Thursday, August 20, 2009

I'll Ask What You Think

Thursday, August 20, 2009
Off--158.8#

Upon awakening this afternoon, I found my anterior and middle deltoids to be quite sore bilaterally. I had been having some occasional episodes of this a while back and, was at that time, attributing it to press form. In light of the soreness popping up after my pullup/pushup routine yesterday, I now know it's from that routine instead. AND I'm thinking it's from initiating the movement too much from the shoulder and not enough from the lats. What do you think?

TODAY'S WORKOUT:
20kg clean and pushpress x 2/2, 16kg clean and press x 3/3 (I actually had to do some frikkin' pushpresses with the 16, too, GRRR!)
Elevated perfect pushup x 4
20kg walking lunge x 10
Double 20kg Deadlift x 5
Plank x 30sec
Rest x 3 min.
x 4 rounds...only 4 rounds.
Tabata 16kg snatches.
Tabata 20kg swings (wussed out on set 4 of the swings and just rested.)

LAST time I did this workout, before getting sick, I did five rounds, at a much better pace, strict pressing the 20 at least once each round, and two several rounds. I was doing 6 pushups each round, 12 lunges, 7 deadlifts, and limiting rest to 2 min b/w rounds.

6 comments:

  1. Always hard to diagnose from a description, but it sounds more like a connectivity problem than an activation problem. In fact, if the lat is not connected, it cannot be activated.

    I have had problems keeping my right shoulder connected since dislocating in March. One thing that I started doing was pressing two KBin in one had. I don't know if that is practical for you, but you could try it with maybe and 8kg and a 4kg or 6kg and see what happens. The two bells in one hand do the following:
    * More squeeze, compacting the shoulder
    * Forces a more vertical forearm, engaging the lat.
    * Forces a more "lateral" (not forward) bell path, spreading the load on all three heads.

    That connectivity will help compact the shoulders for the pullups and pushups as well.

    I know that I am making a big leap from a description.

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  2. Thanks, Faizal! Right now I don't have what I need to try that, but I will definitely concentrate more on keeping the shoulder connected and focusing on form. Another online friend suggested that maybe the soreness was more from the push-up than the pull-up, from areas' not having been worked in a while with my having been off. Regardless, packing the shoulder will help, and I'll be doing that. I might try to post some video too...

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  3. I agree with the connecting the lats. I like to use bottoms up presses to retrain my lat/shoulder connections. It has helped me considerably.

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  4. Ya know, Mitch, you're the second person to tell me to incorporate the bottoms up press, an exercise that I for some reason always forget. So I think I'm going to put it in my routine where I have been doing plain 16kg presses.

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  5. Bottoms and waiters presses also connect the lats, but in different ways. Try them...I like multiple bells because typically you can use heavier weight. Sometimes the lighter weights don't carry over to heavier ones.

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  6. what's a waiter's press, faizal?

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