Tip: No More Forearm Pain From Benching

Forearm pain from bench pressing is common… and it’s misunderstood. The culprit is generally the brachoradialis, a muscle normally associated with hammer curls. The reason it can get upset is because the fixed hand position on the bar forces your forearm through a pronation and supination cycle as the elbow bends and straightens. That means you’re effectively being forced to turn your hand over towards an end-range “palms down” position in the bottom of a bench press. Then, as you press up towards lockout, the forearm supinates into a more neutral position. This happens without us really thinking about it. However, while the forearm pronates and supinates, the brachoradialis is loaded to stabilize the movement occurring between the two long bones of the forearm. It’s a little complicated, because the muscle changes functions through the movement, doing different things at different points. Small stabilizer muscles under big loads often leads to overload and pain. Yes, you can back off bench pressing for a while, or you can rub or needle the muscle. All that might make it feel better in some way, but none of it will resolve the problem. Solving the issue requires you to condition the problem range of movement, making that range more easily available and stronger so it has the capacity to deal with the demands of benching. That means specifically conditioning loaded forearm pronation through a horizontal pressing cycle. Sounds complex, but the hammer press is the simple answer: Hold a hammer out at arm’s length and pronate the forearm until the hammer is parallel to the ground. Start with a very short lever. That means holding close to the top of the handle, near the head of the hammer. Holding the hammer parallel to the floor, try to mimic the bench press movement. You’ll feel the forearm fire up and work, and you’ll feel the problem muscle in the relevant way. Some discomfort, up to around 4-5 out of 10 on the pain scale, is acceptable and therapeutic throughout the movement. Do slow and controlled presses. If you need to make it more challenging, work your way down the hammer shaft to make the lever longer. Because the movement goes through the same range of motion as your bench press, it’s the only way to ensure you’re conditioning the relevant parts of the relevant muscles/tendons so they can adapt and actually solve your problem. Since this is a therapeutic exercise, it should be done daily and only to moderate discomfort. You’re actually adding work to tissues that are failing to cope with their current workload, so go steady. It may take a week or two to adapt and improve. It’s worth the time investment though. You’re really solving the problem, not just masking
Origin: Tip: No More Forearm Pain From Benching

Tip: What Powerlifters Can Learn From Bodybuilders

The Tale of Two Pauls I’ve competed in both powerlifting and bodybuilding, and each endeavor taught me a lot about the other. One thing that Powerlifting Paul learned from Bodybuilding Paul was how important it is to train muscles and not just movements. That was a huge lesson. Once I left powerlifting behind and dove back into bodybuilding, I really saw the vast differences in the two. Outside of the fact that you’re using barbells in both, they couldn’t be any more dissimilar. With powerlifting you want to put the body in the most mechanically advantageous position as possible to move the greatest amount of weight. It’s actually quite counterproductive, and I see a litany of competitive powerlifters show up on social media each week with new tears and strains. Powerlifters should have some periods where they think and train like bodybuilders. More muscle means better leverages, and more muscle increases maximum strength potential. When you’re trying to focus on muscular development (bodybuilding), you actually want to put that muscle into the least advantageous position so that it has to work much harder during the movement, i.e locking down the joints in a way that reduces the involvement of other muscle groups. Problem is, most powerlifters become very one-dimensional in their training thoughts. I fell into the same trap. I forgot that despite the fact that maximal strength is largely neural based, the muscles are still moving the weight. Newsflash, right? I continued to suffer from adductor strains when my squat would begin to climb. Simply training the adductors on the “good girl machine” rectified that problem. I had a similar problem later with my quads. Weight would go up, quads would sustain a strain. I knew my quads needed to get stronger, but I was already doing high-bar paused squats with over 600 pounds, and front squats with 455 for reps. Surely I had strong quads. Wrong! Due to years of perfecting my squat for my leverages, I’d really learned how to load up the hips and rely on them to do the brunt of the work. This meant my hips were capable of squatting 635 pounds, but my quads were capable of, well, far less. Which is why anything in that range often resulted in me straining a quad. I decided one day to rectify this and remove my superlative birth-giving hips from the equation. This meant hack squats, where the hips couldn’t contribute as much, and my quads would be forced to bear the brunt of the load. It wasn’t much of a load. I struggled with three plates for a set of ten on hacks. That was a very humbling day. But it also let me know I was on the right track. I knew that if I got strong as hell on hacks, then my quads would be able to contribute to my squat and not be the weak link. I followed up all of my squats with 1-2 sets of hack squats for 10-15 reps. I was living in the “anything over 5 reps is cardio” mantra at that time, so I can’t explain in words how awful this was. After a few months of being diligent with this plan, both my hacks and my barbell squats ascended. I hit a gym-best 660 pound raw squat with good speed months later. My quads stayed attached to the bone, thankfully. 12 Weeks a Year All powerlifters should be training for muscle growth and bringing up weak muscle groups for at least one twelve-week training cycle during the year. I believe both powerlifters and bodybuilders can benefit from having training cycles where they focus on the other objective: Powerlifters should have some pure hypertrophy training cycles to shore up weak links. Bodybuilders should do some training cycles where they focus on getting stronger on a few basic lifts. Doing so will carry over into moving heavier loads in the traditional bodybuilder rep ranges, which should manifest into more muscle
Origin: Tip: What Powerlifters Can Learn From Bodybuilders

