Volume 3, Mental Acuity and Overloading the Top Range of the Pull-up
Q: "I have to send this to you through email, because I don’t know how to post on your blog. Your advice for developing grip power for pull-up and dead hang purposes was great. As a fitness junkie, I believe that we all are meant to be strong, [but] our society is messed up in a way that we don’t let ourselves be. I have done over five years of personal experimenting and research on how to go toward the potential of the human threshold for stamina, muscular endurance, and functional strength, and I have never found a way to build forearm stamina [other] than the advice you gave me. My dead hang time is up to 7 minutes and increasing. I’m shooting for 15. Ha-ha, wish me luck, and thanks for the great advice.”
J. Winkler
My Answer: Hey J.W. Good to hear you’re making such great progress. I have to agree with you: our society is messed up and frowns upon men and women who want to be stronger, unless they are professional athletes. Even then, only certain sports are given respect.
Humans are just like any other animal: designed to be physically active, highly intelligent and highly adaptable. It’s only in recent human history that being fat and inactive is the norm. I’m amazed at how much people crap on those of us who enjoy pushing ourselves physically. Perhaps they see the pursuit of physical and athletic perfection as vain. But even if it is vanity, vanity in moderation serves a legitimate purpose: to make sure you keep up with consistent and smart training that prolongs your life and furthers your good health.
Q: “I just read one of your articles on Bodybuilding.com, and I was wondering if you could help me with something. I have been riding BMX for about eight years now, and I can say that I am in pretty good shape. I’m happy with my body overall, but my chest is the one thing I can truly say needs the most improvement. I know of the chest building exercises that could give me a stronger and less flabby chest, but I have a shoulder problem that holds me back from most them. Even if I do simple pushups, my shoulder will hurt the rest of the day. I was wondering if you know of any low impact/effective exersizes that I can do to finally get rid of my flabby chest. And any other tips would be much help to me. Thanks for your time, and I hope to hear back from you.”
Joey Minozzi
Honolulu Hawaii
My Answer: When you have an injury or muscular imbalance, your first priority is to fix the injury or heal from it. Physique training is no longer important. What’s the point if you can’t even do a pushup? So go to a physical therapist or somebody trained in Active Release Techniques. I have no idea what your shoulder problem is, but it sure as hell doesn’t need to do chest exercises to aggravate the problem. BMX biking doesn’t help either, because sitting on that bike promotes very poor posture. Usually bikers need to strengthen their abs and upper back to straighten their postures out. So bottom line: go to an ART specialist and fix your shoulder first, fix your posture second, then do some chest exercises that don’t hurt.
Q: “I hope my fancy subject line stopped you from labeling this mail as spam. First off, through the decompression phase in your book, I’ve added 20 pounds to my bench! I really wish I knew about you years ago. My question for you is really simple. The adjustable bench at my gym can only go between 15 degrees and 30 degrees. For the 20 degree dumbbell exercise you recommend, should I adjust the bench at 15 or 30 degrees for maximum effect on my pectoral physique. By the way, when volume 3 comes out, you can guarantee that I’ll be the first one to purchase it.”
Thanks,
Larry
My Answer: Good to hear you’ve made progress on the bench, Larry! As far as angle, if you had to choose between 15 and 30 degrees, then choose the 30 degree incline. It’s still at a shallow angle to hit the sterno-clavical area and develop the upper pec fibers. As long as it is not 45 degrees and above, then you’re good.
Volume 3? Gosh, I’m pretty swamped at the moment with work, training, running 2 blogs and writing articles for Planet Muscle. I have thought about Volume 3, and I’ve already got a theme in mind for the book. I’ll keep you guys posted.
Q: “I read your article on building a wider back. I am pretty much new to bodybuilding. One of my roommates got me into it a couple months ago, and I kind of enjoy it. One of the exercises I really can’t do are pull-ups, probably meaning my back is very weak. I can’t do a single wide-grip pull up. I’ll probably get 3/4 the way but will never get my chin above the bar. But I can do a couple of chin ups and narrow grip pull ups.
