Arkk's Weight Lifting / Fitness Thread

taebin_sl said:

So for chest, you're doing 27 sets? Jesus fuck. If that's what's required to push 450, gonna go ahead and scratch that off my bucket list. Do you do any cardio? Supplemental muscles with chest? I usually do Chest/Bi's, Back/Tri's, Shoulders/Traps, Legs and work in abdomen work throughout the week. With 20-30 mins of cardio, I'm already at the gym for 70-90 minutes. It sounds like you're there for at least 2 hours, maybe 3. Fuck that.

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Curious...why not do Chest/Tri Back/Bi?

I'm surprised you do isolation days for Biceps big dog. That just because you don't have anything better goin on that day?

EDIT: Should say isolation exercises for bi's/tri's (Fridays). I love my tricep exercises and they are still compound exercises for the most part but almost every power lifter I know scoffs at bicep exercises because you can't really do anything compound and they are both a small muscle and part of a lot of other compound movements on other days anyway.

Brahma_sl said:

Curious...why not do Chest/Tri Back/Bi?

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I do chest/bi and back/tri as well. Basically because it lets me hit stuff twice. So for instance I get to hit my chest and triceps twice in a week, doing a normal grip bench on chest day and close grip on tricep day.

I've never understood the logic in destroying your triceps on a chest day. Yeah, you obliterate them, but the rest of the week they're basically not getting touched.

Elurin_sl said:

I do chest/bi and back/tri as well. Basically because it lets me hit stuff twice. So for instance I get to hit my chest and triceps twice in a week, doing a normal grip bench on chest day and close grip on tricep day.

I've never understood the logic in destroying your triceps on a chest day. Yeah, you obliterate them, but the rest of the week they're basically not getting touched.

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That is the logic. Hit them once hard. 1 week to recover I guess.

If I try and do triceps after chest or biceps after back, they are completely shot and I get a shitty lift in. If I give it a day or two, much better results and as Elurin said, pushing the muscle group twice in one week.

taebin_sl said:

If I try and do triceps after chest or biceps after back, they are completely shot and I get a shitty lift in. If I give it a day or two, much better results and as Elurin said, pushing the muscle group twice in one week.

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Why hit a muscle twice in a week? Seems there would be no time to recover.

It probably depends on how hard you are hitting it, I would imagine. If you are hitting it as a secondary muscle twice a week and never primary, it's probably getting a much lighter workout than you actually dedicating time to it. Personally, I lift with supersets after I do primary "big" lifts like bench/deads/squats/overhead press, where I'm constantly just hitting other muscles, so that when I'm done a chest day, my triceps are done for a few days no matter how much I want to engage them. I subscribe to the concept that no matter how well you do isolation exercises, your support muscles are usually helping. So I like working the shit out of those support muscles in the process, making my isolation exercises even more effective. A lot of super effective chest exercises still incorporate your triceps, so I definitely try my best to kill them during the process so that my chest has to work harder than normal on things like cable flies etc.

But yeah, it really depends on the relative intensity of the workout regarding how often you hit them during a week. I'm a big proponent of one heavy day and then 4-5 days of rest for that muscle group, but if you want to hit them more lightly and do it twice? As long as the overall work at the end of the week is roughly the same, I would imagine the results will be similar. I can't imagine that someone who isn't some genetic metabolic freak is hitting any muscle group twice in a week with harsh intensity like a single per week workout. I'm not even sure that's physically possible, since my tri's are legally dead in most states for at least 3-4 days after I abuse them.

edit - Though I am curious about the bicep thing. I know guys like Fletcher preach the guns, but I've found mine are pretty big for my size (not a big dude like some of the massives in this thread. If I bench 265x3 I'm pretty stoked as a 155lb dude, if I put 4xx on the bar it means I'm committing sepuku via barbell.) and I've spent probably 30 minutes in the last year working on them. I suppose it has to do with your adherence to isolation exercises or if you are compounds-all-day, erry day. I'm all about compounds mixed with isolation on major muscle groups, and I tend to just incorporate muscles into supersets. But biceps are usually sore by the end of the week and I've never felt the need to focus on them. Again though, it's probably more related to the composition of the workout.

Thanks, Database Error, for the dbl.

The general guideline is that a muscle recovers in 48 hours. So you should be able to hit any muscle twice a week.

The problem comes from stuff like joints, ligaments, and tendons. Those don't recover as fast, so you have to be a bit careful.

Being honest, my muscles never recover in 48 hours. Usually 72 at best. Could be genetic! And it seems to depend heavily on how hard I hit a specific area. I can't bench on monday and then bench again to the same level on thursday. I'm barely at 80% 3 days out, let alone being able to compete with previous numbers two days in. However, I do burnouts basically constantly because I lift at home and even trying to aim for a max is a stupid idea hah.

Though I am 34, so maybe it's age. I have no idea how I would have lifted in my 20s; I didn't have any reason to aside from just doing maintenance exercises and shit, like "cardio."

I'll be 32 this month, so I'm the same way.

