Take care of yourself

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Close-Grip Bench Press will work your triceps more than anything. I do those on my arms day.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Hey IS,

Just a couple suggestions for you as far as your chest workout.

No. 1: If you're just looking to get in better overall shape and add strength, you can drop the flyes from your workout. They're more of a shaping exercise. Stick with power movements -- flat barbell bench, flat dumbell bench, incline barbell bench, incline dumbell bench, decline barbell bench, decline dumbell bench -- and alternate between high weight, low reps and low weight, high reps.

No. 2: Rumple is right in that close-grip bench should be moved to your arms workout. It's a great triceps isolator.

Good luck with it, and feel free to drop me a PM or reply here if you have any questions.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

My first time on a bike my buddy took me out and thought I was going to puke when it was over. "Dude, we must've went like 40-miles right?" Him "No, like 15." Its gotten easier since then.

For you who work out, ever have rotator cuff problems? I was doing chest 2x a week b/c I am weak and wanted to bring it up. (Never had a problem with squats, but girls don't care about legs). But I never had a strong chest. My max right out of college when I was lifting everyday was like 225. Now its less than that.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Right now, I do flat bench press every time I lift. I am starting to do incline fly and press because it's tough for me to get the barbell back on the rack without a spotter. I had even more trouble today getting into position with the dumb bells. I need a spotter at this point. That's for sure. It's going to make my gains come slowly. My wife spots me, and she can't handle the weight should I not be able to push it up. I'm certainly going for power, and I've had good results. But I might need to join a gym at some point, and I'll have to find a partner. I have someone in mind.

I don't do an arms day. I do a few sets of close-grip bench on chest day and hammer curls and concentration curls on back days. It's working well so far. I almost bought a preacher bar today, but I was in a hurry to get home. When I get one, I might set aside some time for arms.

I've added a lot of muscle. I can tell that by the weight. But the best part is that I've also lost fat. The two combined has led to dramatic changes in my body.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Yeah, the spotter stuff can be tricky. If you do join a gym, there'll be plenty of dudes there willing and able to help you out.

If you don't have a spotter, and want to try heavier weights, dumbells are the way to go.

You're able to use heavier weights, get an even better stretch because you've got a bigger range of motion without the bar coming down to your chest, and you can just dump them if they get too heavy (assuming you've got some carpeting or rubber mats on the floor or something).

I do entire workouts with just dumbells, and find they're great at adding both strength and mass.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

I'm proud of myself. I love cycling, but, as noted above, I don't like traffic. So after weeks of saying I would do it, I woke up at 5:15 a.m. to ride. There was no traffic and it was actually kind of cool with the sun just coming up.

It was nothing major, just a 15-mile ride. But if I can make these early morning rides twice during the week, and add that to my usual Saturday morning ride, I can up my weekly mileage to 50 or so. That's a big improvement from 15-20 miles per week.

With wife and baby waiting for me after work, I'm finding the early morning is the only time to get things done.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Aside: Isn't it funny that pedals you actually have to clip into are called clipless pedals?

Other aside: After a quick 27-miles this morning I put the bike on the roof rack and promptly forgot it was up there. I went to a drive-up window for a snack and destroyed the rack.

Idiot.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

I know, but it's still silly nowadays. The have clips to hold the cleats to the pedal.

I think 'strapless' is a more accurate name.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

As someone that has gone through this for a LONG time, you can still do chest exercises. But you need to be very careful. As soon as there is pain on the front of your shoulder or side of your arm, stop. drop weight. Also, don't let your upper arms drop past parallel with the floor; that last bit of stretch down toward your chest is where your shoulders will hurt the most.

I didn't lift weights for a long, long time because I was afraid of hurting myself. Which was dumb. But now that I'm back at it, I've learned. I do smaller weights with lots more reps, and it works for me. I enjoy it more, plus I feel like I'm working up more of a sweat. No, I don't lift big weights like rumple, but I stopped worrying about that a long time ago. Plus, I enjoy my running now, and I'm in a lot better shape (despite a three-week malaise where I bagged out recently) and want to go to the gym now. And I can't ask for much more than that.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Interesting theory by Brooklyn Bridge. I'm a girl and I love looking at strong legs on a guy. Matter of fact, I saw legs first on the current PLI. It was only after we both looked up and he smiled that I realized that he had a hot-as-hell face to match his hot-as-hell legs.

As for the shoulder issues, be careful with a barbell bench as it can contraindicate proper ROM of the shoulder girdle.

For injury prevention, you're better off doing back twice a week as opposed to chest.