Thread: Beyond brawn and a few other q's

all i can say is #2) yes

Ty for replying ma'am. Atleast I got that one correct hehe

1 - Behind the neck presses are bad, ive never heard anything dangerous about flys if done with good form, to pick either dumbells or barbells exclusively is stupid. They are both useful, and have their own strengths and weaknesses.

3 - Think in terms of whether the movement is a push or a pull, and whether its vertical or horizontal, rather than body parts or areas. That way its far easier to get a balance between the different categories and hit all the bases without overtraining.

4 - For reps means you do it for reps. As in plural, more than one. Basically its not your maximum.

5 - Yes. If you try to exert yourself without having any energy to fuel that activity of course thats bad.

1) Great book. Behind the neck presses can be rough on the shoulder and I am not a fan of teaching them. I leave them out as, like McRoberts says, I prefer DBs or BB press to the front. Flyes can be tough on the shoulders if you have shoulder issues. I usually leave them out because I would rather spend time pressing if I am going to work my chest.

2) Erectors refers to spinal errectos (or erretor spinae). It is a group of muscles (Illiocostalis, Longissimus and spinalis) which span your entire back (spinalis going all the way up into the cervical spine) and help to extend your back and maintain an erect posture.

3) When you are working the back you are usualy work on muscles that pull. You typically don't isolate muscles, as several things work in concert to produce a movement. Think of things as movements as not muscles.

4) I usually refer to anything over 5 reps as "going for reps." 5 reps and below I consider myself to be more working on limit strength and less on muscular endurance (or hypertrophy or the repetitive effort or going for reps or whatever people what to call it). But, I don't know if that is how McRoberts defines that phrase.

5) eating before a workout is essential to being adequatly fueld in order to exhaust yourself and lift heavy. If anything, you can try and get a shake in if you don't have time for a full meal.

Tyvm for taking time to reply to my bunch of questions
Gazhole : well sir, I guess I'll use DB's too and not just BB.I am still trying to make myself think of an exercise as a push/pull move ,as all this time I'd just read of them as relating to muscles/areas.I have a very long way to go before I manage to write a routine which is balanced.Thank you for explaining stuff, sir.Btw sir, a vertical pull means a pull movement in which the body is vertical right?

P-funk: Yes sir, I will give a preference to the press moves than to flyes,its just that when I tried flyes it seemed to hit the chest a bit more , I think.Still trying to think of stuff as moves even though its a bit strange for me as of now hehe.Yes sir, I will try to get some sort of food intake before I work out.Thank you sir, for the explanations.

Originally Posted by maltesecorsair

Tyvm for taking time to reply to my bunch of questions
Gazhole : well sir, I guess I'll use DB's too and not just BB.I am still trying to make myself think of an exercise as a push/pull move ,as all this time I'd just read of them as relating to muscles/areas.I have a very long way to go before I manage to write a routine which is balanced.Thank you for explaining stuff, sir.Btw sir, a vertical pull means a pull movement in which the body is vertical right?

Balancing a program is easy, just pick the same number of movements for Upper Pull, Upper Push, Lower Pull, and Lower Push movements. If youre really anal about it you can balance horizontal and vertical movements aswell.

And yeah, vertical pulls are like Pullups, chinups, lat pulldowns etc.