The Bodybuilders Thread!

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A question on shoulder workouts; on chest days my shoulders are too fried after working chest to work them properly.

I suppose that's why SL5x5 advocates alternating every 2 days between a shoulder day and a chest day. Is there not a better way to do this (i.e. I don't want to wait 4 days between chest workouts. I think 3 days is the sweet spot for me)? I'm trying to focus on chest primarily and upper body. I am loosely following SL5x5 as my base then I add other stuff over and above that or else I don't feel like I've had a proper workout. So i alternate between squat days and deadlift days so as not to ignore lower body.

EDIT2: For chest I am usually doing 5-6 sets of bench press, then on to 5 sets of dips, then 5 sets of incline dumbbell press. Hence by that point my shoulders are fried.

EDIT: I suppose I can try follow Tinuva's advice to the tee?

Tinuva said:
It is easy to keep muscles in maintenance mode.

Lets say you want to focus chest + triceps (which makes sense, many guys want to for whatever reason), I would do it like this.
Make up a 3 day gym program.
Day 1: This will be my heavy chest day. Start with Bench Press 90% of 1RM, which will take up 20-30min of my session. Then after that finish up with 1 more chest exercise, after that do 1 back, 1 shoulder, 2-4 arm exercises (2 for biceps, 2 for triceps do triceps after biceps to give them some rest time)
Day 2: Rest
Day 3: Light chest day. Start with bench press, do it at 60% of your 1RM , do it different, ie. dynamic mode, fast up, slow down, keep pauses top/bottom. Then do 1 light back, shoulder, 2 arm exercises. This session should have gone fast because it is easy and light. Then do 4 sets of squats, not too heavy, not too light, 80% of what you usually can do. Practice form and technique, that is all. If you want, you could have skipped the back exercise, and do deadlifts after squats, BUT dont go heavy on the deadlifts, the squats already worked your core and legs, so I would do deadlifts at 70%.
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: Medium bench press day, same with all the other exercises, do them at about 75% of 1RM.
Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Rest

See what I did? I focuses on chest by making it the 1st exercise every time, which is when you have your most energy. Doing bench press 3 times a week in that format sure as hell boost growth there if eating correct. But I also did the other exercises, and kept them in check mostly.
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StrontiumDog said:
A question on shoulder workouts; on chest days my shoulders are too fried after working chest to work them properly.

I suppose that's why SL5x5 advocates alternating every 2 days between a shoulder day and a chest day. Is there not a better way to do this (i.e. I don't want to wait 4 days between chest workouts. I think 3 days is the sweet spot for me)? I'm trying to focus on chest primarily and upper body. I am loosely following SL5x5 as my base then I add other stuff over and above that or else I don't feel like I've had a proper workout. So i alternate between squat days and deadlift days so as not to ignore lower body.

EDIT2: For chest I am usually doing 5-6 sets of bench press, then on to 5 sets of dips, then 5 sets of incline dumbbell press. Hence by that point my shoulders are fried.

EDIT: I suppose I can try follow Tinuva's advice to the tee?
Click to expand...
That was just an example, not a perfect program. I have to add, if you do follow a program like that, don't do it for more than 6-8 weeks, at which point you need to go back to a regular program. That program was designed for improving your bench press very fast over 6 weeks.

After that post, I learned something new, eg. you can make bench press harder, but better, by working on shoulders before you do bench press. That way, you also need to learn how to bench press without having your shoulders do majority of the work, which in itself is genius, because correct form on bench press require you to not use shoulders.

I am actually considering to a program like the example you quoted, but for shoulders as the main exercise. The thing about shoulders is, you have to be super careful not to hurt them, because if you do, you open yourself to a world of pain, an insane amounts of time will be needed for healing, so I will work the weights out mathematically to what should always be a safe margin, and at the 1st sign of problems I will back off and go back to look at what I did wrong.

Getting back to your question on shoulders, in the above program you will see, that you don't work 100% of your max possible weight, you work at max 90% on monday, 60% (which is super light IMHO) on wednesdays at 75%, even these will feel easy. Then you move on to a back exercise, then after that, your shoulders should feel more rested you move on to a shouder exercise. The program focus on a full upperbody workout 3 times a week.

