Shoulders - Ditching the 5's?

Yep... Women are hard to work out what they are thinking. My wife just does not seem to dig my size much at all at the moment. She has always liked my chest, but lately it has become too big. It seems I am much bigger than what I thought I was. I am a pretty harsh critic on myself, but when my wife was saying that "you look like someone has added clay to your chest and back now and you look too wide and thick", this made me get the tape measure out. I was shocked to see 50" around the chest. I started taking Tribulus a couple of months ago and think this has helped me in some dramatic gains. Maybe my Testosterone levels were on the low side? I am not sure, but I have packed on some muscle in the past 2-3 months that is for sure. But getting back to women... It is hard to know what they want... I think most don't like the Arnold physique. I think they like men to have muscle, but not so much that it is over bearing. I agree with what was said about women liking the confidence we gain from lifting.

Shirt sizes, I am already mostly in XXL (depending on the shirt brand). Some jackets now my wife is not able to find me a size in a regular store. Sometimes I throw on a shirt and think "man, this is a bit tight" and my wife will walk in and say "yeah, that shirt does not fit you anymore". While I appreciate the muscle gained, I think I need to step it down a bit (except arms). The shirts usually pull tight on me across the chest and shoulders, but the arms do not fill the sleeves as well as they should and this is the frustrating bit that I have to try and turn around. I am going to give it my best shot at beefing the arms up and working on reducing body fat (to create better definition) over the next 6 months. My work outs will be interesting after this cycle of 5's as I think I will work with slightly lighter weights for shoulders and chest, but keep working heavy with arms. Has anyone modified their HST routines like I am looking at doing? How has it gone?

I am liking the 1-arm dumbbell close grip presses for triceps. I feel these are next best thing to dips for me and work chest/shoulders as well as triceps. I have considered dropping bench presses and just doing 1-arm dumbbell close grip presses only and seeing how that goes. Not sure though...

Thanks.
 
Renky, 50" chest is amazing. You could probably just ignore doing direct chest and shoulders and just do the close grip dumbell presses, these will beef up the triceps and still get some stimulation of chest and deltoids. I don't think you will need to do anything else, since you are already so big.

What does your workout look like now?

I would think chin-ups and close grip presses should be plenty to maintain your chest and lats, while focusing on arms. You could do some curls and kickbacks too for arms. (Since you said most triceps isolations hurt your elbows).

Just my thoughts.
 
Thanks for the kind words. I need to work on symmetry more though.

At the moment, my work outs look like this -

AM
Chin-ups
Barbell Curls
Alt Dumbbell Curls
Squats
Calf Raises

PM
Bench Press
1-arm Narrow Grip Bench Press (Triceps)
Military Press
Kickbacks

As discussed, I think I will drop the bench press (for a while anyway) and rely on the narrow grips for muscle stimulation there. I may drop military presses also. Not sure what else I can do?

Thanks.
 
I just took some measurements...

Chest/Back - 50"
Arms - 17"
Forearms - 14.25"
Calves - 16"
Shoulders - 54"
Neck - 18.5"
Thighs - 23"
Weight - 220lbs
Body fat - At a very rough guess 16%
 
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So after some research, some searching the forums and your opinions, I have decided that my plan is to push hard for another 4 months with training and diet for max muscle gain and see what I come out at. At the moment I seem to be on a roll with muscle gain, so I am going to make hay while the sun shines. I need to ease up on the chest training and probably shoulder training. I feel these parts are large enough now and I feel it is time to give the shoulders an easier time for the joints sake. Arms will be my biggest focus, so I will increase frequency there for this time. I have a home gym set up, so frequency is no worries for me. After the 4 month mark, I will diet in a controlled manner to drop excess body fat. It is my aim to get body fat down to around 12% and I will assess after this. I feel that I have some reasonable size overall, but need to work more on symmetry. Will see how things go. Thanks for all your help.
 
One other thing... I was wondering how many people experiment with lateral raises (using low to medium weights)? I have started doing 1 set of these after military presses and feel that they at least help my left shoulder to feel a bit better (which has started to get a little sore, but not too sore).
 
They are a great high rep exercise to do after seated shoulder presses.

Currently, my cycle is doing only laterals without presses to give a rotator cuff problem a rest. Low weight (20 lbs), high reps (15 reps) and not lowering the weight all the way to my side so I am always under tension. Laterals with heavy weights and low reps tend to inflame my shoulder and hurt my back as I lose proper form.

Renky, I must say that I enjoy your types of questions as they make me (and perhaps others) refresh ourselves with some of the basics of HST which always is a good thing. Also, you aren't hear to just start an argument with inane comments to start a mini war. Keep the questions coming.

O&G
 
Laterals are excellent for shoulder health, I highly recommend them.
Light loads done with strict form are preferable, as to activate the small muscles that stabilize the shoulder and help prevent injury. Also any kind of external rotation exercises are great for strengthening the shoulder stabilizers.
 
O&G - Thanks for the nice words. I just hope I don't get everyone re-hashing the same old material with my questions as I know this can get a bit tedious. Please always know that I never haven an agenda with any of my questions. I am here to learn as best I can and if I can help, I am happy to share my experiences.

With the Laterals, I have always been a little shy of them because I thought they were not so good for the shoulder joints. It is looking like I may be been wrong? I know in the past I have gone very heavy with the laterals and this was not a smart move. As you guys are saying, lighter weights and higher reps are good to do.

