I was just now reading a Ronnie Coleman article on how he trains biceps, which is exclusively with cables. Are cable curls worthwhile, I’ve never done them, what do you guys think?
Cables offer constant tension. It’s not a battle of gravity and stabilization like freeweights, so I wouldn’t say cables are very traditional “mass builders” but at Ronnie’s level you aren’t looking to build much more mass anyway.
…he definitely does not train his biceps exclusively with cables…
and besides, who gives a hewt what he does for training…
[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:
and besides, who gives a hewt what he does for training…[/quote]
Umm why would anybody looking to add a large amount of muscle mass NOT be interested in what an eight-time Mr. O does for training?
You may now change your name to Standard Jackass.
What I find interesting is that Ronnie is typically known for training each muscle group twice each week instead of only once like many of his competitors.
And so the story seems to go for all the mass monsters out there… Arnold of course, Dorian Yates, and even less well known guys like Phil Hernon that blew away the competition with a higher frequency of muscle stimulation.
Ronnie and a cable-only workout ? Don’t believe random, ghost-written articles.
There is a certain cable-curl variation that works rather well, but other than that, I wouldn’t really use them much. Not necessarily a bad exercise, just sucks as far as progression goes in my case.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Ronnie and a cable-only workout ? Don’t believe random, ghost-written articles.
There is a certain cable-curl variation that works rather well, but other than that, I wouldn’t really use them much. Not necessarily a bad exercise, just sucks as far as progression goes in my case.
[/quote]
Right, agreed. I really only use them in a reverse fashion and if I’m supersetting, using it as a high-rep recovery exercise at the end of a day, or just a few high-rep burnout sessions in general.
In regards to what the other poster said about not paying attention to what Ronnie does, it’s because if people are looking to the pros for training advice, they should try to find out what those pros did to get to where they are now, not necessarily what they are doing now.
I’d rather know, if I wanted to, what Ronnie was doing after maybe 3-5 years of training to gain his size and not what he’s currently doing at near 300lb. They could be two different things.
I recently started adding low cable curls and have definite new soreness the following days. I’m a fan.
I never saw ronnie coleman do them in any of his movies. In other words, what you read was complete bullshit.
[quote]NeelyDan wrote:
I recently started adding low cable curls and have definite new soreness the following days. I’m a fan.[/quote]
Completley common when you add in a new exercise. Fun, aint it? Same thing happened to me when I did preachers (low part of biceps are definitely sore) and rev. curls, both of which I hadn’t done in a really long time.
Your avatar is awesome. The fact that that was shown on ESPN during a game makes it even funnier.
Cable curls are just another exercise in the arsenal. If you like them and get results from them, then do them. If not, do something else.
getbig.com/articles/biceps2.htm
Well, this is the article, I doubt its entirely bullshit, it seems somewhat reasonable. And I think Ronnie Coleman is definitely someone who might know, just a thing or two about whether or not something is effective…
I’m gonna give em a run for a few weeks to change it up, and see how it goes, thats the only way to really know.
i use a flat bench, lay on it and curl to my head. works good, especially for the peak.
cables are pretty similar to freeweights in terms of constant tension. i think theyre great.
[quote]Evensen wrote:
I never saw ronnie coleman do them in any of his movies. In other words, what you read was complete bullshit.[/quote]
How many of his DVDs have you seen?
I always wanted to try cable preachers. However I donm’t think the gym staff would appreciate me moving giant machines and shit around.
I think they can be very effective. Any new stimuli you can give the muscle to shock it has it’s value. Your muscle does not know it’s doing cables it only feels the stress and tension.
For me cables allow for the deep burn in the belly of the muscle. Bars and DB burn me more at the insertions and such. But cables take the burn to other places. It really makes the muscle respond.
The thing with cables is like with free weights. Vary the reps, forced reps and vary the angles and exercises whenever you stop getting that deep super pump as like to call it. You know, the pump where you see new dimensions you never saw before. Once your pump becomes the standard good pump, it’s time to mix something up.
[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
I always wanted to try cable preachers. However I donm’t think the gym staff would appreciate me moving giant machines and shit around.[/quote]
slide a bench over to the cable rack, set the cable at its lowest setting and put your knee on the bench to use as a makeshift preacher curl. im not sure if youll have enough distance to get constant tension though but its worth a try.
[quote]jerm wrote:
I was just now reading a Ronnie Coleman article on how he trains biceps, which is exclusively with cables. Are cable curls worthwhile, I’ve never done them, what do you guys think?[/quote]
I use them on and off whenever I want to switch the workout up, that and I think they’re fun as I mostly train with just free weights.
T-Nation had a really good article that is getting me good results with my biceps, the say use mechanical drop-sets. I say read it and give it a go because your biceps are screaming after each workout, not to mention I always feel soreness the next day as opposed to just when you do a different curl.
they’re cool. nuff said