Killing Shoulders, Mike O'Hearn and Rob Riches

As many of you will know who regularly read my posts I talk a lot about shoulders. This is because out of all muscle groups, this is my weakest both in size and strength. However, I recently watched a collaboration video on YouTube between Mike O'Hearn and Rob Riches which very much demonstrates a different way of training shoulders, this I then out into practice yesterday in my workout. 

The first exercise he uses is a single standing DB press. I love all standing exercises just recently because it really helps activate the core, stabilising your upper body especially when going heavy over head. Mike is explicit about going heavy in this video. You just go heavy , don't chase the pump. 1-5 is my normal rep range. He goes on to mention how the opening exercise should always shock the nervous system and the rest of the workout will feel light. Furthermore be careful with warm up sets, don't go to far, only 5 reps over 2 sets are really needed otherwise all your doing is putting strain and fatiguing the muscle before you've even hitting it with the big stuff. I really stuck by this in my recent workout and boy does it work. My shoulders were on fire and I only really went heavy for one set at 37.5kg for 5 reps. Nothing compared to Mike getting up over 140lbs for 6 with ease. The guy has insane strength and I think one of the best bodies in the game so who wouldn't take advice off him.

The rest of the workout continues with a huge focus paid on not over doing it on every set you complete, but real attention paid to the heavy sets, always to failure!! He goes on to talk about how form can sometimes be slightly comprised within reason to reach those extra few reps. Giving the press, a more so push press towards the end of a set by a little bounce from the legs. After 3 more exercises, including a upright DB row, rear delt fly and a horrible looking lateral into a front raise movement, done light with control focusing in the roundness of the shoulder, and boy did it burn, the workouts done. 

So there you have it, check the video on Rob Riches YouTube page, if it gets 2 million views then Mike has said he'll fly you out to LA to train with them, so get liking, sharing etc. Now go and kill shoulders.

Jack

Keep clean eating whilst on the move, Squats, Deadlifting and Spectre.

Recently I have been away a lot with work however as discussed in previous posts this hasn't stopped me from eating clean and the fundamental reason for this is meal prep, but also my 8 pack bag from MyProtein. 

Now this allows me to store up to 8 meals in the bag along with side pouches to store secondary items, this is where I like to put my cottage cheese, fruit and greek yogurt. This bag goes everywhere with me and allows for me to eat wherever, whenever. Its so durable unlike most bags where the zip breaks after a few weeks, this will survive the most brutal of users. Its currently priced at £29.99 in both holdall and back bag, couldn't recommend this enough, so get over to myprotein.com. 

On greek yoghurt I’ve recently just swapped to Skyr yogurt. This stuff is in my opinion the best yogurt currently on the market. It’s fat free, high in protein tipping the scales at 11 grams per 100 grams and has only 4 grams of sugar. This is a must buy!! Great as a pre workout snack and pre bed snack or even on top of my favourite banana omelettes. Get down to the supermarket where it is currently a bargain with two 450 grams tubs for £3. You can’t beat that. 

Lastly as many of the long term followers will know I’ve recently been focusing a lot more on the big compound moves. Last week was a great training week for me. If you follow me on Instagram you'll see that I managed to get out 170kg back squat for 5 reps which is a new personal record for me. For some reason training in a jumper inspired me to go heavier than normal, working my way up slowly to this weight. When I go heavy my back often gives way, however with my deadlifting routine being on point recently my lower back seems to be a lot stronger and be managed to put up bigger weight. On the point of deadlifts I managed to max out at 220kg this week, not that far away from half a ton. This was with pretty sore legs so I was really pleased. Points to note when going heavy is really bend down and use your legs more in the movement as oppose to just your back. Furthermore warm up correctly, I went up from 160kg in 10kg intervals, this really helps prepare yourself mentally when going heavy and often don't notice the difference in weight. 

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In other news I was inspired by a viewing of Spectre on Sunday as I got invited to the cast and crew viewing, prior to the premiere on Monday. If you haven’t yet checked it out do, you won’t regret it.

Anyway have a great weeks training

Jack

What rep range do I use?