I generally do chest/bi, back, day off, shoulders/tri, legs, 2 days off. So I get 3 days between the mostly chest day and secondary triceps day, and mostly triceps day and secondary chest day. That said, my shoulders get fucking hammered. They're really getting 3 days of decent work within 4 days.

I -wreck- my shoulders on my back/arms day. Like hammers to lifts to OHP(overhead press) type wrecking. If I am capable of lifting my arms above shoulder height the day after, I apparently did not do a great job. Generally, I do a great job. My routine is chest/tri, day off/yoga, arms/back(because fuck you it's important), day off/yoga, LEGZ, day off/yoga. Repeat.

You guys seriously still get DOMS even after being in a routine for a month or more? If that's the case something else may be at play.

Nah, not actual newbie soreness. I'm usually only sore the next day after lifting, and it's generally more joint/ligament stuff, but I definitely don't have the normal endurance/strength in the same muscle for a couple of days after. So instead of just working it again at sub optimal rates, I take 5 days off from it and then hit it hard again. I do pretty intense yoga between workouts, and it definitely eases most of the soreness out, but it doesn't do much for the lower strength/endurance aspect. At least not for me, at any rate.

I wasn't saying I get sore, just that they get hammered.

I don't really get DOMS anymore, but I do get lots of nagging injuries. Stuff like tendonitis or pulled muscles. As I've lifted longer I've tried to avoid getting injured more as it's like the worst thing ever for progress, but it's unavoidable sometimes.

Khane_sl said:

You guys seriously still get DOMS even after being in a routine for a month or more? If that's the case something else may be at play.

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I get it just about everytime i lift. Chest\back, sometimes wont be as sore or as sore as something else. Like I did chest/tris last night and today my tris are more sore then my chest. If i do legs, forget it. My hamstrings/hips are usually always sore after leg day. I sit all day so that doesnt help.

I also dont duplicate routines. I might do the same exercises, but im either increasing weight\reps\sets or changing rest period or the order i do the exercises in, something to keep things fresh. I would say I'm in decent shape, so it could be my diet that affects it, maybe not getting the right vitamins/minerals or enough of them. Dunno. I'm used to it, so i havent looked into it too much. For me, as long as i take a 2-3 day break from whichever muscle group is sore im usually good to go. I did run into some over-use issues (ie tendinitis) in both triceps, and in my traps/neck area, so im mindful of that. Hasnt been an issue since though.

You said that before about DOMs and I was little surprised..figured this was the case for most people, soreness after lifting. No?

There is a difference between that good "sore" that you feel after a great workout that doesn't affect your day to day routine and DOMS. DOMS is debilitating and it's that "Always worse the second day" type of sore. The type of sore where you can't walk up stairs after leg day or wash your frigan hair after doing arms.

Yeah..I'd say thats normal workout soreness (ie going past what your muscles are used to, causing microtears, and blahblahblah..which is basically doms)..I always anticipate day 2 being worse than the day after a workout. Sometimes day 3 is even worse based on whatever workload I did (usually legs only). Varying levels of discomfort aside, I'd say that's all "good soreness" and falls within the definition of doms. Provided we're talking about the actual muscle groups worked for that session.

"Bad" soreness, I'd equate with some sort of injury like tendinitis, bursitis, a pull or a strain or something of that nature (all of which I've had and know how awesome they feel), like what elurin said. In other words, I wouldn't say its unusual for someone to continue to suffer from doms over a long period of time if they use a varied routine. Now on the other end of it I wouldn't read into not being sore as meaning, "you're not sore? you didn't work very hard"...there's plenty of times ive had a good workout and had 0 soreness. Why? I dont know. I usually come to the conclusion i could/should have done more in those cases, but thats me.

Not saying this is you, but just kind of thinking out loud here;
If you're doing the exact same routine(sets/reps/weight) for a month, your body will adapt and there wont be that struggle to grow. In this scenario, I wouldn't anticipate soreness after the first week or two of doing that routine. And there are people out there that do this and wonder why they dont make any gains or plateau.

Semi-related; I recall reading about a highschool football team a while back that was working their kids so hard that a few of them got sent to the ER and diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis. bleh.

I feel if Im not sore I didnt workout hard enough. Sometimes it requires a change in how you hit the same muscles, at least for me. Muscle soreness comes 100% from the eccentric motion in a lift, not the concentric, so keep that in mind as well. Usually 1 day of super slows will wreck my muscles and feels like throwing a curveball in there to my normal routine helps me get past plateaus. Especially good if you go to a small gym and need to get creative.

Genjiro_sl said:

I feel if Im not sore I didnt workout hard enough. Sometimes it requires a change in how you hit the same muscles, at least for me. Muscle soreness comes 100% from the eccentric motion in a lift, not the concentric, so keep that in mind as well. Usually 1 day of super slows will wreck my muscles and feels like throwing a curveball in there to my normal routine helps me get past plateaus. Especially good if you go to a small gym and need to get creative.

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This is a really dumb thing to believe.