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Started By bloodandguts (Alburg, vt, U.S.A.)

Started on: 6/23/2006 12:59:23 AM, viewed 317 times
upper body lagging: part II

some of you may recall that i was talking of experimenting with dropping direct leg work for a while to see if i can close the gap on my upper-to-lower body imbalance.

my new routine is:

day 1

incline DB press

pulldown

day 2

deadlift

training once every 8-10 days

on june 12th i had my first workout with this new routine (the first training i′d done in 5 weeks due to a serious sinus infection) and yesterday i did my first DL in almost 6 weeks.

a few interesting things i noticed:

one, is that i am stronger on lat pulldowns doing them after chest than when i used to do them on a different day as the first exercise in my old routine. even after the 5-week layoff i got the same reps as last time but with 20 more lbs!

i also did not feel nearly as exhausted after doing the presses and pulldowns in one session than when i used to do presses followed by deadlifts.

another interesting thing: in my previous DL session i nailed 245lbs for 8 solid reps. yesterday i did 255lbs for 6 and that was after a full day working in the sun shoveling dirt and rocks on my job!

i was quite surprised by this . . . at another BBing forum i frequent there are a bunch of guys that say HD HIT violates the "use it or lose it" principal because of the often very infrequent training sessions. (I guess many still cling to that old myth about "atrophy after 96 hours").

well, if after 5 weeks of no training i was still stronger or at least AS strong as i was before i had that lousy sinus infection, it is certain i had NOT atrophied.

i am starting to develop a hypothesis about HIT in that it develops a density of muscle that does not "disappear" if one stops training for extended periods.

of course maintaining ones caloric intake is important, but hell when my illnes was at its worst, so was my dietary intake and yet, my performance on both recent workout days was an improvement over the previous.

and again, I find that i was not nearly as spent today than how i used to feel the day after the press/deadlift session. doing deads alone is a step in the right direction for me.

I′m also positive now that i wll not lose any leg size at all while focusing on upper body. my legs felt like jello after the deads yesterday and still feel fatigued today. I wouldnt be surprised if they still grow even without squats or leg presses.

I′d love to hear anyone′s thoughts and/or experiences on any of the things i′ve mentioned.

it sure was great to be training again! i see a 300lb deadlift in my near future ;-))))

regards,

B&G;

This Topic has 5 Replies: Displaying out of Replies:

B-WINE (Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands) on 6/23/2006 3:05:21 AM

Interesting read, B&G.;

Are you now cured from your sinus infection?

I wish you all the best!

smanjh (somewhere in, the USA, U.S.A.) on 6/23/2006 3:12:27 AM

Hello B&G;,

I know what you mean about the chest thing, however it is always the other way around. I feel like one exercise suffers if you do not warm up enough while the other flourishes because you are now "ready". I do not know why that is.

I also agree with you 100% on the atrophy thing. 100% correct.

Deadlifts are by far the best exercise, but for me I feel my biceps tend to not recieve enough stimulation from them, but everything else sure does. My deadlift has 2 reps to go until I can get 396 pounds for 7 to match the 315 for 7 I started with. Everything else seems to look better and better with each passing day.

About your routine: I would do the chest movement one rep shy of failure and concentrate on the pulldown because I feel it better stimulates all of the upper body muscles. This will save recovery ability to an extent IMO. Still try to get an extra rep in on the NTF set and add weight, but only go like 90% to failure. Then try the same thing but do the pulldowns NTF.

If this routine does not work just Alternate deadlifts and the exercise the works the strongest section between the push/pull muscles, ie dips or pulldowns. The indirect effect may prove to be something like squats with calves and hamstrings.

Jesse

PS, are you the guy from the Iron Age forums? There is a guy by your addy that defends hit there. I dont post there, just browsed a few times.

HEAVYDUTY94 (MARLBOROUGH, MA, U.S.A.) on 6/23/2006 12:40:04 PM

B+G

Glad you′re back in the gym man.

I would still train everything to failure, and rest even longer between workouts if needed. Remember it′s the stimulus that makes us grow. Not going to failure won′t have a vast enough effect on your nervous system to get you to grow. As far as your program, have you thought about further consolidating ? My thoughts would be to eliminate the pulldowns to get rid of overlap with those and deads and do a single workout of deads and incline presses every 10-14 days or if you′re really spent after deads keep them on their own day and do an A and B workout, deads one workout and presses the next, waiting 7-10 days in between them or probably more in your case. From what you wrote about taking a layoff due to illness and coming back stronger indicates you need more recovery time, but certainly NOT a reduction in intensity. That always has to go up, not down. That′s the basis of this whole program. From there we (are supposed to) regulate volume and frequency. Go by the book with the principles and you′ll get better results, trust me on that one. Alright you got me all fired up over here, good thing I′m training tomorrow.

smanjh – are you really serious, you think your biceps don′t get enough stimulation from deads ? are you kidding ? what more stimulation do you want ?

smanjh (somewhere in, the USA, U.S.A.) on 6/23/2006 10:33:22 PM

smanjh – are you really serious, you think your biceps donŒt get enough stimulation from deads ? are you kidding ? what more stimulation do you want ?

I just never feel it with the biceps, but everything else feels worked. I am not saying it does not stimulate, just that I do not feel it in the bis like I do with cg pulldowns. NTF was just a suggestion based on him saying his back work was easier when he did chest first.

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