Put a guy in a dress shirt, and a skinny neck is a distraction. Fisher Stevens, excellent actor who appears on “Succession,” comes to mind… [Read more…]
Forgotten Delt-Trap Mass Builder
After the newsletters on direct-indirect work for each muscle, my first training partner from way back in high school emailed me about lateral shrugs… [Read more…]
Trap Mass: I was wrong—sort of…
A few newsletters back I mentioned that the upper traps retract the shoulder blades; they don’t lift the shoulder girdle. That’s the job of the levator scapulae muscles… [Read more…]
New Back-Mass Add-On Move
A few newsletters ago I mentioned the middle traps’ line of pull as it relates to fiber direction…
Most of the mid-back fibers run upward at a steep angle. I won’t show the cadaver photo again; I’ll use an intricate graphic instead: \\ // [Read more…]
Shrugs Suck for Upper-Trap Mass?
Hypertrophy researcher Chris Beardsley recently posted this: [Read more…]
Clarification on Trap-Mass Activation
Going through Old Man, Young Muscle as I prepare for the sequel, I noticed one thing that needed clarifying to make a certain exercise much better… [Read more…]
Mr. O’s Stretch Overload for Shocking Mass
Yesterday, in my discussion on incline presses, I mentioned that recent studies are indicating that stretch overload is a big key to more hypertrophy.
It’s one reason powerlifters have such massive traps—heavy deadlifts, an exercise that puts those muscle in a max-stretch struggle from start to finish… [Read more…]
Moment of Bodybuilding Zen 166: Arnold’s Titanic Traps
When Arnold hit a most muscular, his traps popped like two loaves of French bread. [Read more…]
New Angle for More Mass and a Beastly Back
Q: I’m on the Size Surge 2.0. I’m loving it! Feeling bigger already, but I have a question about shrugs. I started with dumbbell shrugs, 4X style. Then I went to barbell shrugs and got a whole new soreness in my upper back. The exercises don’t feel that different. Why did I get so sore?
A: Amazing how one little tweak to an exercise can trigger new soreness. It’s all about angle of pull and restriction vs. non-restriction. [Read more…]
Midback Muscle Building
Q: I’ve been reading about 3D Positions of Flexion, and it makes total sense. Most of the three-way hits for each muscle are straightforward, but I’m confused about midback. Is a row classified as the big midrange exercise? With a barbell row, the arms squeeze the shoulder blades at the top, which is the contracted position. Is a barbell row both a midrange and contracted exercise?
A: You need to look at the lats and midback together to understand the three positions of flexion for each. For lats, you use pulldowns or chins as the big midrange exercise. Then you follow with pullovers for stretch and stiff-arm pulldowns for contracted.
For midback muscle building, there’s no need for a midrange exercise—you get that on the pulldowns or chins for lats. Those exercises pull the arms down and back, which affects the lats as well as the midback…
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