Sacred Cows Progress in Strength Training and Bodybuilding is often trampled underfoot by a rampaging herd of sacred cows that people just wont let die! Here are a few of the supposed absolutes that are in fact, just dogmatically repeated silly ideas. Have a thing to yourself if there are any similar exercises, ideas and notions youve been keeping hold of for emotional rather than rational reasons and the next time youre righting a program, slaughter your sacred cows. Sacred Cow Number 1 . Scuffing around at the side of the paddock its the old chestnut that If you bench big weights youll build big pecs. Bench press with the conventonal grip and set up is a piss poor pec exercise for most people, and those who are extremely strong in it usually use a tucked elbow position and spread the stress across the triceps, shoulders and pecs anyway. What exercise is good for building YOUR pecs will depend on how you are put together, but it is MUCH more like to be Gironda style press, wide dips or dumbell bench press than flat bench with the bar. Ditch the dogma and perform the too skint for an EMG test. Pick ONE exercise. Do 10 sets of 10 with a demanding weight and a controlled tempo. Where are you sore over the next 2-3 days? Chances are there is a fair correlation between that and where the exercise worked. Not perfect but close enough. Sacred Cow Number 2. Thundering along at number two its the big bad bull(shit) of the herd...Athletes need to do Cleans or Power cleans to develop explosive power. Ill keep this simple. Theres power yeah...then theres rate of force development, acceleration, starting strength, overcoming strength, yielding strength etc etc etc etc and all at a variety of joint angles dependant upon the sport, and all good or bad in an individual athlete to a greater or lesser degree. But your still gonna have them all do full cleans cause thatss whats best for Athletes? Bollocks. Force production requirments need to be analysed on a sport and individual basis, which usually means you end with some special exercise or variant thats far better suited to the task at hand. Case in point, I coach a thrower who has probably done power cleans with a catch for all of 20 total reps in the last year. Currently ranked #1 in Scotland for her category and improving her PBs all the time. If cleans or power cleans just happened to be the right exericse at the right time, shed do them....its just that they rarely are and yet they are prescribed in pretty much every Athletic program you see. Sacred Cow Number 3. You HAVE to (fill in the blank with any bloody exercise you like). You HAVE to squat. You HAVE to bench. You HAVE to do cheat curls with the straight bar in the power rack whilst wearing a baseball cap turned backwards. Whatever exercise it is that people are telling you you HAVE to do (unless it is your sporting event!) chances are its bollocks. In fact if you are only interested in building muscle tissue and getting leaner (cosmetic rather than performance goals) then as long as you are training the muscles in a variety of movement patterns over time it wont matter a shit what ones you do. Dont like full squats? Try front squats, zercher squats, belt squats, hack squats even the bloody leg press will be fine if all your looking at doing is building tissue. Be honest with yourself and do what works. Measure, analyse and find out rather than mooo-ing along with the herd; slaughter your sacred cows.
Posted on: Sun, 04 May 2014 11:57:59 +0000
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