Why side lateral raises generally suck
Written on 19 March 2008 by Marty GallagherIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Most lateral raises are technically executed so poorly they are rendered worthless. The problem is poundage. Too much weight turns the lateral raise, purportedly a deltoid isolator, into a piss-poor trapezius exercise. The prime considerations in a lateral raise are: range-of-motion and rep speed the velocity of the repetition during the eccentric (loaded) phase of the rep. If the poundage is too heavy the rep stroke inevitably shortens. All deltoid fiber stimulation occurs during the last third of a fully realized eccentric rep stroke. Im writing this having recently witnessed yet another incident of lateral raise abusive behavior.
This guy was making a huge show out of lifting a pair of 60s in the lateral raise. Of course he used a huge heave to get the weights started and barely moved them a foot. His version would more aptly be named lateral heaves. He used momentum to get the weight moving and tossed them upward but when they wanted to come down, they came down, in actuality he was following the weight hed thrown. He wasnt powering or controlling the weight he simply had his hands attached to poundage with a mind of its own. He didnt own the weight, the weight owned him. A proper lateral raise is exactly like it sounds you dont jerk and heave and contort, you raise the arm slowly outward and upward in the most disadvantageous way.
When the arms are parallel to the floor, hold this completed position for a split-second before lowering weight. Now thats how you do a legitimate, result-producing lateral raise! Frank Zane had a subtle technical variation that deserves passing along. He called it pouring the tea and was done at the top of each lateral raise rep. At the absolute apogee of the rep height, Zane would halt the weight and while it was suspended airborne he would swivel his wrists back and up. He described the technique: Use the same hand motion you would to pour tea out of a hot kettle. Frank had been a science teacher and always put a lot of thought into his training, this being but one example. Dorian Yates was strong as hell. He was the only guy I ever saw really man-handle a pair of sixty-pound dumbbell correctly. Purposefully slow rise, hold the top position before lowering slow and under complete control.
Done properly, the lateral raise is an exercise in continual tension. The real pros will not lower the bells downward all the way to the sides completely as this hand position is devoid of tension. The optimal goal is to establish a mind/muscle connection on the 1st rep of the 1st set. With complete concentration you mentally insist that each rep be lifted upward using delt power and delt power alone. You can arm lift a light dumbbells but what we seek is far subtlertotal deltoid isolation. More specifically side deltoid muscle isolation. With complete concentration you simply will not allow any other muscles to assist the side delt in powering the poundage upward. The odd angle, the disadvantageous leverage, the difficulty in achieving precise isolation of the deltoid, all combine to make the lateral raise a difficult exercise. On the other hand if you made a commitment to do them properly and precisely, laterals have a place in the training regimen albeit a secondary role to the overhead shoulder pressing exercises: compound multi-joint exercises that simultaneously stimulate groups of muscles.
Lateral raises can be an excellent isolation exercise, perfect for zeroing in on a particular muscle but only after the deltoids have been blasted by a compound multi-joint exercise. If you perform lateral raises do them strictly and correctly and make sure to place them in a secondary position on shoulder day. First hit overhead presses of some type, hard and heavy, then follow up with 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps in the strict lateral raise. Keep me apprised of lateral progress.
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Two back exercises worthy of consideration and inclusion in the rotation
Written on 11 February 2008 by Marty Gallagher
I love the big sweeping compound multi-joint exercises that require groups of muscles to work together in synchronization in order to complete the muscular task at hand. When it comes to working the back muscles it is important to understand that the human back has a half dozen component parts: erectors, teres, upper and lower latisimus, trapaezius, rhomboids and rear deltoids. Big back exercises activate multiple muscles and more often then not the hips and upper thighs. The smaller back isolation exercises zero in on one or two back muscles to the purposeful exclusion of its neighbors. The important big movements include all the deadlift variations, high pulls, cleans, power cleans, power snatches, shrugs and row variations. Chins and pull-ups are great compound back exercises particularly when the trainee becomes strong enough to hang weight around the waist. Two lesser used back exercises, one for the spinal erectors and one for the lats, are wonderfully effective and are seldom used. Both have a specific technical protocol that amplify their effectiveness and make them worthy of inclusion in any trainees exercise rotation list.
On a related side note: we all have exercise preferences but need to be on guard against using the favored ones exclusively ad infinitum. Continually using the same exercises in the same fashion for the same set and rep protocol becomes an exercise in futility. The human body is the great neutralizer and when presented with the same menu of exercises done in the same way will accustom itself to the stress and negate any results.
