To Shred or Get Shredded

lol Talk about physical extremes! I personally only lift stuff when I am getting paid hahaha

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This is true for all of the barbell / dumbbell moves, but I had good experiences with cables / machines. Obviously not the “true” program at that point, though!

The best thing about this program I think is learning what true failure feels like, at a weight range that shouldn’t be causing injuries (with the rest pause / myoreps, I remember being at about 8 reps in the first cluster of most exercises). So, I developed an appreciation of not ego lifting, and emphasizing the stretch component of eccentrics.

Definitely! I was lucky enough to start at a gym on base with lots of motivated Marines, so the gym equipment was honestly pretty good. I haven’t had access to a place like that in a while, but I might in the fall through my spouse’s job. Looking forward to that!

For sure! A reason why I started was to strengthen / rehab a pretty bad case of golfer’s elbow I had, so I would track lat / elbow flexion exercises really well.

I developed a bad habit of reading every T nation article I could at the office, lol. I still go there from time to time to get ideas, which I’m actually implementing now! One of them being, coincidentally, the “Dante Row”:

I am attempting with my knees “free-floating” though, as I’m always hyper aware of knee injuries.

This might be a subconscious thing about body to weight ratio exercises. Very common in climbing from what I’ve experienced.

I might be in a strange place for lats, but wide grip doesn’t feel to hit them at all. I swear I have some strange “non-active” lat syndrome. Best thing for me has been rounded back closest grip possible for a stretch, or “Kayak rows” for feeling a squeeze that almost cramps me, lol:

Pretty sure this is what Arnold said!

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He said “I’ll be back” not “I’ll train back”

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Right, I was stubborn and wanted to “do” the program (or “not” do the program since I am all-or-nothing). Relying only on machines and dumbbells, I would have run out of compound exercise to swap when I plateaued on a particular lift. That’s probably the lamest excuse ever for not doing DC though haha I do miss those days. Too bad about my lifting partner :frowning:

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Yeah I have problems hitting my pecs with bench, and the only things that seem to work are decline bench, decline pushups, over one shoulder heavy as you can tricep pull down (ghetto weighted dips if no dip machine), and this machine which i probably wont find ever again, was an old school bench press machine that was split apart but each hand you could freely move instead of in a fixed position like most are these days, of course you could just use the cables and put a bench inbetween two to get similar results. Some people are just different, that is why once you go through a few years of training some basic stuff with the barbell, start doing all the machines, and see if you can find other exercises that work better for your body.

Haha!

To add to that list, landmine chest presses (prayer presses as I call them) and a lot of variations of pushups such as pseudo-planche pushups, pike pushups and eventually hand stand pushups. A well done pushup with a lot of time under tension for your chest is incredibly effective.