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.
Tuesday. Shoulders.
Multiple warm up sets of side and front raises using ten pound dumbbells. By multiple sets, I mean ten to twelve sets in each direction of six to fifteen repetitions. This is kind of my go to warm up for shoulders, which seems to work the best for me. It's real lightweight on the different raises. When I start, they all hurt like hell, but as each set goes on, it begins to feel a little bit better and I won't move on into the next exercise until I can do each range of motion pain-free with at least fifteen pounds.
If it's going to be a training session where I really want to try to do something heavy which is going to be taxing on the shoulder joint for me, then I want to make sure that it's warmed up enough that a twenty pound dumbbell isn't going to bother me at all with a shoulder front or side raise.
Seated dumbbell swings. This is just a seated side raise using a swing style, which you've seen multiple times in my training log. Now, it's only moving the dumbbell twenty, twenty five percent of the full range of motion. With this, I did two warm up sets and then, four work sets progressively working up in weight. The first set was thirty pounds for twenty reps. The next set was forty pounds for thirty reps. The next set was forty five pounds for forty reps. The last set was fifty pounds for fifty reps.
Seated neutral grip shoulder presses. I use this machine frequently when I train shoulders. I can only press to about a three-quarter rep position. Sometimes I can get it a little bit higher. I was able to get it a little bit higher because of all the warm up and the raises and the swings that I did beforehand. Four warm up sets with a quarter per side and then, I worked up just adding a quarter per side for sets of six to eight until I had six quarters per side for two sets of six reps. There's no doubt that I could not have been able to do eight reps.
Rear delt pull aparts using the cable machine and the comfort grip straight handles. Two warm up sets of six to eight reps to figure out what weight I would need to be able to fail between twelve and fifteen reps. Then I moved on to four sets of twelve to fifteen with each set to failure.
Rear delt raises using the rear delt machine. One warm up set of about six reps just to determine how much weight I was going to need and then, six sets of eight to ten reps, all sets to failure using the same weight.
American angled grip cable bar on the low cable for front raises. Two warm up sets of fifteen repetitions and then, four work sets of ten reps. Then I bumped the weight up again and did two more work sets, which I would call these "heavy work sets" of six to eight reps. I'm saying that they're heavy work sets because I didn't give a fuck how I got 'em up or how much force, momentum, or what the tempo needed to be to get it up. I wanted to go hard, I wanted to go heavy on it just to kind of see how the shoulders are going to feel and to see how the bar was going to feel.
Most of my shoulder work I use a real controlled tempo. On this, I did not.
Hise shrugs using the standing calf raise. Six sets of fifteen to twenty reps. None of the sets were to failure. I probably could have gone another ten reps per set. Was more concerned about getting blood into the traps.
Loaded stretch using the high shrug again. This time I put a lot more weight on. I had about half the stack on for the shrugs.For this, I had three-quarters of the stack and just let the machine push my shoulders down to stretch the traps and held it for a forty five second count. That would be counting in my head. I'm not looking at a clock or my phone while I'm doing this. Just counting in my head.
Loaded stretch for my shoulders. With this, I attached a band to the bottom of a rack, slipped it around my wrist so I was not holding the band. The band was pulling my wrist down and just let the band pull the wrist down and stretch and did that for a thirty second count.
The last loaded stretch I did was hanging with a neutral grip from the chin bar. I suck at this. It's taken me almost a year now to be able to do this without my right arm, which is the bad shoulder, to be able to handle this without shaking. I'm only holding for fifteen count at this point, but at least I'm to the point now where I can actually hold without my arm shaking like crazy and without a lot of pain. While it doesn't seem like a whole hell of a lot, it took me a really long time just to be able to get to this point.