“So, I’ve been doing pull ups with some weight assistance machines in the school gym. Is there a workout plan you can set up for me? Because the ’shock techniques’ you listed require pullups to failure, and my failure mark is right at around 3 or 4. I know, it’s sad. I really hope I can see some improvement in my muscle hypertrophy.”
- JK
My Answer: Don’t do the machine assisted pull-ups. Do a pull-up as far as you can go, then have your workout partner assist you the rest of the way. Once you’re up there with your chin above the bar, your partner will let go and YOU WILL HOLD THAT POSITION FOR AS LONG AS YOU CAN. Once you can’t hold that position at the top, then lower yourself as slowly as possible. This will expose your back muscles to significant overload in the top range position, which is something your back muscles weren’t getting because you could only do 3/4 pull-ups. Do this one set of one negative rep at the beginning of every workout.
And Jun: no I won’t set up a program for you. I don’t work for free. As a trainer, I can point you in the right direction, but it’s up to you to do your homework in and out of the gym.
Q: “Pretty much you are officially godlike to me. Every single exercise I do goes up by about 10-20 pounds each week. I am nearly benching 300 pounds. Whatever you say I will do.
“Here is my question, but it isn’t really related to strength training. I want to push myself to the limit and mentally thrive without sleep and just keep working. I am a medical student. Do you know of any program for this, or any underground book for this? Should I fast? Stop drinking water? Take any supplements?
“I ask you, because I believe your methods can be construed as underground-esque (I don’t know of anyone or seen anyone using your methods and that’s why they don’t increase their bench as dramatically). I guess I believe in extreme training as Tom Platz did with his 10 minute squat routines.
“I just want to find that corollary in other areas, such as mental training. Of course I would do this for only one week, as I believe that this isn’t really healthy, and I’m sure I’d lose some muscle mass along the way. Of course, please feel free to dismiss this idea if you think getting regular sleep is absolutely essential, or if you think my ideas are just insane.”
Best,
Larry
My Answer: I’ve had some crazy ass readers and fans, but you Larry are scaring me. As a cop who’s done graveyard shifts, I can say that you are insane for trying to work and perform without sleep. The key question to ask is: do you want more work done or do you want quality work done?
Let me tell you something. I’m smart, but I’m also lazy. If I can outperform someone else with less effort and less time invested, then isn’t that what counts? Nobody gives a crap how many hours you studied. What counts is that you aced the freakin’ test. Minimal effort, maximum effect is what I strive for all the time, because I maintain a variety of interests.
People think that if they had more time, they’d get more done. That’s just an excuse. You need to use your time more efficiently. This requires a mindset that prioritizes what is relevant and what is irrelevant. It also requires that you be strategic in your thoughts, pragmatic in your actions.
You’re a med student. I don’t know what kind of medicine you’re going into, but to use a medical field analogy, you need to triage what activities are meaningful and what is chewing up your time.
Sleep is really important, because you can’t retain information unless you sleep. When you study knowledge or practice a skill, you don’t fully retain it in your long term memory until you get a good night’s rest. Your recall of the information or your performance of the skill is better the next day.
You’ll also notice that mentally you’re more focused and creative in the morning hours, after you gotten a good night’s sleep. In the afternoon, mentally you’re not as focused. If you have menial, mindless tasks to do, then do them in the afternoon.
Mental performance is much like strength training. I go over the concepts of density and decompression in Neo-Classical Bodybuilding. You train hard, then you pull back and reap the benefits. That is the Way of the Universe.
With mental performance, it works the same way. There is a time to fire up the mental circuitry at full speed (morning hours before lunch), and there is a time to decompress, relax and not worry about anything (evening hours).
As a med student, I’m surprised you’re not using supplemental nootropics. Acetyl L-carnitine and phosphatidylserine are nootropics that also have bodybuilding applications. Fish oil and green tea help with mental acuity and mood stabiization.