The human body reconfigures itself in response to muscle stress and trauma and doing the same thing in the same way will not create the stress needed to flip the hypertrophy switch. Bottomline: periodically rotate out of the lineup those pet exercises that you love and do all the time. Alter those favored rep ranges and change the exercise menu on a regularly reoccurring basis otherwise you are falling asleep in a figurative snowbank, to use a Jack London To Build a Fire analogy. My approach is to structure a workout that hits two body parts. I start with a compound multi-joint exercise (CMJ) for a particular body part then finish off with an isolation exercise. For a change of pace I will use a CMJ variation of the classic; if I am deadlifting and burnt out I could roll with deadlifts done while standing on a 100-pound plate or perhaps some stiff-leg deadlifts, either off the floor or off a plate. Periodically I would drop all deadlifting totally and completely. I would rotate in some other CMJ back exercise and allow all deadlift muscle to heal, recover and FORGET (in a manner of speaking) how to deadlift. By eliminating a particular favored exercise and all its variations completely for 4-5 weeks, when I swing back to that exercise the muscles involved are shocked out of their ever-loving minds. You know how to do the exercise in a technical sense so, like riding a bike, you never forget and are able to swing back into the movement with a vengeance.
Prone hyperextensions require a device that holds the legs in place as the athlete faces downward. The upper body is allowed to drop downward until the head is near the floor. The upper body stretches downward with the legs pinioned. The hip joint is the fulcrum and the upper body stretches down to the bottom to start the exercise. The athlete lifts the torso upward as high as possible. Hold the top position for a beat before lowering. I have my trainees rise up and at the apogee look up at the ceiling. This is a fabulous spinal erector developer. Try to work up to a 20-rep set. Once you are able to perform 20-reps, try 10-reps holding a 10 or 25-pound plate in your arms as you rep. If you are doing this exercise correct youll feel a pump in erectors. (The two twin python muscles that flank the spine) I like to end a good back workout with 2-3 sets of prone hyperextensions: on the first set I likely use zero poundage for 15-20 reps and on the second set I rep out holding a 45-pound plate. The critical performance point is to hold the top position for a beat before lowering. I like to arch as high as I can, hold that position for a second - then try and rise up higher yet before lowering. In the bottom position I like to relax and allow my bodyweight and the plate to stretch my muscles and elongate the spine before commencing the rep. Purposeful Primitives rotate three specific ranges-of-motion: normal, exaggerated and shortened. Use the exaggerated ROM on this magnificent exercise.
Straight arm pullovers are the second neglected back exercise. Lie on a flat bench and grasp a light dumbbell with two hands under one end. The hands circle the handle and grabs under one of the two ends of the bell. The other end of the dumbbell hangs down over your face. Lying with your head as near the end of the bench as possible, inhale and allow the bell to drop backwards over the end of the bench keeping your arms straight. Time the inhalation so that maximum expansion occurs as your lower the dumbbell towards the floor. Lower slowly, seeking maximum stretch in the lats. Try and touch the floor with the bell (likely you wont be able) when you can lower no further raise the poundage slowly; use only the lats to raise the weight. This is the key: the straight arms make leverage difficult. The stretch is incredible and must be done carefully; dont allow the bell to free-fall or you could tear or rip muscles. Since the poundage used is light you could explode the weight out of the bottom creating momentum and throw the weight back to the start position this is exactly what we dont want. Use a slowed lowering and slowed raising as this maximizes stress on the lats. Big inhale, big stretch, slow raise using lats and lats alone to raise the weight. Done properly the stretch is felt in the lats in real time. Shoot for ten reps using the continual tension, purposefully slow rep speed. Lats are super hard to isolate and this exercise allows me to zero in on the target muscle with a precision that need be experienced to appreciate.
Tags:bodybuilding Pure Strength Training Training and ExercisePopularity: 30% [?]
Trade secret #77 The stiff-leg deadlift
Written on 28 January 2008 by Marty GallagherKeith jogged my brain this past week by asking about tips the other day. I thought back and what percolated to the surface of my memory was the stiff-leg deadlift. Done as an assistance exercise for regular deadlifts, I was first introduced to them by the great Hugh Cassidy, the carefree Nietzsche of powerlifting. Hugh didnt cotton to too many exercises past squat, bench and deadlift, but the stiff-leg deadlift was one he insisted on. Religiously hed have us do two sets of stiffs after completing regular deadlifts. The technique was important. The bar stayed in contact with the leg the entire time, over the total length of the rep stroke. The hips were the hinge, the fulcrum, and this is where the real action took place. We all used a narrow-stance conventional deadlift style as per Hugh, with maybe six inches between the heelswe learned how to do the bow and arrow technique using a conventional pull stance.