3 Lessons From Bodybuilding Legend Bill Pearl

Who Is Bill Pearl? You may not know who Bill Pearl is, or realize his impact on the whole industry. I like to explain it this way: Bill Pearl was Arnold, before there was Arnold. Bill Pearl was bodybuilding’s first true crossover superstar. And his early books should be considered required reading even today, especially “Keys to the Inner Universe.” I met Bill in the summer of 1989 while I was working at the prestigious Muscle Camp in Los Angeles. My job was to open up the one-of-a-kind gym every morning. I’d get there at 4:30 AM and I can still remember how it took the floodlights about 15 minutes to fully kick on. Half the time I’d be warming up in darkness. I pretty much had the place to myself… until Bill Pearl started coming in right about the same time. When I introduced myself, he shook my hand and said, “It’s been a pleasure watching you work out.” That was something that stood out about Bill Pearl. Even with the enormity of the shadow he cast, he always made you feel like YOU were the most important person in every conversation. I told Bill that if he had any advice for me I’d love to hear it. Luckily, he had plenty. He imparted the following lessons to me over 30 years ago, but they’re lessons you can and should put to use today. 1 – Stop training like you have something to prove.Instead, train like you have something to accomplish. The next morning Bill pulled me aside and asked me, “Scott, what are you trying to accomplish in your workout?” To this day I remember not being able to give Bill a reasonable answer beyond some sheepish, kindergarten-level reference to what body part I was training. He told me I looked like I was working out like I had something to prove, but each workout should instead be about accomplishing something specific, beyond numbers and beyond efforts expended. He was right. I did train like I had something to prove. Since I wasn’t as strong as other bodybuilders of my size and caliber, I always aimed to out-train them. It was something Bill spotted right away. Rather than working out to build my pecs, for example, I acted like I was working to increase my max bench. It was a lot like the guys you see in the gym every week who start with bench press with the same weight, same reps, and same bad form – one guy holding the bar pretty much doing upright rows while the bencher does a hip bridge with every rep. And all their follow-up exercises are chest exercises. Ask them what the hell they’re trying to accomplish and they can’t tell you. And we’ve all seen the guy with pipe cleaners for legs load up the leg press with 10 plates per side and move the sled an inch or two. That’s training with something to prove (exactly what, I’m not sure) instead of wanting to accomplish a specific goal. I can’t tell you how many career-ending torn biceps, torn pecs, torn ACL’s, blown quad tendons, and herniated discs I’ve seen, all because lifters were training with something to prove rather than training with something to accomplish. It might have been because of training partners encouraging them to get more reps, even though their form was breaking down; or lifters adding more weight to the bench or squat or other risky exercises just to keep up with a training partner or a bad personal trainer’s expectations. All of that stuff led to bad outcomes. Training with something to accomplish instead of training with something to prove puts you in a much more mature headspace. Start by thinking about your workout and what you aim to accomplish within it, beyond a numbers game. Leave your ego at the door. 2 – Learn by doing, but also by observing. At that time, the Mr. Olympia contest was right around the corner and top pros were coming into Muscle Camp to work out. One morning Bill asked me to meet him at the gym when it was the busiest. Puzzled, I agreed. I met Bill and the gym was packed with people and some top pros, including the reigning Mr. Olympia, Lee Haney. I remember wondering what kind of workout Bill was going to put me through, but when I got there he told me that we were just going to watch – watch everyone – from the regular gym goers to the top-tier pros and amateurs. At first, this was a disappointment, but I gradually saw his intent. Bill would point out someone training and ask me to explain what I saw. At one end of the gym was a top wannabe Olympia competitor bench pressing with a training partner. He was struggling, like really struggling, to get up a couple of reps of 305 pounds. His form was horrible and his training partner helped him eke out a couple of forced reps. This already had me shaking my head because just a couple months earlier, one of the top magazines had shown this same guy benching four plates per side – obviously some fake weights were involved there. In another corner of the gym, Lee Haney was training back and shoulders, and I’ll never forget the image. I hadn’t really ever seen anything quite like that before. With Haney, there seemed
Origin: 3 Lessons From Bodybuilding Legend Bill Pearl

