Thread: number of exercises

This is something I am interested in also. I mean most people and most websites say 2 - 3 exercises only for Bicep's since they're such a small muscle and easily over-trained. I am not seeing much gains in the bicep area so I was thinking about increasing my Bicep routine to something like this:

Hammer Curls 2x10
Standing BB Curls 2x6 (Heavy)
Single Arm Concentration Curls 3x8
Chin-Ups 2xMax

I haven't done anything for my biceps or triceps for some time. They get worked enough in heavier compound movements.

i havent done any direct bi/tri work in a couple of years. I keep meaning to do a couple of sets at the end of a complimentary workout but never do.

does anyone here notice any gains from adding iso bi/tri work to the end of a pull/push???

My arms grew about 2 inches over 6 months after dropping isolation and putting more effort into compounds.

What's more productive? A 35 lb arm curl, or pullups at 195 lbs bodyweight with an additional 35-45 lbs and bent-over BB rows with 165 lbs?

so what compund exercises work tripes and what work biceps?

do you only work chest shoulder back and legs ?

I don't think I'm going drop doing bicep curls or hammers. Hammers for sure not. They help form that outer muscle. Plus I like doing them.

surely there must be good reason to do isolation for these body parts?

Originally Posted by premo

so what compund exercises work tripes and what work biceps?

do you only work chest shoulder back and legs ?

I don't train in terms of muscle groups. I train push/pull. That training style focusses on balancing compound movements for every direction the body can push/pull objects. You can train every muscle in the body (several times over) by using six basic lifts.

Currently, I'm on a volume program I put together. It's a 4-day split:

(1.) Lower Push/Calves
(2.) Upper Horizontal Push/Vertical Pull
(3.) Lower Pull/Calves
(4.) Upper Vertical Push/Horizontal Pull

*aside from calves, there are no isolation movements

Originally Posted by ceazur

I don't think I'm going drop doing bicep curls or hammers. Hammers for sure not. They help form that outer muscle. Plus I like doing them.

Just like how you can't isolate an upper, lower, mid, outer, inner chest, you can't isolate the outer or inner biceps. Certain movements can't place a slight more emphasis on certain regions, but ultimately lifting variation provides only a new stimulus for general strength and development.

For instance, if someone trained chest with nothing but incline bench for years it's not as though they would develop odd muscle lumps at the top of their chest. The whole chest would develop; it might just be a slight bit stronger higher above.

Anyway, if you enjoy training biceps with a neutral grip for the added emphasis on the brachialis, why not go for neutral grip pullups, dumbell unilateral bench rows, close-grip BB rows, close-grip V-bar chins, etc?

You could also experiment with your deads and use a hex-bar so that you're gripping neutral. Many people fail to acknowledge how involved the arms are in deadlifts. Even in squats your arms are having to do some stabalizing.

Also, another overlooked lift with secondary benefits for the arms -- particularly forearms -- are hang cleans. I'm not kidding, give them a go and watch the blood fill them to the point of popping like a baloon. I made a hang clean PR last night and directly had to go to bent-over BB rows. I thought my forearms were going to burst.

what exercises do you do on upper push and upper pull days ? how long have you been training this way

Originally Posted by premo

what exercises do you do on upper push and upper pull days ? how long have you been training this way

Tomorrow is day four of week 2, so I've basically completed 2 weeks.

I wouldn't advise you go for this program if that's what you're leaning at. You have to be careful with volume. This is a particularly brutal program; it goes against many common training/rest principles, which is why I've set up the intensities to avoid overtraining. Also, I plan to follow a 1-week deloading phase each month. So, I train 3 weeks, rest 1, then repeat the process for 4 months.

Upper Horizontal Push/Vertical Pull

(1.) Dead Press -- AND --
(2.) (weighted) Pullups --------------------- 5 x 5 @ 5-6 RM w/ 2 min RI

(3.) Bar Dips -- AND --
(4.) Close-Grip V-Bar Chinups ------------ 4 x 8 @ 10 RM w/ 1.5 min RI

(5.) Incline DB Chest Press -- AND --
(6.) Lat-Pulldowns ---------------------- 3 x 15 @ 18-19 RM w/ 1 min RI (*** this is the only machine lift in the program...I included it only because with the volume it would have been overkill to include another pullup variation -- especially for 3 sets of 15, which I would NOT be able to do)


The emphasis of the program is on the heavy lifts to get my major lifts up. The rest is accessory for conditioning and hypertrophy.

