Strength training

[Doug]

Guys,

I could use a little help. I am starting to plateau and getting frustrated. I am looking for some new ideas to work into my routine. . .

My Liabilities: I have limited financial resources for new equipment, a crushed ankle and am strengthening two separated shoulders. Running is out and it feels like I am crushing raisins in my shoulders during military presses, if I go 'too' high on the weight with a military press my shoulder will pop out of socket and that sidelines me for 2-3 weeks.

My Assets: stationary bike, fit ball, free weight dumbbells (5, 15, 20, 30lb), 5'9", 170lb

I work a 4 day cycle with some cross training (yard work) days thrown onto the mix. Some example days follow:

Day1:
3x10 30lbx2, fit-ball dumbbell bench
3x10 30lbx2, fit-ball dumbbell incline
3x10 20lbx2, standing military press
3x20 30lbx2, squats
2x30 30lbx2, calf-raises
3x3x10 20lbx2, dumbbell curl superset (straight, 90* lockout, and cross)
45 minutes on a bike for cardio
15 minute cool down followed by stretching

Day2:
3x3x10 20lbx2, curl super-sets, dumbell, 20 each, straight / 90* lock outs / cross
3x15 30lbx2, fit ball bench
3x15 30lbx2, fit ball incline
3x10 20lbx2, standing military press
3x15 30lbx2, standing shrugs
3x20 30lbx2, calf raises
3x20 30lbx2, full squats
3x15 30lbx1, standing triceps press
30-45 second stretching between every set: arms, shoulders, back, legs etc
3x30 straight crunches
1x30 four count leg lifts

Day3:
fat burn cardio on the bike
(finished 24oz ice water before)
45-60 minutes on bike (w/ full sweat suit, in TX heat )
(finished 24oz ice water during bike and reading time)
10-15 minute cool down w/o resistance
(finished 24oz ice water during shower)

Day4:
3 x 20 30lbx2, squats
3 x 15 30lbx2, shrugs
3 x 20 30lbx2, calf raises
3 x 15 30lbx1, standing tricep press
3x3x7 30lbx2, curl super-sets: straight / 90* lock outs / cross
stretching between each set 30 seconds related muscle groups
30 minutes cardio or abs (1x30 * crunch, L diagonal crunch, R diagonal crunch, L crunch, R crunch, 4 count leg lefts)

Today is a 'Day4'. I'm leaning towards abs.

Given my current assets, the need to constantly strengthen the shoulder with high reps on low weight, and the plateau where my current workout is getting 'boring' and 'easy', could someone with a bigger fitness brain than mine please offer a few ideas and new exercises?

[recondo82]

Doug, I'm not a personal trainer or physical therapist, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. From personal experience, shoulders are very easy to injure, and a shoulder injury will keep you away from the weights for 6-8 weeks, so be careful. Rotator cuff injuries seem to be the most common, but I've found that they are easily preventable if (a) you do proper warmups before working shoulders, (b) you do shoulder exercises with correct form on every repetition and (c) you don't lift too heavy.

For warmup, start with some basic shoulder rotations that do not include weights of any kind.
A00067F01.jpgA00067F05.jpgdoorwaystretch2.jpg
You can also do some internal and external shoulder rotations using your lowest weight dumbbell(5lb). I would recommend getting a couple 2.5lb dumbbells for these, because you really just want enough weight to provide a little resistance to the movement. side-lying-external-rotation.jpg
You can even do these rotations without dumbbells. I do them standing, but you can do them lying down as shown as well.

Once you are warmed up, the first thing is to forget about military presses. Actually forget about any exercise that causes pain in your shoulders. That is an indication that something is wrong. Instead, try front raises frontdbraise.jpg, lateral raises original-lateral-raise-at-gym.JPG and bent over lateral raises rearlatraiseA.jpgrearlatraiseB.jpg.

All of these exercises isolate different parts of the deltoids, so you don't have to use heavy weights to do them. The key is to not raise your arms above shoulder level on any exercise. I keep my arms slightly bent to keep pressure off my elbows, and concentrate on not swinging your arms but raising your hands in a controlled, fluid movement.

As far as reaching a plateau, that's easy to do when you have a limited amount of equipment. If you aren't able to get heavier dumbbells, try doing more bodyweight exercises such as pushups, pullups and chin-ups (if you have a pullup bar).

Once again, make sure you use proper form on every exercise and every repetition. Pressing movements should have you fully stretching your chest on the negative movement and contracting your chest tightly on the positive movement. In other words, come all the way down and then press all the way up on each bench press movement. On exercises like biceps curls, don't curl so far upward that the tension is taken off your biceps. You will probably do fewer reps, but you will work the muscles harder and increase your strength more in the long run.