5 Foods Lifters Need to Buy From Costco

Everyone’s done it. You go to Costco to pick up some boneless chicken breasts and some toilet paper and you leave with a 72-pound wheel of cheese, 12 boxes of Nutter Butter cookies, a palette of kitty litter, and a kayak. It’s easy to get swept up in all that raw capitalism, but if you can keep your cool and stay targeted, a lifter can pick up some great healthy or semi-healthy food items at Costco. Here are five of my favorite, off-the-beaten-Costco-path food items that I’ve grown to depend on: 1 – Kirkland Premium Chunk Chicken Breast I know what you’re thinking: It’s just some chicken in a can, fat head. But hear me out because this is a fantastic find. Each jumbo-sized can (12.5 ounces) not only tastes great (it’s seasoned with just a bit of chicken broth, which also makes it incredibly moist), but has nearly 46 grams of protein in it. These are great for when you want to give yourself a super-hefty dose of protein but don’t feel like making a shake or, for that matter, cooking up a dry chicken breast. I also use them whenever I want to drop a few pounds. I just open one up, drain it, dump it onto a paper plate, mix it with just a teaspoon of olive-oil based mayonnaise, and add a little salt. It makes a great, low-cal, zero-carb lunch that tastes surprisingly good. After doing this for about a week or so, I find I’ve dropped about 3-5 pounds with virtually no suffering. Then there’s the phenomenal cost. If you were to buy comparably sized cans at the grocery store, they’d cost you between 5 and 6 bucks each, but Costco sells a six-pack of these bad boys for the amazing price of about 12 dollars – that’s two bucks a can. 2 – Kirkland Brand Organic Olive Oil You might not have known this, but most olive oils you find at the grocery store are either counterfeit or woefully lacking in purity. There just aren’t enough olive orchards around the world to meet the demand, so various manufacturers and distributors doctor up their olive oil with some sort of seed oil and add chlorophyll and beta carotene for color and odor. The scoundrels figure that while some housewife in Idaho may be potato-savvy, she’s olive-oil stupid and won’t know the difference between high-grade olive oil and some stuff that was made with crankcase oil and Uncle Giuseppe’s moustache trimmings. A few years ago, the University of California Davis analyzed 186 extra-virgin olive oil samples taken randomly from shelves and found that 73% of them failed to meet the standards of purity established by the International Olive Council, and the extent by which they failed ranged from 56% to 94%. Enter Costco. To address the shortage of orchards, they bought their own and now produce a really terrific organic olive oil. It’s one of the few widely available brands in the US to actually meet the standards set by the Olive Council. While it might not have the real strong, grassy taste associated with some of the European varieties, it’s more-than-acceptable to most chefs. Samin Nosrat of Netflix’s “Salt Fat Acid Heat” even included it on his list of recommended olive oil brands. Best of all, the price is about 17 bucks for 2 liters, which is roughly 13% of the cost per ounce of one of Nosrat’s other recommendations. 