Also, the only reason I'm able to follow this program without overtraining is my diet is calculated down to the gram. It's a major pain in the ass measuring foods and having to read package on everything to calculate in my head how many ounces or grams it is and how many nutrients I'll get from that based on bioavailability, but it's damn worth it.

The first week on this program was torture. However, by week 2 I was already acclimatized to the volume and am now already seeing results.

Don't add more work. Either change the exercise to something else for a bit of variety, or do less sets/exercises. I'd wager most people are grossly overtraining rather than undertraining muscles like the arms and chest.

In my experience, like Phineas has explained, i think direct arm work is largely un-necessary for all but the most advanced trainees. I literally do 2-3 sets of arm work a week maximum. Usually hammer curls.

Most programs i do have absolutely no isolation work for arms, or anything else for that matter. If anything my progress has benefited rather than suffered, and i'm not even specifically training for size, lol.

You do heavy compounds on a regular basis without extra useless shit eating into your recovery ability it's pretty hard NOT to grow.

ok so for example you only do bench press for chest and you alternate between say incline and flat week to week?

So what day would I incorporate hang cleans into my routine?

Originally Posted by ceazur

So what day would I incorporate hang cleans into my routine?

I class them as an upper pull. There is a lot of hip involvement but not so much as a clean from the floor, which i'd put on lower pull day.

Depending on what else is going on in those workouts will also affect where olympic lifts go. They're all so fullbody i tend to put them where i can get the best performance out of them.

Right now i'm doing hang cleans after squats because my posterior chain and traps are fried after deadlifts in my other workout. If you can't pigeonhole an exercise, put it where it makes sense in the program.

Originally Posted by premo

so what compund exercises work tripes and what work biceps?

Forgot to answer this.

Biceps: horizontal and vertical pull. Any compound movement where you pull objects towards your torso in a horizontal or vertical plane.

Vertical: pullups, chinups, pulldowns

Horizontal: bent-over rows, close-grip rows, seated rows, dumbbell unilateral rows, supine rows

Triceps: horizontal and vertical push. Any compound movement where you push objects away from your torso in a horizontal or vertical plane.

Vertical: shoulder press, military press, push press, corner press, arnold press

Horizontal: bench press, dumbbell chest press, bar dips, dead press, floor press, rack lockouts

Originally Posted by premo

ok so for example you only do bench press for chest and you alternate between say incline and flat week to week?

Don't take the shock principle too far. You want to keep an exercise long enough to gauge progress.

Originally Posted by ceazur

So what day would I incorporate hang cleans into my routine?

There are several options.

(1.) If you follow a push/pull split with a session for upper pushing or with upper horizontal pull/vertical push, then perform the hang cleans with the vertical pushes -- ideally as the first push or lift all together.

(2.) If you follow a push/pull split with one session for all pushing and one for all pulling you could put them wherever your vertical push would go. However, if you split it as lower pull/upper push then the posterior chain fatigue from your lower pull may interfere with your hang cleans. In that case, use a push session, so squats, hang cleans, bench.

(3.) If you follow something like westside or conjugated training, ala Gaz, perform hang cleans in a dynamic effort/power session.

(4.) If all else fails, perform them wherever you feel you can get the most out of them.

FYI -- while it will always be debated, I consider hang cleans to be a vertical push for the apparent shoulder-dominance of the lift. The forward lean isn't great enough to allow the hips to dominate the lift. A clean from the floor I would consider lower pull, if anything besides dynamic full-body. However, a hang clean puts emphasis on the second pull of a traditional clean. While it's still a full-body lift, the emphasis is arguably the shoulders -- and, that's likely where you'll see the most developement in terms of hypertrophy.

Read the stickies.

