My training History: I trained less than one year before competing in my first powerlifting meet as a teenager back in 1983. Before leaving the sport partially due to injuries in 2005 I achieved my elitefts status in the 198,220,242,275 & 308 weight class. Throughout these years I did have a 3 year run in the bodybuilding world. I have degenerative joint disease, have had two shoulder surgeries (right shoulder now needs replaced), one full hip replacement, knee surgery, and herniation's in all three regions of my spine, Bone spurs (all joints). I can't even begin to list the number of muscle tears I have had, surgical and non surgical. I am "The Mashed Up Meathead" and this is my story.
You can find my training log archives HERE and my most current training log posts HERE.
My best lifts are behind be but my best training is yet to come.
* Unless otherwise noted the tempo of the work sets is about 1/2 of what most would consider normal. In most cases, if I did the set with normal temp what I fail at with 8-10 reps in training I could do for 20 reps with a normal tempo. This is to keep the joint stress down while increase the stress on the muscle. I have found this to work best for me provided the conditions listed in my training history above.
Saturday back training.
Swiss bar, lat pull-downs.
With this exercise, we use the original Swiss bar with three grips, performed five warm-up sets with the outer handles of 10-12 repetitions and then proceeded to do three work sets of 8-10 reps with each handle starting from the outside and working in, so that would be three work sets with the outside handles, followed by three work sets with the middle handles, followed by three work sets with the inside handles. The way this exercise is executed is to keep a slight arch in the lower back, not a big arch but a slight arch, and to act like somebody has a string attached to your sternum and is pulling that upward. This way, when you pull down, you're using more of your lats and less of your arms.
The other factor with this is to make sure you're getting a stretch at the top of the movement, instigating the movement with your lats and then trying to get the Swiss bar to touch your chest in the bottom position by driving your elbows down as hard as you can.
Chest-supported rows using kettle bells on a prone bench.
The bench that we use is about the same as what an incline bench would be, but it's made for rows and rowing-type movements. The cool thing about using the kettle bells for these rows is, when you typically use any type of chest-supported row bench or any type of prone row bench, unless you're using a camber bar, the barbell is usually going to end up hitting the bench before you get a full range of motion because you do have a two-inch thick bench pad and then usually a two-inch or more piece of steel underneath that pad that's between your torso and the bar.
A bench like this will inhibit how far you're able to pull the bar or how high you're able to pull your elbows up. It shortens the range of motion. Even if you're using dumbbells you can't get your elbows up high enough. The benefit of using the kettle bell on this exercise is the kettle bell handle is higher than what the actual weight of the bell is, so you're able to get an additional three to four inches of motion at the top to be able to get a better contraction throughout the rhomboids than you would using another implement. With this, we get two warm-up sets and then six work sets of 8-10 repetitions all sets to failure.
Straight-arm cable pull-downs using the four-inch grenade ball.
I like this exercise a lot because I can't do dumbbell pull-overs because of my shoulder, so this is the next best thing I'm able to do. I cup the grenade ball with both hands and then stand back a little bit from the cable machine so at the top I do get a stretch in the lats, but not so much that I begin to feel the shoulders grinding or the shoulder joint being jacked up at the top. I let it pull up until there's a stretch in the lats and then begin to move them with the lat retraction. I then pull down until I can get the hardest contraction I can throughout the entire lat area. Do warm-up sets of 15 and then six sets of 12-15 repetitions.
Assisted chin-ups using the chin-up machine.
This is no different than any other machine. You kneel on the machine. You've got to counter-balance. It takes some of your body weight off, so you're able to do chin-ups with less of your body weight. It's great for me because my body weight is between 260 and 270, making chin-ups with proper form and tempo extremely hard, if not impossible, to do. The added layer of difficulty for me is the shoulder issues that I have. All these can be taken out of the equation if I can reduce my weight by 25-30%. Do two warm-up sets of 6-8 reps and then six work sets of 6-8 reps, all sets to failure using a neutral grip.
Hise shrug using the standing calf machine.
This is a trap exercise that I use a lot. I probably use this exercise for my own personal trap training than any other exercise that I do. There are several reasons for this. One, it's very easy to set up, so there's no grabbing the heavy dumbbells, there's no setting up a barbell on a power rack. You can't get anymore simple than just standing up under a machine, so the time setting up is minimal.
The second reason for it is there's no weight in my hands, which has taken a lot of the stress off of the joint capsule, my shoulder joint capsule, because it's not pulling down. This has advantages and it has disadvantages. The advantage is I don't have that stress on the joint capsule throughout the range of motion. I don't have to worry about the shoulder rotating or moving in a position that's going to grind the joint any worse than it already is. The disadvantage is, I'm not getting a lot of the loaded stretch at the bottom, which can be very beneficial for the joint health. As you'll see later, I do get that throughout a different exercise and it is in the program. It's just not in the program with this movement.
The way I execute this movement is stand under the machine the same way that you would a standing calf raise, except your feet are on the floor, they're not on the step that you would do the calf raises with. Make sure that you have to step up, you have to do a quarter-squat to get the pads up and then stand prone so the weight is bearing down on the outside of your shoulders, so you're feeling the stretch in your traps, shrug your shoulders up as high as you possibly can, use a two count and then lower slowly with control. I use a four count to lower, so I use a normal tempo to get the weight up and I'll hold for two and then lower for four. You usually do three to four warm-up sets and that is to feel out the weight on how much weight I'm going to need to use. I want to be able to fail between 8-12 repetitions. Usually I can dial that in within two to three sets to figure out what the weight's going to be.
Once I figure out what the work weight's going to be, I will do five to six work sets, failing between 8-12 repetitions. On this day, I did six work sets. One of the other things that I do on this, is I will slightly change my hand position on every set, so I do set the pads up so they are far back on my shoulders so it's not bending me forward at the waist in any way whatsoever. I will do some sets, in this case, on this day, three sets with my hands positioned a few inches in front of my quads and then a few sets with my hands positioned as far back as I possibly could, kind of like I was trying to do a shrug with my hands behind my back.
It doesn't make the greatest difference in the world with this, but it does make enough of a difference that you can feel that there is a difference going on. When it comes to working the traps and the shoulders, I want to try to work every muscle in every range of motion I possibly can in the safest manner possible, because that's going to help stabilize the joint and the damage that I currently already have in there and to prevent further damage from occurring in the future.
With these all done, I throw in some loaded stretching work.
For the lats, I used a double-D handle, moderate weight on a pull-down machine, or a lat machine, and just sit, grab the weight, let it stretch and then hold the stretch for a 45-60 second count. That's not actual seconds, that's counting in my head, you know, 1-thousand-1, 1-thousand-2, 1-thousand-3, so whatever that ends up being, and I'm not a big fan of watching the clock, unless you're doing some type of dynamic, explosive type training when the rest intervals are going to be dependent upon the forced production and what you're trying to accomplish throughout the training cycle.
That was for the lats. The loaded stretch, I did for the traps was to use a strong band, strap it around the bottom of a power rack, loop my hands through it, so I'm not grabbing with my fists. The band is pulling through my wrists and through my hands because it's looped around, and just stand up, so it's pulling the arm down, kind of the way that a barbell would if you were holding the barbell. The difference is you're not actually holding anything in your hand, so your forearms are not flexed. What you end up with is a loaded stretch of the shoulder joint and actually of the bicep as well, pulling down.
That was it.