A FEW MAJOR TRAINING QUESIONS...

[2-Swole]

Question 1: do u guys stretch before starting in on the weights??? I have been reading alot about how it supposedly lowers your strength on the weights or somethin...who here stretches or no and why???

Question 2: I have been hearing from some experienced bros to never start a workout with a basic exercise i.e. bench on chest day, squat on leg day, shoulder press on shoulder day etc. and instead to always start with more of an isolation exercise i.e. rear delts on shoulder day...What do u guys think of this concept???

2-Swole

[T-Man007]

Re: A FEW MAJOR TRAINING QUESIONS...

Question 1: do u guys stretch before starting in on the weights??? I have been reading alot about how it supposedly lowers your strength on the weights or somethin...who here stretches or no and why???

Question 2: I have been hearing from some experienced bros to never start a workout with a basic exercise i.e. bench on chest day, squat on leg day, shoulder press on shoulder day etc. and instead to always start with more of an isolation exercise i.e. rear delts on shoulder day...What do u guys think of this concept???

2-Swole

1: I personally think the lower weight thing is TOTAL BS!! It's a proven fact that stretching increases blood flow, therefor stretching will help a muscle recover faster IMO. I have been applying stretches between sets for a while and it's never effected my weights. I do my first light warm up and then stretch that muscle. It doesn't matter what it is, biceps, chest, quads, back, I stretch it after the two warm up sets and then after the first working set. I only do one to two working sets, depending on the muscle, so I'm basically stretching between almost every set. I have never seen this hinder my strength, if anything I feel more ready to go again than when I don't stretch. Think about how a muscle works during a lift. You can only go so long with a certain weight and then your muscle is fatigued. If stretching increases blood flow, then that would get nutrient rich blood back in the muscle faster than not stretching. I read a few atricles on the whole loss in strength and I think it's purely psychological. I don't notice any more or any less strength either way. What I do notice is that by using my inbetween set time to stretch, I don't have to spend 15 minutes or so after my workout stretching. I've already done it and I've done it numerous times. On chest day, I will literally stretch my pecs about six different times. I believe a more flexible muscle is one that is less likely to get injured. With that said, I DO NOT strech before my first set, I stretch after my first set. The first set, IMO, gets the muscle a little warmed up and prepared for stretching. You have to consider just how much stress goes on a muslce during stretching, it's not wise to do that when cold. I also progressively increase the stretch each time. Think about how far you stretch your quad and tell me one exercise that you do that duplicates that? IMO, it's not wise to stretch that far while cold. So, I increase the stretch as I get warmer.

2. There are truths to both arguments. If your goal is to increase strength, which it should be no matter what. The stronger you get, the more tissue you are going to lay down. So, doing squats first while you are fresh will allow you to use more weight and therefore increase GH release from the additional stress and allow you to get stronger. Again, the stronger you get, the more tissue you will lay down. With that said, there are also advantages to the isolation first because of the pre-exhaust effect. If you wear your quads out doing leg extensions and then go to squats, you body will be forced to call on other muscles more because the quads are fatigued. This is been a popular approach for a long time. The thing is, it really only works best with legs IMO. Take chest for example, you go and wear out your pecs doing flies or pec deck and then go to bench. First, you will have to drop the weight because your pecs are fatigued and then you will be calling more on the anterior delts and triceps to get the lift completed. Of course, if your goal is to get a stronger chest and you do this approach for say six weeks and then change back to bench first, you should notice a nice jump in bench because you will have increased your delt and tricep strength in that exercise. BUT....if you really want to get those two muscles stronger, just do dips. I have found that an increase in dip strength carries over into bench strength. This may just be me, but that's what I have found.

Here's my advice on how to approach these the isolation thing. I am a bigger fan of using a compound/isolation superset than anything else. I have found that not only does it carry over into increased strenght but it also forces the muscle to call on more fibers to complete the exercise. For example, I will do incline dumbbell presses and then immediately go to incline flies with only enough rest to drop one set of db's and pick up the other pair already on the floor by the incline bench (set it up to reduce time). I got this from Nasser and it has really helped my chest more than anything else. The way Nasser does it is an incline db press/flat fly superset and then a decline db press/decline fly superset. I do this, I do incline/incline, flat/flat, and decline/decline. I mix it up everytime I do it. I will also do it with bb too. I do NOT do the flies first, ever. I want to use more weight and then exhaust the muscle even more with the flies. I do two sets of this and that's it, trust me, the muscle has received the message by then. For quads, I do leg extension/squat superset. On these, I will do the extensions first for the sole purpose of getting other muscles in my thighs called in to help with the squats. I have also done a squat/leg press superset. This one requires that you used about half what you normally do on leg press but man will it tear your thighs to pieces. But, for delts, there is no way to do this because presses are the only compound move. Well, there are uprights, but I don't like those things. With back, I like to superset a row with a pull down or a wide pull down with a narrow one or two different rowing exercises. I have also supersetted bb shrugs with db shrugs, that will get you sore as hell for sure. But, calves, it doesn't work. IMO, muscles like calves, biceps, triceps and delts respond better to drop sets than they do supersets. Two bicep exercises back to back will just result in the second exercise being done with much less weight than you could have done. But, a bicep set with a few drop sets really pushed that one set way past failure. Doran Yates was a big fan of drop sets. He used drops, forced reps and rest pause and he only did one working set. That one set was so intesne that it was all the muscle needed.

My thing is this....I try to use different high intensity approaches each workout. I have learned what works best for my body but I also mix in other things to avoid getting used to anything. I try to never do the same thing two workouts in a row. For me, this works great. Now, if I'm specifically trying to get stronger on a certain lift, I will focus on that lift first for about six weeks and then go back to mixing things up. I personally NEVER try to stay on a strength increase phase. I use reps as high as 20 to give my joints a break and work the tendons more. I never stay in on rep range very long unless like I said, I am specifically trying to increase on exercise. I also never try to increase too many exercises during the same phase. If I'm really working on addind say 25 pounds to my bench weight for eight reps, I'll work at that for six weeks and then move on to say deads. I personally never go lower than five to six reps. I have never experienced any benefit from reps lower than that.

Anyway, sorry to babble on so much but hopefully that helps.

[2-Swole]

Re: A FEW MAJOR TRAINING QUESIONS...

WOW THIS IS GREAT!!! VERY VERY INFORMATIVE!!!

[kite]

Re: A FEW MAJOR TRAINING QUESIONS...

1. Yes I do some stretching, I don't think anyone should go overboard on it though. I do a little before I train and a little after, I've found that it helps with recovery.
2. I powerlift so doing any sort of iso work before hand would be counter productive. I'm a firm believer in doin your compound movements in the begining while your fresh. This also makes sense from an injury prevention stand point as well. If you pre-exhaust a muscle then move to compound movements your form may be off and end up injuring yourself.
Just my opinion.

[daved150]

Re: A FEW MAJOR TRAINING QUESIONS...

question 1. yes, i stretch. mainly shoulders, before all upper body workouts.

quetion 2. sounds like pre-exuasting the targeted muscle. i use that at various time through the year just to change it up. i'm not a fan of any one style of training for any longer than 8 weeks at a time...