Originally Posted by Phineas

FYI -- while it will always be debated, I consider hang cleans to be a vertical push for the apparent shoulder-dominance of the lift. The forward lean isn't great enough to allow the hips to dominate the lift. A clean from the floor I would consider lower pull, if anything besides dynamic full-body. However, a hang clean puts emphasis on the second pull of a traditional clean. While it's still a full-body lift, the emphasis is arguably the shoulders -- and, that's likely where you'll see the most developement in terms of hypertrophy.

I disagree.

I don't believe you can define any type of clean as a "push" or "pull". But if you were going to look at the primary movers of the bar in a hang clean, you'd see that the traps, hams, and calves are doing most of the work. Look at the position a lifter is in during triple extension (the second pull) and this is apparent.

If anything cleans work your traditional "upper pull" muscles more than the traditional "upper push" muscles. The rear deltoids are involved to an extent along with the heavy involvement of the traps. There's virtually no involvement of the chest muscles or the triceps.

It's splitting hairs though - the most important thing is to include them somewhere.

Originally Posted by MyK 3.0

i havent done any direct bi/tri work in a couple of years. I keep meaning to do a couple of sets at the end of a complimentary workout but never do.

does anyone here notice any gains from adding iso bi/tri work to the end of a pull/push???

I do push/pull/legs, and find that 3-4 sets of direct biceps work on a pull day seems to be optimal for me. Anything more starts leading to over training. I am training naturally, so the rules change if you are running AS or PH.

For me my back routine takes care of my biceps
Weighted underhand grip pull ups = Curls
Weighted neutral grip pull ups = hammer/reverse curls

I do isolation work for triceps, usually a few sets of french press after bench. Since the triceps are a bigger muscle than biceps I feel they can handle the additional load, plus I don't like close grip bench or even bench and don't do nearly the same amount of volume on bench as I do on pull ups.

Originally Posted by gtbmed

I disagree.

I don't believe you can define any type of clean as a "push" or "pull". But if you were going to look at the primary movers of the bar in a hang clean, you'd see that the traps, hams, and calves are doing most of the work. Look at the position a lifter is in during triple extension (the second pull) and this is apparent.

If anything cleans work your traditional "upper pull" muscles more than the traditional "upper push" muscles. The rear deltoids are involved to an extent along with the heavy involvement of the traps. There's virtually no involvement of the chest muscles or the triceps.

It's splitting hairs though - the most important thing is to include them somewhere.

True, but in the context of bodybuilding and strength training hang cleans are usually used for shoulder strength/development.

Also, during the concentric phase the weight is moving away from the torso vertically -- another reason to classify it as a push.

Ya, I would say cleans are more of a push then a pull. It's weird though, because I have seen a Huge increase in my traps and not much in my shoulders since doing cleans. I guess it could go either way. If I split up my days into push and pull, I would def use it on pull day though. Have you really gotten stronger shoulders from doing cleans?

Cleans use push and pull, but a lot more pull than push.

can any one who has or currently does the push pull work out please post up there programs so i can see what exercises they do?

Originally Posted by premo

can any one who has or currently does the push pull work out please post up there programs so i can see what exercises they do?

Ye Ill second that

Phineas already gave you some examples, but here is a basic way of looking at it:

PUSH:
- Moves the weight away from you.
- Usually extends a limb.
- Involves the anterior musculature such as the quads, delts, and chest.
- E.G. Squats, Step Ups, Military Press, Bench Press.

PULL:
- Moves the weight towards you.
- Usually flexes a limb.
- Involves the muscles of the back and posterior chain.
- E.G. Deadlifts, Good Mornings, Rows, Pullups.

If you look at any exercise you can generally tick two of the three boxes in either Push or Pull. Problems arise when looking at lower body, olympic, or fullbody exercises usually.

In terms of building a program around this, just give it a whirl. 3x week, 20 sets max a session, and only one isolation exercise max are the rules i usually go by.

Originally Posted by KelJu

I do push/pull/legs, and find that 3-4 sets of direct biceps work on a pull day seems to be optimal for me. Anything more starts leading to over training. I am training naturally, so the rules change if you are running AS or PH.

yeah, I've been creeping your journal. you are rediculous! I have a week off next week, so maybe I will sit down and write an actual routine and start a journal. no AS or PH here....