the original 3x12 BB overhead press per the original program. Not BTN, since my shoulders just don’t feel good overall right now.

I’ll give that a shot for a month, then [maybe] try something else. I wouldn’t be hopping around with exercise selection for my shoulders if they hadn’t started hurting in the first place. But who knows, it might not have been the OHP that were hurting them at all.

Yesterday evening I did another round of chest/shoulders/tris… which ended up being 3/4ths a set of chest, and tris.

I didn’t foam roll my right elbow, and basically my elbow gave out with the guillotine presses. Earlier yesterday, with heavy rolling and some lacrosse ball, I had no issues whatsoever with my elbow.

Since it wasn’t mentioned here… I’ve had issue with my right elbow since I had surgery on it at 18mo. Septic elbow. Apparently it’s really rare.

Basically, if you’re looking at a loaded hammer-curl style movement, my elbow gives out about 6 inches from the bottom. Anything above that is fine. Which means I might just have to keep my press ranges just short of lockout… and/or do some major SMR prehab.

About to do back/bi session #1 today.

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]The Rattler wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
overhead barbell pressing has been the absolute best thing for my shoulders. I used to rely on dumbbell presses and lateral raises, and I never had good shoulders. I didn’t like barbell pressing because it was uncomfortable. Now that’s pretty much all I do for my shoulders, and they look 10 times better than they used to. I do them strict, and standing. As for the shoulder girdle width thing, forget about that. You don’t know if that’s an issue for you until you’ve actually got some muscle. Put on significant muscle in your shoulders, and then decide if that’s really an issue. I always thought my structure sucked for adding muscle and looking good, until I added the muscle. Basically, those sorts of issues tend to work themselves out.[/quote]

I found the exact opposite with overhead BB pressing. I got pretty strong on it (and DB pressing) but my shoulers never really grew all that much. I haven’t overhead pressed in a while now (maybe a month ago but with real light DBs for very high reps) and I’ve focused on high rep lateral/rear delt raises with good results. I also always found that overhead pressing made my shoulders feel dodgy, it could have been a form issue but there’s nothing wrong with my shoulders anymore.

Lorez: keep up your training man. Prove me wrong about your methods. As for the creatine, CEE tastes like absolute shit and I noticed no benefit when I used it a while ago. I have been meaning to start using creating mono again recently but haven’t got round to it. Are you using a creatine product that has lots of other stuff in it too? Maybe try just straight creatine.[/quote]

I like this post. The same exercises don’t work for everyone. You have to try things and figure out what works for you. No book or article or study is going to tell you which exercises will be best for YOUR shoulders to grow.

Also agree on the creatine mono by itself, forgot to mention that.[/quote]

Yeah, I’m using the six star stuff I picked up at CVS/Walmart/Walgreens, which has a bunch of other stuff in it. I was looking for pure CM, but they didn’t have any. I’ll just go pick up some CM from somewhere and try that instead.

My shoulders just need to grow. My arms are growing (finally), my shoulders are not.

I think I’ll just go back to the original 3x12 BB overhead press per the original program. Not BTN, since my shoulders just don’t feel good overall right now.

I’ll give that a shot for a month, then [maybe] try something else. I wouldn’t be hopping around with exercise selection for my shoulders if they hadn’t started hurting in the first place. But who knows, it might not have been the OHP that were hurting them at all.[/quote]

Focus on an exercise that doesn’t bother you and make sure you get stronger on it. Don’t just ‘give that a shot for a month’ but do it for 6. Once you have doubled your shoulder pressing strength then they will be bigger I guarantee you that. Make sure though that you don’t neglect your side and rear delts. Try 3 sets of 20 reps for both and make sure you feel the muscles working, keep doing more reps and when you can manage 3 sets of 30 then add weight.

EDIT: Forgot to add in, try using a neutral grip overhead press that may be better on your shoulders. It was for mine.

[quote]The Rattler wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:
My shoulders just need to grow. My arms are growing (finally), my shoulders are not.

I think I’ll just go back to the original 3x12 BB overhead press per the original program. Not BTN, since my shoulders just don’t feel good overall right now.

I’ll give that a shot for a month, then [maybe] try something else. I wouldn’t be hopping around with exercise selection for my shoulders if they hadn’t started hurting in the first place. But who knows, it might not have been the OHP that were hurting them at all.[/quote]

Focus on an exercise that doesn’t bother you and make sure you get stronger on it. Don’t just ‘give that a shot for a month’ but do it for 6. Once you have doubled your shoulder pressing strength then they will be bigger I guarantee you that. Make sure though that you don’t neglect your side and rear delts. Try 3 sets of 20 reps for both and make sure you feel the muscles working, keep doing more reps and when you can manage 3 sets of 30 then add weight.