Today being international chest day I thought what better than to train chest of course. I met up with one of my mates at the gym and over a pre workout espresso he asked me an interesting question, ‘what is the best rep range in order to building muscle?’. 

This is a point that is always being discussed and many people will tell you 10-12 reps, otherwise known as the hypertrophy range. To build strength you should be hitting 5 or below and to increase endurance aim for anywhere from 12-20 reps per the set. However, I was recently reading a study in Men’s Health which had shown you should perform no more than 8 reps if you're looking to build muscle. This ends up with you questioning what rep range should I be using? Well I’ve got the answers in order to make you hit all of this easy, based on todays chest workout. 

1. Start with your compound move of the session. For me today this was flat bench press. I warmed up to 3 working sets of 3 reps in a pyramid fashion. I then dropped the weight by 20% to hit 8-10 reps for 2 sets, then lastly bodyweight for 12 or failure. This straight away is recruiting a good few rep ranges.
2. I then like to move onto incline flies purely to flood the muscle with blood, for this I used ascending pyramids hitting sets at 15,12,10,8 and 6 reps. The last set add in a triple drop set. The first two sets you are treating more like pump sets, however the triple drop set in total will add up to 20 reps, more of what can be described as a endurance rep range. Again you have used all rep ranges, perform these with a good slow tempo and contraction, not all to failure. I’ve recently gone a lot heavier in these movements and have noticed such a difference to growth in my chest. 
3. My third exercise was incline dumbbell press again with a similar fashion to above however I ascending up in weight to then decrease back down. By this point however I was quite fatigued however still managed to push out a good weight with the rep scheme 12,10,8,12,15. 
4. I always like to mix this exercise up in my routine so today it was a competition between me and my training partner performing dips. 100 reps in total, fewest sets wins. This really pushes the muscle to failure and beyond as you can compete against one another. No matter rep ranges, a muscle pushed this hard will have to grow. 
5. The finisher today was high to low cable fly triple drop sets followed by prison press ups, reps determined by your age. Do this for three sets. This keeps things a little more interesting as oppose to the normal rep scheme you'd use. For a demonstration check out Steve Cook’s channel on youtube. He always uses them and they are great to use as a finisher. 

So there you go, a workout which demonstrates how you can target the muscle with all different types of rep ranges. This will keep the muscle guessing, pushing it in different ways but more importantly keeping things interesting for you. Fundamentally a muscle pushed to failure will instinctively grow stronger, thus bigger so don’t get to hung up on rep schemes. 

Hope this helps

Jack

I want bigger shoulders

I want bigger shoulders!!

This seems to be a goal of many recently, with a lot of people asking me how can I build boulder shoulders after seeing people like Ryan Terry and Steve Cook. It's kind of like the new chest and huge arms. 

The one thing you must remember about shoulders are that they are often secondary muscle group or stabilising muscles in most of the exercises you do, this therefore means when it comes to training them don't always use a lot of volume. Front delts get a big hammering when training chest, and even more so performing exercises with an incline.

Warm you shoulders up! Shoulders are prone to injury and if you have a recurring injury in your shoulders say goodbye to ever building big shoulders. Always spend a good ten minutes before any upper body session really warming up the shoulders, particular attention paid to the rotator cuff. 

Focus more on the lateral and posterior head, more than the front delt. As already mentioned the front delt is used often in through other exercises. The lateral and posterior will is also give more depth and roundness to your shoulders, thus making it appear a lot larger. This is in my opinion the easiest way to build size fast through isolation, high rep, low weight and focus on the contraction, squeezing the muscle. 

Lastly is split the shoulders into two workouts. This is something I'm using at the minute and absolutely love it. I do a anterior workout focusing on the push press to begin with then upper chest along with the lateral head of the muscle. The following day I deadlift heavy at the beginning, slightly using it as a secondary back day. Then I focus on face pulls and flies to recruit my rear delts, finishing with a shrug marathon. It is certainly working for me as this has always been a lacking muscle of mine. If you're cut for time add triceps onto the end of the anterior workout and biceps onto the posterior day.