I was also wondering what you guys do for shoulder work? I have mostly focused on presses (with dumbbells) or upright rows. I gave the upright rows away some time ago due to something not feeling right with the movement. I tend to try and keep the exercise movement a more natural movement.

I recently had a physical therapist advise me that Bodybuilders will generally burn out their shoulders and that most of the exercises we do just cause issues with the shoulders. I kind of feel like she may have been a bit of a wet blanket, but maybe there was some element of truth in her statements to me?

Perhaps I should look at doing only two shoulder presses per workout within the 8-10 rep ranges and then finish off with 2 sets of lateral raises? I just don't want to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Frank Zane with totally wrecked shoulders. After talking to you guys, I have already started doing my benching and 1 arm presses on the floor, so my arms do not go past parallel.

Thanks.
 
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Old and Grey said:
They are a great high rep exercise to do after seated shoulder presses.

Currently, my cycle is doing only laterals without presses to give a rotator cuff problem a rest. Low weight (20 lbs), high reps (15 reps) and not lowering the weight all the way to my side so I am always under tension.

Renky, I must say that I enjoy your types of questions as they make me (and perhaps others) refresh ourselves with some of the basics of HST which always is a good thing.

O&G
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Funny, my first thought on reading Renky's post was man I hate lateral raises. Then I started thinking of why and it boils down to the fact I always used to have to use light weights and I never felt like I was growing/progressing. I guess there's still a lot of lift heavy to be big in my head afterall.

Could you replace lat raises with Arnold press to achieve the same thing?
 
Yeah I wouldn't swap arnold's with laterals as they really are two very different movements. If you are using laterals for higher rep work, keep it there for higher rep work.
 
Renky said:
O&G - Thanks for the nice words. I just hope I don't get everyone re-hashing the same old material with my questions as I know this can get a bit tedious. Please always know that I never haven an agenda with any of my questions. I am here to learn as best I can and if I can help, I am happy to share my experiences.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about rehashing stuff, it's always a good idea to revisit topics anyway, that way it helps ensure everyone understands the topic better. Besides, you never know when we might get new information about something or while revisting a topic, maybe someone will bring something up that nobody has thought about before and we might get some new ideas.
 
Thanks guys...

I think my left shoulder is starting to give me some warning signs. For example, if I do a double biceps pose the left shoulder feels a bit stiff and has some minor soreness. Same kind of feeling occurs during presses, but I can push through it. I am currently on my 10's, but I am thinking I need to stop the presses totally for a good few weeks and give the shoulders a rest. Last time I did presses (2 days ago), I felt my left shoulder burning more than usual. SO, I am wondering if I should just work with some high rep laterals only for a few weeks until Strategic De-conditioning and then maybe start the presses over at 15's and see how I go. I am probably stating the obvious move here, but wanted to get your opinions. Overall, I am not sure what laterals do for growth. Probably not much... Maybe maintain?

With the Arnold presses, I am not a fan of those and have stayed away from them... I have developed reasonable shoulder muscle with upright rows and presses. In the end I stopped upright rows because something about them did not feel right after a while. I may try them again and see though.

Basically as I mentioned at the start of the thread, I am thinking my days of heavy shoulder presses are over. Years and years of Max OT may have taken their toll on my shoulders and perhaps I need to back off before I get some real serious damage. I just think my body is sending me warnings at the moment, so perhaps some R&R for shoulders is good right now... I hate to stop in the middle of a cycle like this, but.....
 
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One other question...

What do you think would be a good idea to implement for healing a shoulder? Light weights with laterals, Stretching, icing and rest? Please understand that the shoulder is not causing me chronic pain or anything. It is a little sore in some movements and a little stiff in some movements. As mentioned, I think it is my body warning me and I should listen up. I am just wanting to take swift action here and let it repair before a major issue develops.

Thanks.
 
Upright rows.....argggghhhh. The cause of many shoulder injuries.

Do you have pain if, for example, you reach into the refrigerator for a gallon of milk and find your shoulder will not tolerate that when it is at the 90 degree angle, especially if the arm is 45 degrees in front of the body? If so, that is the start of major rotator cuff problems BUT they can be overcome with some simple stretch band exercies.

If the pain is elsewhere it may just be inflammation or bursitis and just needs rest and ice.

O&G (Note there is no 'MD' after my name)
 
Good news!! I can easily pick up a gallon of milk without pain. The stiffness and slight soreness occurs when I have arms overhead. So maybe it is early warning and I need to rest and ice. Do you think I should stop shoulders altogether for a few weeks and see what happens? Or should I go with light laterals? I understand you guys aren't Docs and that's cool. I am just happy to hear what has worked for you and see if it works for me (at my own risk)

Thanks.

O&G - You have reminded me now why I stopped with the upright rows. Ha, ha... Thanks for the smack to the back of the head bro! I needed it...
 
I thought you didn't want to grow your shoulders and chest any more?

Just do light, strict laterals and some external rotations and ditch the presses and upright rows. If you lose a little size, you can always go back to pressing after you've healed. The laterals and rotator cuff work in the meantime will help your shoulder health, so if you do go back to pressing, hopefully it will feel better.
 
Thanks, sounds good...

You are right, I am mostly at where I want to be with chest and shoulders, but I am wanting to go hard another 4 months to see where I wind up and then will diet to cut away any excess body fat.
 
Sorry to keep going on about this, but I think I have isolated the location of the very mild pain in my shoulder. It is more toward the back of the shoulder. If I do a double biceps pose, I get a twinge at the back when I rotate the shoulder for the pose.

Thanks.
 
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