EDIT: Forgot to add in, try using a neutral grip overhead press that may be better on your shoulders. It was for mine.[/quote]

So, basically, you’re saying:

  1. do overhead presses for… say… 3x12
  2. do 3x20-30 lateral raises
  3. do 3x20-30 rear raises

Did I read that right?

Back/Bi session 1:

Low pulley rows: 160x 11, 11, 8; 150x12 (4 sets total)
Sternum pulldown things: 100x10; 85x12, 10 (3 sets total)
Drag curls: 65x10; 65x8; 60x10

Tonight I’m meeting up with a friend from my pool league team, to try out his gym. He’s looking for a workout partner, and guests are free, so I might as well check it out. More than likely our workouts won’t be even remotely compatible, but I’ll spot him.

We used to spend the occasional Wednesday night practicing pool at the bar… but the bar burned down over the weekend. So I guess we’re meeting up at the gym.

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]The Rattler wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:
My shoulders just need to grow. My arms are growing (finally), my shoulders are not.

I think I’ll just go back to the original 3x12 BB overhead press per the original program. Not BTN, since my shoulders just don’t feel good overall right now.

I’ll give that a shot for a month, then [maybe] try something else. I wouldn’t be hopping around with exercise selection for my shoulders if they hadn’t started hurting in the first place. But who knows, it might not have been the OHP that were hurting them at all.[/quote]

Focus on an exercise that doesn’t bother you and make sure you get stronger on it. Don’t just ‘give that a shot for a month’ but do it for 6. Once you have doubled your shoulder pressing strength then they will be bigger I guarantee you that. Make sure though that you don’t neglect your side and rear delts. Try 3 sets of 20 reps for both and make sure you feel the muscles working, keep doing more reps and when you can manage 3 sets of 30 then add weight.

EDIT: Forgot to add in, try using a neutral grip overhead press that may be better on your shoulders. It was for mine.[/quote]

So, basically, you’re saying:

  1. do overhead presses for… say… 3x12
  2. do 3x20-30 lateral raises
  3. do 3x20-30 rear raises

Did I read that right?[/quote]

Yes give that a go. On your back day (if it is separated by a few days from shoulders) maybe throw in a little bit more rear delt work like 3 x 10 but keep the focus on the muscle not the weight.

Lifted at a commercial gym for the first time ever. Ridiculous place. Not the good kind of ridiculous.

I’ve heard complaints all over the place on tnation about how bad they are, but I didn’t believe them. There was enough equipment to go around, if both squat racks weren’t taken up by curlers THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME. The flat bench station was taken up the whole time by people doing 5" benches. I might have seen one guy lower the bar a whole 6", but I doubt it. They did have a foam roller, but it took a trainer 10 minutes searching back rooms to find one. And their dumbbells were half missing. Not just out-of-order, but there were literal gaps where they were nowhere to be seen.

Even the intensity that everyone used was pretty much non-existent (I’ve heard Prof X complain about this one time and time again). I was there to workout with my friend and support him and such, but even he was trying to skip out on his own workout… at the gym that he invited me to. At least I made him finish the whole workout before we left. And it was free for me.

Low pulley rows 3x10 (not quite sure what weight; tried a few settings, didn’t really get a feel for their equipment)
Sternum pulldowns 2x12
Body drag curls 2x10
Lateral raises 1x20x10lb 1x15x10lb a few partials with 35
OHP 1x12x55, and some more with the bar

Most of my time was just keeping him motivated, which is why my sets were so low. I’d already done a workout today, so I wasn’t too concerned about getting a good one in for myself.

There were some plusses:

  • they had a sauna
  • they had a pool
  • there was no “no deadlifting” policy; however there was a “must wear shoes” policy, which means no sock-footed squatting
  • they had a low pulley machine that actually went over 170lbs. This was the only genuine actual plus.

Otherwise, I’d rather workout at home with my own bar and my own rack.

[quote]The Rattler wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:
So, basically, you’re saying:

  1. do overhead presses for… say… 3x12
  2. do 3x20-30 lateral raises
  3. do 3x20-30 rear raises

Did I read that right?[/quote]

Yes give that a go. On your back day (if it is separated by a few days from shoulders) maybe throw in a little bit more rear delt work like 3 x 10 but keep the focus on the muscle not the weight. [/quote]

Thanks, I’ll do that.

Also wanted to say thank you all for reading, and correcting me and advising me, and such.

Well, I burnt out, or got busy, or got sick. All three I guess. They’re probably related.

I’m going on 2.5 weeks with pretty constant nausea and appetite loss, so it’s been hard to get calories in. Weight is hovering around 154-155 (was 157 on the way to 160).

