Gym And Supplement Discussion

[Birds]

Cool, just part of OCD routine. That unrack usually tells me if I'll be able to lift it or not.

[TM7GTR]

How so ^ ?

When you unrack it, the bar isn't over your chest, so you have no where near as much strength

[Husky33]

I always unrack it myself, i'm pretty ocd with certain things in the gym.

[TTT]

I train at home so always on my own aswell.

but on the day I let a helper monkey do it.

[Birds]

How so ^ ?

When you unrack it, the bar isn't over your chest, so you have no where near as much strength

It's sort of a warmup for me...after years of doing bench I've connected the two and I can tell at the top of the unrack if the rest is going to be a struggle. Gives you a feel for the weight before you lower that sucker down.

[TTT]

Birds - Do you bench with a flat back and elbows flared out?

The reason I ask is if you watch a powerlifter bench (or more so the setup for bench), you'll see why the majority get a hand out from the rack.

example..

[TM7GTR]

Holy shit he puts his legs far back

[Birds]

Birds - Do you bench with a flat back and elbows flared out?

The reason I ask is if you watch a powerlifter bench (or more so the setup for bench), you'll see why the majority get a hand out from the rack.

example..

Woah crab...guy has created his own decline bench!

Yeah my back is flat and legs out in front, feet flat on the floor...minimal leg drive lol. I can see how his position would need a lift off. What do you mean by elbows flared?

[TTT]

Flared as in, in the down position in bench press, are your elbows 90 degrees out from your sides?

If that is you and you can bench 120+, learning to do it in PL fashion could give you a bit more (if you have the lats and tricep strength)

This picture shows a setup pretty nicely.

Notice how with the back arched and chest flared, the hand position is kind of over the lower end of your chest instead of middle/upper in the left pic.

But your comment of "creating your own decline bench" is pretty accurate.

puts you in a much stronger position

[Birds]

Ah k, nah I don't flare out like that...they sit closer to 45 degrees. But my back is flat. I'm guessing chest expanded also means slightly less ROM, so a touch easier to push heavier weights from a pause.

[TTT]

Yeah.

puts the shoulders in a stronger position too.

Dave Tate goes in to great detail about setting up to do bench press.

I still can't get the leg drive thing right, but have managed to kind of sort out the shoulder and scapula position a bit better.

basically, I can bench with the current shoulder issue if I get my shoulders pinned back and down correctly.

Don't get me wrong, plenty of strong people bench with their back flat on the bench..

Markos is a big believer of getting stronger to lift a weight rather than getting in a different position to make the bench easier.

one of his trainers Jack (the big fella) benches flat on the bench and has benched up to 180kg I think.

[rev210]

I still can't get the leg drive thing right, but have managed to kind of sort out the shoulder and scapula position a bit better.

basically, I can bench with the current shoulder issue if I get my shoulders pinned back and down correctly.

whats the shoulder issue you have?

[TTT]

External rotation pain.

Can't tell exactly if is infraspinatus, supraspinatus, or subscapularis so assuming all of them.. lol

Pain got worse over time.

Due to overuse and not enough back/rear delt work.

first visit to the physio for it he told me to stand up, bend my arm and put the back of my hand against my lower back above belt line. Then to lift it away from my back in that position.

I thought my brain broke when it wouldn't move at all.

So there are some non active muscles back there that I'm starting to work somewhat.

Currently benching 60kg for 3 sets of 12 without pain so working at it slowly.

Hurts a bit after squats (low bar) but it goes away soon after.

Doing a bunch of band rotator cuff work for it and lots of rows and chins.

[rev210]

External rotation pain.

Can't tell exactly if is infraspinatus, supraspinatus, or subscapularis so assuming all of them.. lol

Pain got worse over time.

Due to overuse and not enough back/rear delt work.

first visit to the physio for it he told me to stand up, bend my arm and put the back of my hand against my lower back above belt line. Then to lift it away from my back in that position.

I thought my brain broke when it wouldn't move at all.

So there are some non active muscles back there that I'm starting to work somewhat.

Currently benching 60kg for 3 sets of 12 without pain so working at it slowly.

Hurts a bit after squats (low bar) but it goes away soon after.

Doing a bunch of band rotator cuff work for it and lots of rows and chins.

bench press-itis. I have had that a long time ago.

Doing the band work is good. Lay on a cricket ball roll on the muscles.

Most important. Do not do bench press.

I know you are doing dinky weights but, bench is only going to slow the recovery alot. As hard as it is you must walk away so you can come back and do some real heavy benching.

My advice is get the rotators to the point where you can start to do cuban press, along with the other upper back things. Although I would also reccomend avoiding any heavy back movements that involve the rotators stabilising. Until they are 'tough' the rotators will just get cained. The worse thing is that they often don't give any pain feedback whilst they are being inflamed or impinged.

Cuban press is your friend. For you I would reccomend trying light weights on a back extension, holding the back extension and then doing the Cuban press with dumbells. If Cubans are out then rear delt raises the same way.

[Brotato]

Gotta warm up them rotator cuffs!

[TTT]

I hear what you are saying rev. But I have 2 comps this year that I am doing. Bench has always been shit anyway.

Best of 110kg in a comp.

That was the reason I did a program where I benched 4 times a week. Max bench stayed the same and I picked up this condition.

After June I'll stop bench for a while.

Meantime I'm going with the physios word.

I'll look up what these Cuban presses are

[Birds]

It may not help with already injured joints...and it's probably the most debated thing in the exercise world...but I'm a big advocator of stretching before upper body movements, particularly bench.

I do an "across the body" stretch for each arm, rotating the hand around at the same time to stretch the wrists. Then I do "helicopters", i.e. slow, individual swinging of arms backwards, then forwards. This warms up the rotator cuffs and plays smoke detector for any underlying issues I might have in the shoulder joints, e.g. slept on my shoulder the night before. Then I do shrugs backwards and shrugs forwards.

Since doing this, I've never had an injury caused by exercise, only aggravated by it (but even that's rare). Have also been able to work through a lot of minor joint issues and tears by using the stretches to gauge severity (do not recommend this for gym noobs who don't know their body very well).

[Mitcho_7]

first visit to the physio for it he told me to stand up, bend my arm and put the back of my hand against my lower back above belt line. Then to lift it away from my back in that position.

That my good man, is usually a solid indication of a decent sized infraspinatus tear or worst case scenario, rupture.

Birds, warm up is no doubt important, but there's plenty of research out there to show that static stretching reduces strength/power. So it's probably better to dynamic stretching or just stick with stretching in the movement with progressively heavier weights.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Mitcho_7

[JEPPE]

Got my body scan today. I'm in the mid lean which was different to what I expected, thought more fatty fat fat.

Was pretty interesting!

[Birds]

Ladies and gentlemen, the other side of the debate:

Birds, warm up is no doubt important, but there's plenty of research out there to show that static stretching reduces strength/power. So it's probably better to dynamic stretching or just stick with stretching in the movement with progressively heavier weights.

Have heard it all, but I stand by it. I also leave a couple minutes between stretching and my first set, which I believe reduces these effects.