What Is Really "Specific" To Building Mass?

When I wrestled (elementary-high school) we would do circuit training with the same effect as our pre-season conditioning.

Some LISS or HIIT probably wouldn’t hurt. In fact, we used to do HIIT for about 10 minutes before hitting the weight room, with the time it took to get from the pool balcony to the weight room being the only break in the session.

A lot of kids would puke and stuff for the first few sessions but that would clear up in like a week. Everybody was in pretty good shape.

Hey, it’s been a while since I updated this topic.

So here’s a video of me doing a double rest pause set of cd le rows with 165 lbs, which is now the heaviest weight I’ve used on this exercise.

I’m not much of a show off at the gym, but my buddy insisted I took off my shirt, so I guess that video serves as a physique update as well.

Here’s also a video of me overhead pressing 52 pounders 24 kg db ohp - YouTube

Any advice on form is welcomed.

I’m getting stronger and somewhat bigger as well so I guess I’m doing good.

I introduced some high intensity techniques such as dropsets and rest pause sets in my training and I’m planning to do this for this week and the next, which will be the last before a little deload (I won’t be able to train consistently during holidays because the gym is closed on Christmas and I don’t physically be in town during December 31st and January 1st), so I’m making these sessions extra hard to earn that deload.

I’m unsure of what I want to do when I come back from holidays. I’ve been bulking for quite a while and I upped my cals to 2.9k a day and I noticed I’m getting softer. I’m thinking about doing a mini cut during the first part of January, maybe 3 weeks, to have a break from bulking and do some good to my insulin sensitivity.

I would love to hear some advice as per how to go about it tho.
I once read an article, here on T nation, about the 5/2 diet which basically consisted of 5 says of normal eating with 2 non-training, non-consecutive days when you basically only eat two very small meals (they might’ve been like 400 cals each but I can’t tell for sure). It sounded like a fast and effective approach to me, thoughts?

@EyeDentist

Dont do anything you’re not comfortable with, and tell him no means no. If he continues, blow your rape whistle

2 Likes

Did he say nohomo afterwards?

Anyone willing to actually comment on what I said about my training?

“Normal eating”… “small meals”…

You mention getting soft on 2900 calories. This is an exact measurement “normal meals” and “small meals” ar not. If you intend to intelligently lose fat mass while retaining if mlt gaining lean muscle, you’re gonna have to put in a bit more mental effort in terms of planning and application than that.

S

@The_Mighty_Stu I only mentioned normal eating and small meals because I can’t recall what the article exactly said. I might be mistaken but “normal eating” could have been the exact words the author used as well.

As a matter of fact, I’m tracking all my meals and have been doing that for months so luckily I have an understanding of how many cals I need and I have found the indication of a tdee of 2.4k cals a day to be pretty accurate, as it took me at least 2 and a half months of bulking at between 2.7k and 2.9k cals a day to get as soft as I am now (how much it is you can judge from the videos I posted. Is that still lean enough to keep bulking for a while more in your opinion?).

What I was asking is: what approach have you found best to achieve what I’m after here? That is, to drop some pounds of fat to get all the benefits of being leaner i.e. Better insulin sensitivity, more effective bulking later etc.

Small deficit on days you don’t lift or perhaps on the days you’re training isn’t especially high in volume, and maintenance days on days that you train hard to ensure actual progress and stimulation of muscle growth as well as the metabolic machine.

S

1 Like

I thought your form on the rows looked good. As for whether you should go on a mini-cut: If you’re making good gains (which you say you are), I would advise against it, unless by “getting softer” you mean ‘becoming sloppy fat.’ Remember, if you’re in the ballpark 15% BF range (which you appear to be), that’s often the sweet spot for maximizing gains.

2 Likes

Hey @EyeDentist

After completing another 5 weeks of the program I had been doing for the past months, I decided to change style of training just to try something new and decided to give Christian thibaudeau’a best damn program a go. Thoughts about it? I read good reviews.

The first week has gone by and so far I’m enjoying this type of workouts.

I’ve got a couple of questions. Although it might be better to open a thread in the specific section for Christian’s programs, I’ll try and ask here first because the questions probably aren’t specific enough to require a topic of their own.

  • the program requires to use a certain technique on some exercises, denominated “maximum mTOR activation.” it consists of 5-second negative with a 2-second hold in the stretched position, with post fatigue loaded stretching at the end of the set. The program calls for this method on the following exercises: Preacher curl, Seated Cable Row, dumbbell pullover, pec deck, glue ham raise, and leg press.

While I can see how to apply the technique to some of those exercises, there are some that haven’t gone as expected:

  • on the pec deck, I noticed that on the position that would have my pecs stretched the most, the weight is resting on the stack, so there is no tension. How to fix this?

  • the dumbbell pullover never felt good to me, I can’t feel my lats and I definitely can’t feel the stretch when doing the hold. I rather have a weird feeling in my Triceps (probably the tendon not the muscle itself). I also noticed the concentric part of this exercise isn’t particularly effective as the tension is gone as soon as the dumbbell clears the head. Thoughts?

