Recent content by pwloiacano

I personally get more out of doing these seated. You have to lower the weight and up the reps. It forces you to use proper form and you cannot "rock" the dumbells up. Maybe doing these seated with a lower weight might solve your problem.

Smith Machine squats with a narrow stance.

Jay is definately in the top 5-7 of all time. At the lower end of that number. I still believe today that he is still in today's top 3-5 easily. But, there are two right now that stand out the best. Phil Heath & Kai Greene. Right now in the sport it is them, and then everyone else. As for...

I always use a weight belt when I lift. Same with wrist straps and knee wraps. In my mind, these things help prevent freak injuries and ensure that you are stabalized especially when performing heavy movements such as squats, bench, bent / t-bar rows, deadlifts. To hell with what people...

Phil Heath is by far the man to beat this year. He just has that "it" factor right now. He is on a roll. I think after that, you have Kai Greene as really the only one who has a chance to win if Phil for some reason comes in off his game a bit. Then you have a bunch of guys that will go for...

There are more and more studies that are proving that in order to gain muscle mass, you need to increase the time under tension that the muscle is exposed to. Higher reps, negative reps, and giant sets. I have been doing some workouts with the 30-20-15 format. Do 30 reps, rest 40 sec, then 20...

I have been using the twice per week back routine for quite a while now. It has really made a difference in my back development where you can concentrate on thickness one workout and width the next.

That is a tremendous lift! Congrats bro.

Rack pulls are a great overall exercise for the upper back if performed correctly. It isn't just about pulling a ton of weight up. It is important that you flare your chest outward and really contract your upper back and traps on the top. I used to do them with 5 plates for an easy 12-15 reps...

In my opinion, I think it is better to switch on and off with arm days. Right now, I do chest/tri's and Back/Bi's and that always seems to work best for me. But the nice part about doing arms alone is that you can go a lot heavier on bi's and tri's as they are not being pre-exhausted by the...

Hitting the chest from a few different incline angles is what has helped me. I start with a very low incline and go a bit heavier. Then, I make the incline a bit steeper lower the weight and really slow down the negative portion of the movement. Then, do a good drop set to end. Your chest...

Try the Hammer strength Decline. I find that this hits my lower pecs real well. Make sure to really contract hard on the top of the movement. Another thing to remember is genetics. If fat is hiding your lower pecs, then a better diet is in order. But, your body is what it is. Even if you...

When it comes to shoulder pain, the older you get, the smarter that you have to train. If you start doing something and it starts to really hurt, the best thing to do is stop. I have an arthritic left shoulder and there are times that I just have to lay off for a while. It's also funny that I...

One thing with the dumbells is that usually people have one side of their body that is either bigger or stronger than the other side or both. If it is noticeable, dumbells will be a very difficult exercise to perform because on barbells, you can compensate for that. Dumbells, you cannot. In...

You are right about the shoulders. I decided to start with incline dumbells saturday. On my heavy set (120's), I tweaked my shoulder. The good news is that I don't believe that anything is torn as I still have pretty much full range of motion. It just feels like a pinching sensation and...