Pumping Iron

If you don’t already read Melinda_F’s bodyblog you should consider having a look. Her blog posts are inspirational. Something I read on her blog inspired me to post this. It’s not my own, I heard it somewhere and just wanted to pass it on.

Have a look at how the shape of Larry Scott’s biceps appears to change with time.

There is an opinion in the bodybuilding world that it is possible to emphasis certain parts of a muscle, e.g., dividing the chest into upper/lower/outer/inner, biceps into inner and outer head, triceps into 3 segments etc. This is accomplished by exercise selection or making tweaks in the manner one performs certain exercises. While one cannot develop longer biceps, it may be possible to develop the lower portions of the biceps to give the appearance of longer biceps. This would be achieved by performing exercises that put stress on the biceps in the stretched position like preacher curls. However, changes take a long time.

We need to go back to before 1950 to see what bodybuilders’ physiques looked like without drugs as it is widely accepted that steroid use in bodybuilding began in the 1950s. So I bring you photos from that era.

Bert Goodrich 1939 Mr America

5ft 10in
195lbs
chest 47in
waist 33in
arms 17in
forearms 14in
thighs 24in
calves 17in
neck 17in
wrists 7.6in
ankles 9.2in  

John Grimek 1940-41 Mr America

5ft 8 in
195lbs
chest 47in
waist 31in
arms 17.5in
forearms 14in
thighs 25in
calves 17in
neck 17in
wrists 8in
ankles 9.2in

Frank Leight 1942 Mr America

5ft 11 in
209lbs
chest 48.5in
waist 33in
arms 17.5in
forearms 14in
thighs 24in
calves 16in
neck 17.5in
wrists 8in
ankles 9.5in

Jules Bacon 1943 Mr America

5ft 7in
175lbs
chest 44in
waist 31in
arms 15.5in
forearms 12.5in
thighs 23in
calves 15in
neck 15.5in
wrists 7in
ankles 9in

Steve Stanko 1944 Mr America

5ft 11in
223lbs
chest 48.5in
waist 36in
arms 18in
forearms 14.3in
thighs not known
calves 17in
neck 18in
wrists 8in
ankles 10in

Clarence Ross 1945 Mr America

5ft 9in
185lbs
chest 47in
waist 32in
arms 17in
forearms 13.5in
thighs 24in
calves 16in
neck 16.5in
wrists 7.5in
ankles 9.2in  

Alan Stephan 1946 Mr America

5ft 11in
205lbs
chest 48in
waist 32.5in
arms 17in
forearms 14.2in
thighs 24.8in
calves 16.1in
neck 17.1in
wrists 7.7in
ankles 9.7in

Steve Reeves 1947 Mr America

6ft 1in
213lbs
chest 48in
waist 31in
arms 17.5in
forearms 14in
thighs 25.2in
calves 17.5in
neck 17.6in
wrists 7.9in
ankles 9.8in

George Eiferman 1948 Mr America

5ft 7in
195lbs
chest 47.5in
waist 32in
arms 16.7in
forearms 13.4in
thighs 25in
calves 16in
neck 16.5in
wrists 7.3in
ankles 9.6in

Jack Delinger 1949 Mr America

5ft 6in
195lbs
chest 47.5in
waist 32in
arms 17.2in
forearms 13.8in
thighs 25in
calves 16.6in
neck 16.8in
wrists 7.7in
ankles 9.5in

Many bodybuilders believe that to emphasise the chest when bench pressing one should flare the elbows out to the side, stick your chest out and have a slight arch in your back that is in accordance to the natural curvature of your spine.

For bodybuilding purposes you should not tuck your elbows into your torso or have a big arch in your back. This is a powerlifting technique designed to spread the load across chest, shoulders and triceps. The purpose of the exaggerated arch is to reduce the distance you need to lower and lift the barbell. Both of these techniques enable you to lift more weight but do not necessarily do favours for your physique.

Grip width affects where on the chest the emphasis will be placed. A grip where the hands are over the elbows when the upper arm is parallel to the ground puts most of the emphasis on the mid and outer pectoral strands of muscle.

A grip wider than this will put the primary emphasis on the outer chest fibers.