The main point is that if you reach a plateau, it means your muscles are ready for what they know is coming, and that is the same weights, the same number of repetitions and sets and the same pace. Once your muscles adapt to the same routine, they have no reason to grow any more. Either increase the weight, the number of repetitions, number of sets for each exercise or the pace (i.e. decrease amount of rest between sets).

I hope this is at least somewhat helpful. Like I said, I am only speaking from my personal experience. In the end, you have to find what works best for your body.

[kenlavine1]

Jeez, you could be a personal trainer. You look like the P90X guy.

[Gato Rojo]

If I may interject another great shoulder builder, try daily standing side arm-circles. (I don't know else what to call them, but we did these in jump school as a basic warm-up for the shoulders.)

Stand erect, arms extended to the sides level with the shoulders, hands extended with palms either up or down (it doesn't matter, you're going to perform a number of rotations with your hands in that position describing a small circle, say, 6" in diameter at the extended fingers, and then reverse as described later.)

Tighten the shoulder muscles and keep them tight throughout the exercise.

Pick a reasonable number that you can easily complete in one direction (say 20, if you haven't done this before), then without pausing, reverse direction (keeping palms in the same orientation) and complete that number in the other direction; then (again, without pausing) repeat this with the palms in the opposite orientation. Congratulations, you've completed one set. Rest one minute and do two more sets with one minute rest between sets. I would add 5 rotations to each direction (20 per set in all) each monday, and take the weekend off.

When I got to the point that I was doing 100 circles in each phase, I started doing them as soon as I rolled out of the sack, and as soon as I'd finished watching the evening news (i.e., twice daily) and I kept adding 5 until I got to 200 in each phase, as which point I quit and went back to my lazy-ass ways. And a couple of years later, I'd get disgusted with myself again, and start the process over. Or do pushups with the same anal methodology. That is, start easy but force myself to continually increase on a rigid schedule until I got strong in whatever area I was working, and then goof off for a couple of year again. OK, I'm rambling...

BTW, if you follow this, be prepared for some serious "burn," but it will build the shoulder nicely.

[Doug]

Thanks guys, I'll incorporate these and repost the workout for another look in a few days.

I'm up to my eyes in work right now, crashed and burned early this week and am burying myself in work to get over it and maybe as a result I'll make a little more money so I'm not poor still poor this time next year :)

The advice is greatly appreciated.

[Doug]

v2.0. . .

To fill in some additional blanks related so some questions: I'm 34, 5'9", 165-170lb

I will see some money come my way in the next few days and plan on picking up a few more weights to round out my weight set from 5lb, 15lb, 20lb, 30lb, with +10lb, +25lb, +45lb, then working up to them slowly for bench and squat.

One comment was 'overworking damaged shoulders', I added some rest days and worked on rotating around muscle groups some days, then focusing on others, in order to prevent plateau while not overworking.

Day1:
3x10 30lbx2, fit-ball dumbbell bench
3x10 30lbx2, fit-ball dumbbell incline
3x20 5lbx2, reclining rotations (both sides) (after day three sets at 10 increase weight to 30)
3x20 5lbx2, lateral raise (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
3x20 5lbx2, front raise (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
3x20 5lbx2, bent lateral raise (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
3x10 20lb, standing tricep row (+5 reps / two weeks to 30 reps, then + weight to 30lbs / reps to ten, +5 reps / two weeks to 30reps)
3x20 30lbx2, squats
2x30 30lbx2, calf-raises
3x3x10 20lbx2, dumbbell curl superset (straight, 90* lockout, and cross) (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
(finished 24oz ice water before)
45 minutes on a bike for cardio
(finished 24oz ice water during bike and reading time)
15 minute cool down followed by stretching


Day2:
* Stretch * / * Rest *

Day3:
3x15 30lbx2, fit ball bench
3x15 30lbx2, fit ball incline
circuit x 3:
(begin:
1x3x7 30lbx2, curl super-sets, dumbell, 20 each, straight / 90* lock outs / cross (+1 reps every two weeks to 10 reps)
1x20 5lbx2, reclining rotations (both sides) (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
1x10 20lbx2, standing military press
1x20 5lbx2, lateral raise (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
1x15 30lbx2, standing shrugs
1x10 20lb, standing tricep row (+5 reps / two weeks to 30 reps, then + weight to 30lbs / reps to ten, +5 reps / two weeks to 30reps)
1x20 30lbx2, calf raises
1x20 5lbx2, front raise (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
1x20 30lbx2, full squats
1x20 5lbx2, bent lateral raise (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
1x15 30lbx1, standing triceps press
end)
30-45 second stretching between every set: arms, shoulders, back, legs etc
3x30 straight crunches
1x30 four count leg lifts

Day4:
fat burn cardio on the bike
(finished 24oz ice water before)
45-60 minutes on bike (w/ full sweat suit)
(finished 24oz ice water during bike and reading time)
10-15 minute cool down w/o resistance
(finished 24oz ice water during shower)