Here is the actual program: http://www.bodybuildingworld.com/vol15_3/bench_press_advanced.html
Here is a google spreadsheet (as an example) on how I originally worked out the program based on the above url:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aovv6d045SPndERFN0VaUzE2d1VRc21xN1dhLTlYNHc&usp=sharing
1st tab is where you put in your current possible values, 2nd sheet is then the 6 week program.
You will have to change your smallest plate available to 2.5kg on the 1st tab, if you don't have access to 1.25kg plates, which may break that spreadsheet I think.
 
Just picked up Nutritech Whey - Chocolate. Had a scoop with some water and it was okay tasting, nothing special. Added a shot of fresh cream and used a stick blender.

Oh my.
 
LOL - chocolate isn't their best, my favourite is still banana cream, going to order on Monday again.

EDIT: Chromeshop's price is up - where's the cheapest for 3.2kg?
 
xrapidx said:
LOL - chocolate isn't their best, my favourite is still banana cream, going to order on Monday again.
Click to expand...

Didn't want to experiment too much at first, thought about the cookies and cream then decided to play it safe.
 
Tinuva said:
The thing about shoulders is, you have to be super careful not to hurt them, because if you do, you open yourself to a world of pain, an insane amounts of time will be needed for healing
Click to expand...

This is a problem I've had for a long time. I can't remember ever injuring my left shoulder, but even when I used to gym a few years ago there was always a niggling pain in what seems to be the joint. Really hampers my progress.
 
Well I'm officially at my first hurdle - I could finally complete 55kg bench last time, but the next weight up (60kg, dont have the 1.25kg plates) was death. Could barely get one set out, and decided to rather drop back to 55 for the rest of the sets.

So do I keep trying like that, or stay at 55kg and take shorter rests (today I took 90sec vs my previous 120-180), or something else?
 
Archer said:
Well I'm officially at my first hurdle - I could finally complete 55kg bench last time, but the next weight up (60kg, dont have the 1.25kg plates) was death. Could barely get one set out, and decided to rather drop back to 55 for the rest of the sets.

So do I keep trying like that, or stay at 55kg and take shorter rests (today I took 90sec vs my previous 120-180), or something else?
Click to expand...

What I did was 1st 55, 2nd set 55 then 3rd set 60, then next time 1st set 55, 2nd set 60, 3rd set 60, and so on.

Virgin Active only has the 2.5 and so far back up to 100, and progressing fine doing this.
 
Randhir said:
Didn't want to experiment too much at first, thought about the cookies and cream then decided to play it safe.
Click to expand...

xrapidx said:
LOL - chocolate isn't their best, my favourite is still banana cream, going to order on Monday again.

EDIT: Chromeshop's price is up - where's the cheapest for 3.2kg?
Click to expand...

Also picked up the 3.2kg Nutritech today. I played it even safer and got the Vanilla flavour as this will allow me to mix into other things.

Have you tried the cookies and cream?

Not sure if its a good price but its now R599 at Extreme Nutrition.
 
remus786 said:
Also picked up the 3.2kg Nutritech today. I played it even safer and got the Vanilla flavour as this will allow me to mix into other things.

Have you tried the cookies and cream?

Not sure if its a good price but its now R599 at Extreme Nutrition.
Click to expand...

1KG was R250.
 
Im 18, do i have potential??

mgDrij4.jpg
 
Randhir said:
This is a problem I've had for a long time. I can't remember ever injuring my left shoulder, but even when I used to gym a few years ago there was always a niggling pain in what seems to be the joint. Really hampers my progress.
Click to expand...

Had the same issue especially with bench press and also left shoulder joint, then I started doing pull-ups again and also always warm up my shoulder first with a set of light weights, no more shoulder problems and I give them a hammering.
 
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Hemps said:
Had the same issue especially with bench press and also left shoulder joint, then I started doing pull-ups again and also always warm up my shoulder first with a set of light weights, no more shoulder problems and I give them a hammering.
Click to expand...

Let's just say that if this is 2014, I expect to achieve my first pull-up hopefully in 2016 :D
 
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