samedi 2 mai 2015
Back In The Day: Building A Big, Thick Back Requires You To Do Heavy-Duty Power Exercises
The Back consists of a number of interconnected, powerful muscles, like the latissimus dorsi, teres major, rhomboids and trapezius. While specific isolation exercises target each of these, creating a thick, massive back requires multijoint moves designed to hit all of these muscles.
Pull-ups, lat pulldowns and cable rows are part of a complete back program, but here are four exercises I believe to be the most effective for building back mass and thickness.
Deadlifts
Deadlifts work a number of different muscles, including the back, lower back and legs, and they’re highly effective in creating a strong, thick physique. Here’s how to do this exercise: Stand in front of a loaded Olympic bar with your feet about hip-width apart. Then squat down with your back at about a 45-degree angle to the floor and grasp the bar with an alternating grip, slightly wider than shoulder width. Keeping your abs pulled in tight, pull the weight upward by pressing down with your legs; continue the lift until you’re standing upright, the bar at arms’ length in front of you.
With a controlled movement, reverse the motion and lower the weight back down to the floor, using your legs as much as possible.
Bent-Over Rows
Unlike deadlifts, this exercise focuses almost entirely on the back. To perform it, grasp a barbell with an overhand, wider-than-shoulder-width grip and bend at the waist until your upper body is almost parallel to the floor. Keep your knees slightly bent and the bar at arms’ length. Moving only your arms, pull with your lats to bring the bar to your abdominals (not your chest), squeezing your muscles hard for a count at the top, then lower.
T-Bar Rows
Not enough bodybuilders do this exercise these days, but it was always one of my favorites. Stand with your knees slightly bent and grasp the handles of a T-bar machine. Position your torso at about 45 degrees to the floor with the weight at arms’ length.
Without moving your upper body, bring the weight up to touch your chest and hold for a moment at the top, then lower it under control to the start.
One-Arm Dumbbell Rows
This exercise allows you to work each side of the back independently. Put one knee on a bench, lean forward and brace yourself with the same-side arm; hold a dumbbell at arm’s length in the other. Keep your body steady as you lift the dumbbell to your hip, then lower.
To emphasize thickness and size, do this routine of power movements every second or third back workout.
Back Talk
* While used primarily as a back widening exercise the pulldown also helps add thickness to the back.
Chest Master: How Arnold Schwarzenegger Built The Best Chest Of All Time
Here’s a synopsis, complete with some of Arnold’s thoughts about each of the pec exercises he used in this training regimen and how he employed them.
Exercise 1: Barbell Bench Presses
Arnold would first warm up for this favored exercise with 135 pounds for a quick 30-40 reps to get the blood flowing and the joints loose. Then he would immediately head for a chinning bar, knocking out 15 wide-grip behind-the-neck chins before heading back to the bench, adding a pair of 45s to the bar and pumping out 20 more reps. After a second set of chins, he’d load the bar with 275, perform 15 more reps and then jump back to the chinning bar. And so it went, with weight/rep combinations of 315 for 12, 365 for eight and 405 for six, all superset with chins, all done without rest. Arnold always consciously took very deep breaths while doing this and all of his chest exercises.
“In addition to massing up the pectorals, the heavy breathing also encourages rib cage expansion.”
Exercise 2: Incline Barbell Presses
“This movement is unsurpassed as a builder of the upper pecs.” With his pecs now fully warmed up, he would jump right to 225 pounds for an initial 15 reps; again concentrating on deep breathing as well as flexing his pecs throughout the movement. Alternating each set with T-bar rows, he would progress in 20-pound increments as follows: 245 x 12, 265 x 12, 285 x 10 and 305 x 10.
By this point, Arnold’s pecs and lats would be flushed with blood.
Exercise 3: Flat Dumbbell Flyes
“Here is a great exercise to shape up the outer sections of the pectorals and that, when performed correctly, also opens up the rib box and helps to deepen the chest.”
A master of technique, Arnold perfected this difficult movement as no one else ever had. He often described the motion of the flye as “hugging a tree.” Lying back on a flat bench, with arms slightly bent, he would take a huge breath and slowly lower the dumbbells out and away from his torso, so low that they would practically touch-the floor. Then, with a mighty exhalation, he would raise them back through the same arc, all the time squeezing his pecs. What set Arnold’s technique apart from that of nearly everyone else was his form at the top of the movement. As the tension on his pecs would begin to decrease near the movement’s end, he would stop his motion, with the dumbbells remaining 10-12″ apart. He realized that anything beyond that was wasted movement having no impact on his pecs.
Nevertheless, by employing the Weider Peak Contraction Training Principle, he would forcibly contract this pecs at this point before lowering the weights again. He would start with 65-pound dumbbells for, 15 reps, then jump to 75s for 12, followed by three sets of 10 with 85s. Each set of flyes would be superset with barbell rows.
Exercise 4: Parallel Bar Dips
Dips, Arnold felt they carved a clean line at the bottom edge of his pectoralis major like no other exercise.
With an 80-pound dumbbell strapped to his waist, he would prop himself up on dipping bars and then slowly lower himself to a point where his hands nearly touched his armpits. Lie then exploded back up, all the time making sure to synchronize his breathing to the pace of the movement and inhale on the way down, exhale on the way up. He’d blast out 15 reps and then perform a set of close-grip chins for each superset.
“By the time I get to the fifth set, the pecs and lats are totally engorged with blood and I have such a colossal pump that the muscles feel like they are going to burst through the skin!”
Exercise 5: Stiff-Arm Pullovers
With the, chest-back supersets out of the way, Arnold would complete the lifting portion of his workout with pullovers to stretch his pecs, lats and rib cage simultaneously. This exercise was always a staple of Arnold’s training and the one he considers most responsible for the overwhelming size of his rib box. Lying across a flat bench, he would grab a dumbbell of what he considered medium weight with both hands and extend it to arms’ length, keeping a slight bend in his elbows. From here, he would lower the weight in an arc down past his head while inhaling very deeply through his mouth, all the while making sure to keep his hips down, thus ensuring the greatest possible stretch. Despite a nearly incapacitating level of fatigue by this point, he would still manage to force out five, sets of 15 to 20 reps with a 90-pound dumbbell. Between sets, he would pause for about 30 seconds, during which time he would walk around the gym taking deep breaths while forcing his chest to its maximum point of expansion.
“You will not believe the ache in the sternum that this movement will produce! It literally pulls your chest apart and forces it into new growth.”
Exercise 6: Iso-Tension Contractions
No matter what the bodypart, Arnold would always finish up his workout with an intense session of posing and flexing.
“I’ pose my chest by doing the side chest pose where the rib cage is fully expanded with the sucked in. I do this from waist both sides. Then I squeeze and crimp the pecs as hard as I can from all angles to bring out the height, thickness and shape. This not only gives me better control of these muscles, but it also brings out all the veins and muscular striations, which improves the definition.”
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