3 – Townsend Farms Frozen Organic Triple Berry Blend If you were to go to the grocery store and buy 3 pounds of fresh blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries, the check-out girl’s gold digger instincts would kick in and she’d follow you home, thinking perhaps that your 2006 Toyota Corolla with the mismatched side panels was just a ploy to throw off fortune seekers. That’s how expensive fresh berries can be, but Costco sells this organic three-berry blend for about 11 bucks. But maybe you’re thinking that you prefer fresh anyhow, since it’s more nutritious than frozen. Not so. A study conducted by Bouzari in 2014 evaluated the amount of riboflavin, beta-carotene, vitamin C, and alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) in frozen and non-frozen carrots, corn, spinach, broccoli, peas, green beans, strawberries, and blueberries. He and his colleagues found that frozen foods showed a minimal loss of vitamin C compared to big losses in non-frozen, “fresh” varieties. Likewise, frozen peas showed an increase in vitamin C and vitamin E over non-frozen, and the findings were true for fruits and vegetables even if they’d been frozen for 90 days. In other words, as long as the “chain of freezing” wasn’t broken – as long as the berries didn’t melt when the other berry pickers had to pack Reuben’s amputated finger with them en route to the hospital after it was cut off by the conveyor belt – they’re often as good or better than “fresh.” Lastly, you couldn’t pick a much better dietary and nutritional blend of fruits. All three are rich in anthocyanins and very low in total sugars. 4 – Wilcox Hard-Boiled Organic Eggs I can imagine the Wilcox Hard-Boiled Egg rep giving this pitch to Costco execs, only to be met with stony, perplexed,
Origin: 5 Foods Lifters Need to Buy From Costco

Tip: Protect Your Wrists from Lifting Injuries

Passive Wrist Stretches These stretches will help you to create range of motion in your wrist flexion and extension by using the floor as assistance. If you have tons of wrist extension and zero flexion, your wrists aren’t balanced, and your elbows are going to get pissed off in the long-term. Never force any stretch and always listen to your body. If you notice that your wrists feel tender the next day after doing these, that’s your sign to back off a bit. If they’re okay then you can start to push a bit further the next time. If even using the floor is painful, then step it back a bit. These exercises can be regressed by using the wall. Try doing them after a session with a lot of grip work. You’ll notice forearm tightness practically disappear within minutes. As a side note, doing “shoulder rotations” in any of these positions also makes for a great warm-up addition. Radial and Ulnar Deviation Radial and ulnar deviation is the side-to-side motion of the wrists. It’s neglected by almost everyone. If you practice advanced hand balancing then this is absolutely crucial, and if you do overhead squats or snatch presses, this thumb-grab stretch is an awesome way to alleviate some of the pressure caused by heavy
Origin: Tip: Protect Your Wrists from Lifting Injuries