So there are four easy steps you can adjust into your training in order to build bigger shoulders. Have a fab weekend. Eat clean, train hard and get plenty of rest. 

The season is upon us, let the bulking begin!!

Now as I sit and write this the dark nights are closing in, meaning winter is arriving which can only mean one thing in the fitness world, let the bulking commence. So before everyone starts eating whatever they want I thought it would be good to outline a few points with regards to nutrition.

Track your Macros:
By this I mean monitor your macros in order to ensure you're eating enough but also eating enough of the right stuff. Firstly work out your Basic Metabolic Rate then usually add on 500 calories to put on weight. You don't have to eat absolutely loads. Then add in the break down of the calories, I follow around 50% carbs, 35% protein and the remaining 15% fat. This will ensure you have carbs for energy but also a surplus to add on size with enough protein to ensure you're repairing the broken down muscle. Use MyFitness pal to track this, it doesn't need to be exact, like if you were dieting, but you'll be surprised how much food you actually need to eat.

Selection of Carbs:
Now for example say your macros allows you to eat 400 grams of carbs, this doesn't mean it can be just any carbohydrate. Try and have low glycemic based carbohydrates such as rice and oats throughout the day then both pre and most defiantly post workout opt for a high glycemic carbohydrate such as fruit or a dextrose based drink. This will help spike insulin levels and will be quickly absorbed into your system, thus helping with the recovery process. My favourite currently is a banana, kiwi and dates!!!!

How often to eat:
Now there are many different ways of consuming your calories. Some swear by eating all your food in a short period and fasting the rest, e.g. 8:16 diet. This is an option but if your sticking to a clean ish diet I can't see that this is going to be needed. I would tell many people to try and split the meals up throughout the day in three hour periods. This keeping you full and also allowing for you to be able to consume your meals without force feeding yourself. However at the end of the day as long as you're sticking to your macros it really doesn't matter when you consume them as long as you get them in.

Eating on rest days:
This is a thing that I am going to start changing in my diet and that is consuming less on rest days. Some would say this is incorrect however my body doesn't require the energy output it would need on a day which I am training and therefore believing cycling carbs in order to eat less on these days will reduce putting on unwanted body fat. Don't get me wrong you can't put on size without gaining fat but you can slightly slow the process down in order to not gain to much weight, which will be so much more difficult to lose when it comes to the summer cut. Just add this in maybe once every two weeks and see how it effects you.

Four easy puts you can input into your winter bulk. Hope this helps

Jack 

Late Night Legs

After a rather long 3 weeks away with very little training I got back late last night. With this amount of time away from a routine I was craving gym time and what could be more prevalent then kicking it off with a late night leg work out!

Now I normally stay away from training late, it's just never felt like the best time to train but last night was an exception to this. I always hit my legs with high volume beginning with back/front squat. Last night however I changed my squat slightly on advice from a video I had seen from Bradley Martyn, opting for a much closer, narrow back squat. This takes the stress away from the hamstrings and more onto the quads much like a front squat but allows for a heavier weight to be lifted. I went high volume with 8 sets of 12-15 reps, increasing weight over each set, hitting 125kg in the last set. 

Post these squats my legs were pretty much on fire but I moved onto hamstrings through variations of curls. 8 sets of 15 reps, focusing on the contraction and forcing blood into the muscle. This was very similar with leg extensions which I finished the workout off, super setting with weighted lunges. With the extensions pause at the top of the movement, when the leg is fully contracted. Dropset on each set really pushed my legs to the limited. A little finisher with tabata jump squats for 8 minutes. This is so simple but after all of the volume above was a killer.

1) Back Squat, warming up to 8 sets 12-15 reps. 

2) Leg Curl 8 sets 15 reps

3) Leg Extension drops sets, 12 reps each, weighted lunges 12 reps each leg. 6 sets.

4) Tabata Jump squats for 8 minutes.

My legs were totally busted after this workout, a fab workout. Needed a good foam roll out an stretch after this workout and they're hurting a lot this morning. Give the narrow squats a go, really worth it.

Good luck

Jack