A close grip stimulates the inner chest. The trick here is to push your hands towards one another continously throughout each rep positive and negative without actually moving your hands. The tension will cause your inner pectoral fibers to contract. Try to lift the barbell on the strength of this contraction rather than pushing the bar up with your triceps strength.

The bench angle also has an affect on where on the chest the muscle-building stress is placed. A decline angle puts stress on the lower chest, flat on the middle and incline on the upper chest. Many benches can be angled at more than just three settings. The pectorals are a fan shaped muscles with a multitude of fibers stretched across your upper torso.  The advantage of using a variety of angles is that you can stimulate all the fibers.

Some say that where on your chest you lower the bar also has a bearing on where the stimulation is aimed. This is most noticeable when the bench is in the neutral or flat position. Lowering the bar to the lower area of the chest will tend to stress those parts of the chest whereas if you lower the bar to your neck or upper chest the stress will go there.

A wide stance emphasises buttocks, hamstrings and inner thighs development. This style of squatting is common in powerlifting circles as it allows you to lift more weight than other styles of squatting.

A narrow stance (hip width to heels touching) and keeping the torso as upright as possible focuses growth stimulation on the middle and outer quads.

This style is also favoured by Olympic weightlifters for strengthening their legs.

Some people have trouble maintaining balance on narrow stance squats. Common remedies include:

Putting a weight plate or a one inch thin block of wood under your heels

 Use Olympic weightlifting shoes which have heels

 Or squat in a Smith machine

Some people object to elevating the heels by using wood claiming it increases knee stress. You should do your own research and make up your own mind. I believe that if this were true, Olympic weightlifters, who routinely use heeled shoes with much heavier weights than bodybuilders use and with more knee jarring, would have a high occurance of knee injuries compared to other sports. However, the statistics I’ve seen suggest otherwise.

Chin ups and pull ups are my favourite back exercises. However, sometimes a change is a good thing. I’ve found a common complaint is that people say they don’t feel their backs working with chin ups and pull ups for a number of reasons. There are some really great pieces of advice on how to increase your mind-muscle connection on the forum. Here are Defiant1’s tips in response to a trainee who says he feel his biceps and forearms more than his lats when doing chin ups: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpost.php?p=34362871&postcount=3

While pull ups, chin ups, pulldowns and rows are staples in my training, for a change of pace I like to include the following exercises.

Lat Shrugs

Hang under a pull up bar or pulldown machine (bar/grip of your choice to hit different areas of the lats) and “shrug up”. Imagine pulling the bar down without bending your arms or performing a reverse shrug. Your shoulder blades will go downwards.

This exercise can also be done from dip bars. Put extra padding on the dip bars with towels. Balance yourself over the bars by putting your upper forearms on the bars. Sink your body down with your forearms in front of you then pull yourself back up purely by lat contraction. DiamondDelts demonstrates in the photos below.

Rearward Shrugs

This is a trap/rhomboid exercise where you lay face down on a raised bench with a barbell or pair of dumbbells beneath you. You shrug back the weight without bending your arms. You can also perform this on a row machine. You need to raise the bench if you use freeweights otherwise you won’t be able to straighten your arms. You can use step aerobic steps, blocks of wood or 45lb plates.

Pulldowns with arm straps

Get a pair of arm straps that are commonly used for hanging leg raises / knee ups like these on sale on this website: http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/pgrip/hang.html. Attach them to a pull up bar or pulldown machine and perform pulldowns by pushing down with your elbows/back of your arms and NOT by pulling with your hands. Keep your palms open and not grasping the straps.

Rows with arm straps

Same as above but attach the arm straps to a low cable for rows or a barbell for bent over rows.  Again, very important not to grasp the straps with your hands. The range of motion will be less than regular rows otherwise the straps will slip off your arms.

Here are some related discussions from the forum:

Here are some discussions on them from the forum:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/search.php?searchid=95856241&pp=20
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/search.php?searchid=95855811

Note that not everyone uses uniform terminology. Where I have called each exercise a different name some people in the linked forum posts call all of the above exercises lat shrugs. Don’t let it confuse you!

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