5 Things Natural Lifters Can Learn From Pros

Should You Train Like a Pro Bodybuilder? Yes… and no. Blindly following the training of top bodybuilders might not work well for an average person training naturally. The physiology of both types of athletes just isn’t the same: Bodybuilders that use performance enhancing drugs have an elevated level of protein synthesis. Not so with natural lifters. The natural guy has to trigger protein synthesis with his workout, while the enhanced bodybuilder uses his workout mostly to drive nutrients to the muscles to take advantage of the elevated protein synthesis. The high level of anabolic hormones used by the pros can counterbalance an excessive increase in cortisol. In the natural bodybuilder, excessive cortisol release will not only kill protein synthesis, but will also trigger the expression of the myostatin gene, either of which will halt any possible muscle growth. Anabolic steroids increase glycogen storage and thus negate or prevent glycogen depletion. Glycogen depletion in itself is very catabolic and natural trainees are more at risk. Because of these differences, enhanced bodybuilders (especially if they have good genetics on top of all that) can tolerate more volume and can respond better to lighter “pump” work. They can also train a body part less frequently. But despite these differences, the top bodybuilders often come up with important parts of the muscle growth puzzle, and these elements can and should be used by natural lifters. Here’s what you can take away from some of the top Mr. Olympia champions: 1 – Larry Scott, Training Density Scott was the pupil of the great Vince Gironda, a man who was decades ahead of his time. Both Gironda and Scott were true thinkers and tinkerers, inventing several variations of exercises to make them more effective at isolating the desired muscle. However, their most important contribution was the emphasis on training density – doing hard work with very short rest periods. Having a high density of training (short rest periods) while still lifting heavy is one of the most powerful growth triggers. That’s one of the reasons why I like clusters, multi-rep clusters (2-2-2-2-2-2 or 3-3-3-3-3-3) and rest/pause sets. At first your performance will drop, but you can train yourself to be more resilient and stay strong even with short rests. The benefits of high density training (while staying with reasonably heavy weights) are mostly in the body composition department – it will help you get leaner while adding on muscle. The benefits to the cardiovascular system are also important, since good health is actually the cornerstone of muscle growth and fat loss. If you want to make crops grow, you can have the best fertilizers and use the best farming methods, but if the soil is poor you’ll have lousy growth. It’s the same with muscle. A healthier body will progress faster. As an example, adding muscle (naturally) without a healthy cardiovascular system to support it is virtually impossible because the added muscle poses a threat to survival! 2 – Sergio Oliva, Explosive Lifting Before being the first truly freaky bodybuilder, Oliva was an international level Olympic lifter for Cuba. His upper back and forearms can certainly attest to that. Much of his physical foundation was built on the Olympic lifts and heavy pulls. While you might not have to learn the Olympic lifts to benefit from them, explosive pulls like snatch-grip high pulls, push presses, and heavy Olympic deadlifts will really help a natural lifter build a thick back and shoulders. Other great bodybuilders enjoyed doing the Olympic lifts from time to time, Robbie Robinson and Mike Mentzer being two of them. The benefit of explosive pulls is an improved neural efficiency that will translate into better/earlier fast twitch muscle fiber recruitment. If you develop the capacity to recruit the fast twitch fibers earlier in the set, it means that you’ll fatigue/stimulate them sooner and with fewer reps. Additionally, you’ll burn less glycogen to get the job done. That means more glycogen for more growth. On a side note, the more efficient you are at recruiting the fast twitch fibers, the fewer reps you can do at a given percentage of your max. But that isn’t a bad thing. Quite the contrary! It simply means that by being better at hitting the money fibers, you provide the same stimulation without causing as much fatigue (glycogen and neurotransmitter depletion). These big explosive lifts also have the benefit of increasing muscle hardness and density. 3 – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Training Frequency Arnold was known for burying his training partners. He’s one of the rare exceptions that possessed an extremely resilient nervous system and a fiber type that allowed him to be really strong, yet have amazing set-to-set endurance. He also had a pain threshold second to none. Arnold was one of the rare people who could hit failure on 2 or 3 sets of an exercise and then proceed to make his fifth set the best one. He
Origin: 5 Things Natural Lifters Can Learn From Pros