The stiff leg was the number 1 assistance exercise. It worked the hell out of the hinge and thats what Cassidy wanted: to turn spinal erectors into industrial cranes. One Hugh truism which always stuck with me was, The best assistance exercises are the ones that most closely resemble the lift itself. That is profound if you ponder it.ergo, narrow and wide grip flat bench presses are superior assistance exercise to say the incline barbell or dumbbell press. Narrow stance high bar squats are a superior squat assistance exercise than leg presses. Stiff-leg deadlifts are therefore better than rows or cleans.
How to perform a stiff-leg deadlift properly:
Tags:bodybuilding Pure Strength Training Training and ExercisePopularity: 32% [?]
Optimal Training Time: You’ve got about an hour…Music and cardio
Written on 16 July 2007 by Marty GallagherYouve got about an hour: I have a lot of folks ask how long an exercise session should last. Experience and science both converge on this one: for someone in reasonably good condition, after 45 to 60 minutes energy starts to nosedive and the point of diminishing returns set in. There are two types of resistance training; intense and effective and not so intense and not so effective. 99% of people who take up weight training fall into the later category. Not necessarily out of laziness or because theyre bad people but because they dont know any better. No one has ever taken them aside and said, Look unless you really press the limit in various exercises nothing of any real consequence is going to occur. Unfortunately going through the motions, i.e., using the same poundage in the same exercise for the same number of sets and repetitions is going to result in little if any change. Only by pushing the body to do that which is has not done before do we trigger the adaptive response. That makes sense. Just look around when you go to the gym: if simply doing what you are capable of, if simply performing the same number of reps using the same poundage in the same exercise triggered the adaptive response, the gym would be crawling with muscle monsters. The human body does not reconfigure itself in response to sameness. The body only grows muscle and becomes stronger as a result of being pushed into new territory. Those who go through the motions, staying within their respective comfort zone can train for a long time. Those who train intensely enough to trigger hypertrophy have about an hour before the sheer intensity of the effort causes them to run completely out of energy: physical energy and psychic energy. If they dont run out of gas after a solid hour of bust-ass weight training then theyre either a Lance Armstrong aerobic anomaly (doubtful since genetically gifted endurance athletes are one in 100,000) or a person thinks theyre giving 105%.
Tags:Archive Blog bodybuilding overtraining Training and Exercise training timePopularity: 25% [?]
Welcome to the NEW MartyGallagher.com!
Written on 12 July 2007 by paperboyFor the first time in over two years, MartyGallagher.com has gone through a major site re-design! I think we were due, don’t you think?
Among the changes:
- New template
- New back-end Content Management System
- Single sign-on for both the Forum and the Blog
- Web 2.0-compliant — Easy to bookmark to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Technorati
- New domain (PurposefullyPrimitiveFitness.com) — we will use both domains interchangeably for now
- Easier search and navigation of older blog entries
- Support ticket system — you can fill out a form and check the status of any problems you encounter on the site
- And we’re not done!
More changes are coming, including reverting the header to the one we use in the Forum, as well as enhanced content features.
You might have also noticed that we have some things missing, most notably the Main sections of the old site (Pure Strength, Cardio, Riverhorse, etc.). We are holding on to this content and have plans to re-release them in another form. Stay tuned!
Here’s the best part…
All of this was designed to bring more traffic to our site and get the Purposefully Primitive Fitness word out to the masses!
“How can I help?”
Underneath every blog post, you’ll find a whole bunch of tiny icons. Each icon corresponds to a social bookmarking site, such as Digg. If you like a particular blog post, I highly highly encourage you to click on these buttons! The more people that click on them, the more popular that blog entry becomes, and the more people will see it. You’ll need to create an account at the particular site you’re bookmarking to, but a lot of us already have that. Please help us spread the word!
As always, your feedback is appreciated.
Also, if you have any problems with the site, please use our new Support Ticket system!
Marty and I would like to thank everyone who has been a part of this site from the beginning. Your continued support and generosity is greatly appreciated, and Marty will be back soon with all-new stuff. We have lots of things lined up, so make yourself at home and enjoy the ride!
Lee
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28-Day Beach Blitz Part 5 of 5: Weight Training and Cardio
Written on 9 May 2007 by Marty GallagherComplimentary Weight Training: Fast & Light
Picking a weight program to compliment a diet is like picking the perfect wine for a gourmet meal. The ideal progressive resistance training approach to compliment our 28-day, all-out diet assault could be summarized as follows: quick pace, slow rep speed, lift infrequently but lift intensely. All our efforts are directed at fat burning and in reality you are not going to build much muscle while operating in continual caloric deficit. The goal is to strip away the muscle-obscuring layer of lard. To that end we limit our weight training to two or three weekly lifting sessions with rest days in between. For beginner and intermediates, we recommend a whole body training session structured as follows:
Tags:bodybuilding Diet and Nutrition fat loss Training Training and ExercisePopularity: 100% [?]