Training advice
Pauline Nordin |
Pauline's Ramble... | Monday, 05 April 2010
Nothing bores me as writing about training recommendations and advice… It drains my creativity to write up programs, execution form, techniques etc. This is stuff for in real life training, in face to face situations. You never know how the reader interprets what I write and since I am a control freak about some areas, I am no fan of giving advice without seeing what that piece of advice translates to in reality. But, with this being said, I will just ramble a few guidelines… Remember there are no bad or good or forbidden or one way is the only way training regimens. This is just MY opinion on it….
Pullups
Every time a client tells me she or he is doing pullups I ask “oh do you?….hm, let me see your form….”. I don’t mean to be rude or underestimating strength etc, but honestly, most people’s idea of a perfect pullup is not what I consider a pullup at all. REAL pullups are not about pulling yourself over the bar letting arms and shoulder doing all the work. It’s not a “who gets over the bar fastest” or a “swing bop session”…
You want to keep your traps down, shoulders pulled back and elbows moving right down and slightly back. They should not be in front of your body.
Shoulder presses
One way to really create shoulder imbalances and recruit more pecs than shoulders is doing presses on a slight inclined bench. Add arching your back as it gets heavier and you turn it into an upper pec movement more than a set for round shoulders…. If you stand up instead you will need to keep your posture, your whole body engages more, you cannot cheat by leaning back, well you CAN, but if you do you can really damage your back!
Squats for women
OK Ladies, you are squatting to build rounder glutes more than getting oak tree legs right? Then, stop going only to parallell and widen up the stance! The butt works its magic in the bottom position, but without rounding your lower back EVER. If you are never down in the bottom, well, you are not really firing those glutes…..
Deadlifts
Oh, my love, the deadlifts. so abused by many, including myself for years. Deadlifts is like squats: you drive the power through your hip joint’s muscles. I think it gotta be the most abused exercise of all: just because you CAN lift a much heavier weight if you let your spine break (rounding your back like a cat) you should not do it on a regular basis unless you are a powerlifter and training for max lifts…. Deadlifts pack on muscle in the right areas if you do them correctly and they turn you into an awkward piece of muscle-bouquet if you don’t pay attention to form… It’s dangerous to abuse the spine over and over. One day one disc gets a strain. And then deadlifting is over for a while if not for good. Doing it with a belt is even worse: you inhibit the core muscles to work properly so you don’t really protect anything at all!
Biceps curls
yes you can grow big guns with swinging the weights, doing heavy negatives etc. However, just because you CAN, once again, you cannot do it without knowing and maybe paying the consequences. When you overload the muscle you also overload the tendons and joints. The two latter ones take longer time to heal when they get injured. If you get your biceps angry by inflaming them with too much too soon, that pain usually travels to your elbow and shoulder. Stop it in time, take proper care of the antagonist (triceps) and the forearms as well. Letting your shoulders do all work is another stupid behavior when working biceps. The shoulders should not be hunched forward. Posture up for god’s sake!
Dumbbell rows, cable rows, ALL rows in general
When you train back with focus on the meaty portion between your shoulder blades the whole key to the rowing exercises is CONTRACT the shoulder blades together. You see, that is what the muscles there do! If you don’t there is not much action going on at all. Yeah, sure, in the outer portions like the wings (lats and teres major) but those muscles you can work better with some overhead work like pulldowns and pullups too…. Rowing means get those shoulder and arms squeezed together until there is no space between the two blades. Do the finger test: have your partner stick a finger betweeen the middle of the shoulder blades and then row. Pinched that sucker? NO, well, then improve your form. Most likely the weight is too heavy.
Stiff-legged deadlifts
You want to do this without hurting your lower back. That means don’t round the lower back in order to go all the way down to the floor…. You want to feel a stretch in the back of your legs. That’s it. No need to take the load off the hams and glutes by rounding your lower back.
Leg curls
When you curl, don’t let there be space between your hips and bench. You want the thighs to be in contact with the bench. Yes you get stronger when you flex your hips but it loads off the hamstrings and can cause more pain in the lower back.
Dips
When you do dips you want to go deep but not to the point you hurt your shoulders. If the shoulder come forward, like rounding and hunching, it’s too heavy for your body to stabilize the shoulder girdle. Once again, it is not about just getting up, you want to load the right muscles and stay out of injury.
Leg presses
Range of motion is key. Let the knees travel to outside your chest, not into the chest. And don’t be scared of doing one leg at a time. Much more efficient. For women, unless you have super good quads, you want to focus getting more muscle on the butt rather on your thighs.
About pain
ok, Folks, good pain is when you feel the burn or the “I don’t want to do another rep” kind of feeling IN THE MUSCLE BELLY. It’s BAD pain when you get sore in your joints, in tendons or in areas you are not working out! For me it’s NOT a good workout if I cannot walk the next day or my shoulders are hurting or arms cannot hold my phone etc. You don’t want JOINT pain. It’s not a good sign. You don’t want sore knees, sore elbows. You want soreness in your muscles ONLY if you now go by the old belief muscle soreness is a certain proof you had a productive workout…. Just think about this though…. When you stay out of the gym a week or two you get super sore from any work at all. Did that mean you had a great productive workout? No… Right?;-)
That’s all I want to comment on right now!