I went to the gym with my friend again last Friday, and he still didn’t push himself much. I just dabbled. Standing OHP, Lateral Raises, Gironda Tricep Extensions, then decided to do some deadlifting after seeing a number of people actually deadlifting that night. 15rep SLDLs, then just ramped up deadlifts to 235x3.

I hadn’t deadlifted for a long time. I’m sure if I’d started with them and hadn’t ramped up so much, that would be a much higher number. It felt good. I might find a way to work those into my routine.

Of course with those SLDLs my hamstrings were dead for 4 days.

And on Monday, I realized that I simply can’t bench press cold; my elbow can’t handle it. I can bench at the end of a workout, but that sees to defeat the purpose. I can unrack the bar, but after lowering the right side about 3 inches, my elbow completely fails on me. Thankfully I have safety bars.

Anyway, I did standing OHPs and Lateral Raises and that was it for Monday. OHPs were 95# 12, 12, 7. Lateral raises were to 45 degrees with 20s: 20, 25, 22. Those burn.

OHPs feel really good for my shoulders. For the first couple reps, everything seems to realign, and then it feels great. They also seem to hit my upper chest fairly well.

According to John Meadows its fine to bench press 3rd or 4th or incline bench press 2nd or 3rd in your chest routine and starting out your chest workout with some variation of dumbbell bench press(or pec deck/machine fly once in a while) is useful. After that one can OHP than followed by Lateral raises and rear delt raises or the other way around with the raises.

Make sure to track your weight gain with pics and your performance in the gym(totally subjective). Are you still on that crazy split or have decided to get on a 4-5 day split?

[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
According to John Meadows its fine to bench press 3rd or 4th or incline bench press 2nd or 3rd in your chest routine and starting out your chest workout with some variation of dumbbell bench press(or pec deck/machine fly once in a while) is useful. After that one can OHP than followed by Lateral raises and rear delt raises or the other way around with the raises.

Make sure to track your weight gain with pics and your performance in the gym(totally subjective). Are you still on that crazy split or have decided to get on a 4-5 day split?[/quote]

I was very on-and-off for a couple weeks. Girlfriend left the country for 2 months so trying to spend time with her; then work got a bit crazy; then I got some weird flu/nausea thing. Still doing stuff when I could… usually some subset of my previous full-body routine.

Now I’m back on the crazy split, but the 2-a-days are sporadic. I.e., I may or may not do a second session.

1: chest/shoulders/tris – [3x12 bench], 3x10-15 OHP, 3x20-30 45-degree lateral raises, 4x12 tricep rope extensions
2: back/bis – 4x12 low cable rows, 3x12 sternum pulldowns, 4x12 drag curls
3: legs – 1x20 squats w/ pullovers, 1x15 SLDLs

a week: 1,2,3,1,2,3,off

I tried rear delt raises per Meadows, but I really really don’t trust my adjustable bench; it’s not stable. So I’ll need to find an alternative. Also notably missing is calf work. I just need to sit down and figure out what I’m going to do.

Also I’d like to mix in deadlifts, but I’m not sure where. And next chest day I’m going to try DB press, since BB press seems to be too difficult. If a more neutral grip feels better, I’ll look into picking up a swiss bar.

Yesterday was Monday.

Over lunch: OHP 80# 15, 12, 10

After work:
OHP 80# 15, 12, 10
Lateral Raises 20# 3x30
Rear Raises 20# 2x25

No chest. No additional tricep work. (Didn’t feel like driving to the apt gym for the cable stack.)

Based on bwhitwell’s experiences, I’m going to let my shoulder joint stability develop with the military press, and then move back to adding chest into the mix. Between my elbow and my shoulders, BP has never been good to me.

Huh. Ever since I started training shoulders more, I’ve gotten an unprecedented amount of cashiers and waitresses flirting with me.

Maybe it’s improved posture, or very subtly wider shoulders. But either way, it’s been more than just coincidence.

Not complaining.

[quote]LoRez wrote:
Huh. Ever since I started training shoulders more, I’ve gotten an unprecedented amount of cashiers and waitresses flirting with me.

Maybe it’s improved posture, or very subtly wider shoulders. But either way, it’s been more than just coincidence.

Not complaining.[/quote]

POIDH

Edit: but seriously, progress pics?

[quote]The Rattler wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:
Huh. Ever since I started training shoulders more, I’ve gotten an unprecedented amount of cashiers and waitresses flirting with me.

Maybe it’s improved posture, or very subtly wider shoulders. But either way, it’s been more than just coincidence.

Not complaining.[/quote]

POIDH

Edit: but seriously, progress pics?[/quote]

Lol.

September was a shitty training month. I’ve been sick for over 3 weeks now. Not a whole lot of progress because I let my training get sporadic. But I’ll get pics up in the next day or two.

Shoulders feel significantly better though, so there was something positive to come of it.