Day5:
3 x 20 30lbx2, squats
3 x 15 30lbx2, shrugs
3 x 20 30lbx2, calf raises
3 x 15 30lbx1, standing tricep press
3x3x10 20lbx2, curl super-sets: straight / 90* lock outs / cross
3x10 20lb, standing tricep row (+5 reps / two weeks to 30 reps, then + weight to 30lbs / reps to ten, +5 reps / two weeks to 30reps)
3x20 5lbx2, reclining rotations (both sides) (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
3x20 5lbx2, lateral raise (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
3x20 5lbx2, front raise (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
3x20 5lbx2, bent lateral raise (+5 reps every two weeks to 50 reps)
stretching between each set 30 seconds related muscle groups
30 minutes cardio or abs (1x30 * crunch, L diagonal crunch, R diagonal crunch, L crunch, R crunch, 4 count leg lefts)

Day6:
* Stretch * / * Rest * / * Repeat *

How does this look?

[tuffie226]

I have found as I have got into my 30's that while it starts to take more work to "stay in shape", it doesn't seem to be near as hard to get stronger as I get older. While some of the recovery times from weight training have gotten longer, I have gotten to the point that I can equal or surpass what I was lifting as a competitive powerlifter in college. (Sq-495, BP-350, DL 400ish), even after the surgically repaired multiple body parts. And I'm still 220ish as opposed to 248 in college. My workouts are relatively short and sweet, and compose of 3-4 days a week of lifting for less than an hour, and 3-4 days a week of either cardio/hill sprints/or prowler sled sprints.

Day 1-
Squat work up to up to 80-85% for sets of 3-5reps or work up to singles with 95-97%
Supplementary Squat exercise 1 exercise 4-5 sets 8-12 reps(could be leg press, single leg squats, walking lunges, or good mornings)
Accessory Work 1-2 exercises 4-5 sets 8-15 reps (hamstrings and low back)
Heavy weighted ab work 1 exercise however you want the rep scheme (roman chair sit-ups, weighted straight leg sit-ups, hanging leg raises)

I follow similar templates for the other three main lift days (Bench, Deadlift, and Military Press), and can be in and out of my home gym in an hour and off to do conditioning.

I highly highly recommend for people looking into finding a solid weightlifting philosophy look into Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program. It is a direct to the point training method that can be varied umpteen million ways outside of the big 4 lifts. 90% of the people I lift with have adopted some form of this program and have continued to make progress on it without stalling for 2+ years.

[Doug]

I ran across this article Monday evening on my Yahoo, read it and decided to try it yesterday and today. I altered and reduced my normal weights workout before incorporating the new stuff yesterday. This is what I looked like Tuesday:

(I typically do six to eight of the following and try to mix it up.)
3x 20x calf raises (2x30lb)
3x 10x standing straight curls (1x30lb) (My super-set version of this is a 3x3x10 w/ 1x20lb)
3x 20x squats (2x30lb)
3x 20x (low weight) shoulder flies (2x5lb)
3x 20x (low weight) front shoulder raises (2x5lb)

(cut to try out the new stuff)
(3x 20x shrugs (2x30lb))
(3x 20x standing rows (1x30lb))
(3x 30x dumbbell elevated pushups)
(8x 30x crunches: (straight, left side, right side, left obliques, right obliques, candlesticks, left SEAL crunches, right SEAL crunches))


Three new exercises that flatten your belly

I did one each of these three new ones with a 15lb for 30 seconds/side-to-side/rep each. I didn't want to kill myself with new exercises. But I think I managed to kill myself anyway, because my butt and core were sore immediately, even with reducing my normal workout regiment.

I woke up this morning feeling sore 'inside' my abs. Today was a cardio-bike day, but I did 30 reps of each of these (20lb for the squat, 2x15lbs for the skier, and 20lb for the turning) and I followed with 45 minutes on the bike.

I was sweating and had finished 24oz of water before I even got onto the bike, I killed off another 24oz on the bike and third after. I'm switching to Gatorade to replenish my electrolytes this afternoon. These look a little goofy and it is a little early to see results, but I'm feeling them, especially the third on, the side-to-side, it is like lunges with a crunch added.

I'm definitely going to spend time stretching this afternoon.

[Kyale]

Hi Recondo,
Very informative post on strength training and like to add strength training increase flexibility, improves muscle strength and improve strength balance. Strength training reduce body fat and increase muscle mass. Strength training brings positive change in blood cholesterol and stabilize blood pressure.

[Bell]

Hi Recondo,
Very informative post on strength training and like to add strength training increase flexibility, improves muscle strength and improve strength balance. Strength training reduce body fat and increase muscle mass. Strength training brings positive change in blood cholesterol and stabilize blood pressure.

You ignoring me or what. HEY!! Dumbshit!!! Go to introductions and do so.