  • on the Seated Cable Row, I’m not sure when I should consider the negative ended. I noticed that the last 1.5 second of eccentric I am basically resisting elbow extension rather than shoulder extension: I’m only using my biceps to resist the motion,and my humerus is already parallel to the floor. So I guess that defeats the purpose of the exercise, since the back muscles are already as stretched as they can be. I also remember seeing thibaudeau talking in a video about how eccentric training isn’t effective for the back as the forearm muscles and the biceps tend to take over the lats and rhomboids. Thoughts?

Good to hear.

I’m not familiar with the program, and thus may be misconstruing how ‘stretched preacher curls’ are performed. But I must stress (if you’ll pardon the expression) that 1) the biceps muscle cannot be stretched at the elbow, and 2) fully-extended preacher curls place the distal biceps tendon in an extremely vulnerable mechanical position, making the risk of disinsertion (ie, tendon rupture) unacceptably high.

Signed, EyeDentist, Distal Biceps Tendon Rupture Class of 2001

Are you using a machine for which you place your forearms vertically (or roughly so) against pads? If so, use the same machine, but put your palms against the pads, with your elbows flared out.

Do them this way:

Keep your lower back arched, so your forward lean occurs at the hip, not the spine (ie, don’t round your back over).

1 Like

I was suspecting this too, and if I had to choose a bicep exercise to apply a stretch technique to, I would choose the Incline curl which actually allows the shoulder to get into an extended position, thus allowing the bicep to stretch further.

The program states so:

Lower the weight over a 5-second count while tensing/flexing the target muscle as hard as possible at all times.
Hold the full stretch position for 2 seconds per rep.
Do 6-8 reps like this, and on the last rep hold the stretch position for as long as you can tolerate. Again, you only do one set of this special technique/method.

Personally I did these by raising the Scott bench by 1 extra pin so when my arm was fully extended the forearm still wasn’t completely resting on the bench (there was still tension on the bicep) and I can tell you that, against my expectations, I was able to keep the tension on the muscle and it was excruciatingly painful. Any way to make this better and safer?

The machine I have at my gym has the pads put in a way that requires you put your forearms, with the arm bent at a 90 degree angle, against them. I’m not sure I understand what you mean by placing the hands on the pads and flaring the elbow. Do you have a pic to show that?

EDIT: I think I figured it out. So the starting position would look like that of a press, but the motion is an arc, maintaining the same elbow angle. Right?

Sounds good. So I shouldn’t worry about what is happening at my shoulders and elbows? As in, I just let them come forward naturally?

In my opinion, no. It should be avoided like the plague.

Bingo.

Your elbows should be straight. If you keep your lower back arched, I guarantee you’ll feel the stretch more in your lats.

1 Like

@EyeDentist

I tried to do dumbbell pullovers like the guy in the video you linked, here’s a video

While I was feeling somewhat of a stretch in the lats during the negative, I didn’t really feel a xinresxfion on the concentric. Holding the stretched position felt somewhat weird, and in that position I could feel my traps firing (although I can’t come up with a possible explanation for that).

Towards the last reps at some point of the negative I felt my right shoulder as if it had gone out of the position it’s supposed to stay in to work properly. The feeling was like a pop and it felt like it was “out of its socket”. I had to try and rotate it internally to feel another pop and it got back to normal. It wasn’t painful or anything tho.

Am I doing something wrong?

Compare your head position on the bench to that of the guy in the video I posted (also, note what you start doing with your head as you tire at the end of your set). Additionally, compare your ROM with his–specifically, note where the DB is in relation to his head at the top of the movement, and compare it with where yours is.

@EyeDentist From what I see, whereas his head was basically not resting on the bench, mine was.

From what I can understand, this allowed his torso to get into a more extended position (I can see mine in the video being almost parallel with the bench whereas his is more arched).

Then obviously he’s stopping the movement earlier than me because once the dumbbell begins to clear your head, it means you’re getting your arms close to being parallel to gravity which means little to no work being done by the lats.

I thought about this too, but while doing the exercise it already felt as if the range of motion was pretty tiny. Could this have all to do with my head position?

:ok_hand:

Do it correctly and we’ll see.

1 Like

@EyeDentist

I’ll let you know next time I have to do this exercise .

Meanwhile, I’m having some wonders about my diet and specifically my diet while doing thidabeudau’s program.

I posted this topic in his section: Nutrition While On The BDW

While I hope that he himself will eventually reply to it, I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Let me know!

@EyeDentist Also, since we’re here, I figured I’d upload a couple of videos from my last workout that I completed an hour ago.

I’m trying to get a form check from you guys on as much exercises as possible as I don’t want to leave anything on the table.

Here’s me doing double rest pause Bb curls

I think my form was pretty solid on this, I only had to mildly cheat the last rep. What do you think?

Here I’m using the double rest pause technique on lat pull downs. I increased the weight from last session and I think it might have been just a little too heavy.
I realized I had some problems depressing my scapulae throughout the set (you can see my shoulders kinda shrugged) and I cheated a bit on some reps.

Feedback welcomed as always

Bump :flushed: