@dt79 I can’t imagine the looks I’d get slapping a punching bag, but I’m glad to see the Smith getting some love.
I was training a client and the leg press was taken. He hit hit failure with 10kg on Smith machine hack squats. It’s a super underrated tool for hypertrophy imo
Yeah I think people have misconceptions based on silly things being thrown around like a decade ago.
I wouldn’t flat bench with full ROM on the smith machine because the fixed bar path isn’t natural for the exercise. That’s a given and people have certainly screwed up their shoulders because of this. I only do them at either an incline or decline angle with limited ROM and they give me less problems than dumbbells.
BUT the bar path for squats is straight up and down. There’s nothing wrong with using it for squats unless you’re doing something really stupid lol.
If I do them for military presses, I do them like Meadows does, i.e, standing back with one foot under the bar, then stepping forward with the other foot and moving my body under the bar while lifting to compensate for the fixed bar path. Behind the neck presses are fine when sitting down but I wouldn’t do full ROM with them.
It’s all a lot of trial and error and watching how successful people do their stuff.
BFR curls/tricep extensions, Ham curl/leg extensions/calf raises
All good shit
Totally agreed. What I found was, by standing with feet well in front of the bar, you can get pretty close to a super quad-dominant hack squat
Training from home with limited equipment has made me adopt heavy bands as a finisher tool.
Especially for pecs, where I try to move my arms across my center line, which gives me a nice pec burn. (Inspired by athlean-x videos.)
But also stuff like band rows, band straight-arm pull downs, band triceps pull downs etc.
At the beginning of lockdown, I fitted some heavy duty wall anchors for my bands - that have really been a game changer, adding a lot of versatility and options for using bands in my workouts.
Like this:
I used to do this in my younger days. Last year, I dropped into a gym with a preacher curl in it so I gave it a whirl. I couldn’t straighten my arms for 3 days had sore arms for the week. It’s a preacher curl / barbell curl Myo Reps superset.
Do a weight you can just squeeze 15 reps out on the preacher curl. Rest 10 seconds and punch out another 6. Keep resting for 10s and doing 6 reps until you can no longer hit the reps. Then do another 2 sets hitting whatever reps you can.
Then move onto the barbell and do the same thing.
Did you buy cuffs? I’ve been thinking about buying some for a while now. Loads of fun
90cents each on eBay
Another simple leg finisher:
TF? They go for $45-60 on Amazon. Glad I held off buying them so far
I just bought standard medical quick release cuffs like they use for blood tests
You might enjoy leg extensions to leg press to reverse nordics. Gets the full contractile range of quads and it h u r t s
smart
Set timer to beep at each minute.
For upper:
One minute ultra slow pushups. Next minute plank hold. Then max reps push ups.
For lower:
One minute ultra slow squats (with DB if you want to make it harder but keep it light). One minute mid squat hold. Then max verticals jumps.
All the way from the gym to home
2 sets of 20 front squats with heels elevated at end of leg workout.
I like to set a timer for 10 minutes and do something stupid for as many reps as possible. For example, last night I did axle clean and push press at 135 (clean every rep, push press, semi-controlled negative, drop from rack position onto crash pads).
Thank you for the belt squat idea @T3hPwnisher gonna use that soon. I have a bunch of 25s I can use to increase RoM.
No problem dude: just make sure you can stand up for the first rep, haha. I’m thinking about using a band in the future to really make it crazy. Also, I learned today that not locking out the reps really makes it brutal.
I’d encourage anyone looking for finishers that doesn’t mind video format to check out Brian Alsruhes YouTube playlists. Lots of good, brutal, 10-15 minute workout options there.
Man his conditioning “ideas” are brutal. I always like the “carry something too heavy, too far”
