your description is rather vague.

But sounds like it is near the scapular pr maybe the rotator cuff ? google it and see if it's the right spot

If it's pain during bench press, most likely laying off pressing motion and work on some scapular retraction rehab exercises.

If it's pain during pullup or lats pulldown, lay off pressing motions and work on scapular depression rehab exercises.

again this is teh internetz, get it check by a qualified person. pain is bad.

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Added on January 25, 2010, 10:37 pmjust to add my definition of the bench press is shoulder blades retracted, bar weight supported by the upper back with a lower back arch , feets on the ground, driving the heels as I pressed.

This post has been edited by ken86: Jan 25 2010, 10:37 PM

If u really have no choice, you can build muscle outside the gym but it requires some creativity and some sort of progression (say increasing the reps or pullup with chains for external loading)

some equipment ideas,

1/4'' - 5/8" chains for weights

Tires – Cost: Free – For large tractor tires find your local supplier in the phone book.
They are typically willing to give away used tires since they have to pay to dispose of
them. To find car tires stop by any local shop and just ask. Again, they have to pay
to dispose of them, so you are actually doing them a favor by taking some!

Sandbags or bulgarian sandbags – Purchase a used military duffel bag or those tyre inner tube. Stop by the same place you got your flipping tire
and ask them for some used inner tubes. Buy a few bags of sand from your local
hardware store. Cut the inner tubes in half and fill them with sand. Tie the ends and
load your duffel bag. A little bit of work, but well worth it.

let's take basic movement and variations you can do with it

Pushup - feet elevated, close grip (focus on tricep), reverse grip , and slowly work your way up to one arm pushups, or blast straps (using chains and d-handles) pushups, hindu push ups, chain pushups, handstand pushups

pullups - Figure it out !

for legs that's tons of bodyweight exercise

Squat - BW squats for reps, Single leg squats aka pistol (betcha can;t do it), SUMO squats ( Take a wide stance and drop down as low as possible, works the inner thighs) forward lunge, reverse lunge, bulgarian split squats.

again if u want some external loading, wrap the chains around you. Training outdoors can be very interesting and with some imagination and creativity, the possibility is endless.

DL the file below and perform the assessment.

I will give you the corresponding corrective exercises

it's from eric cressey's latest assess and correct. Great product

This post has been edited by ken86: Jan 27 2010, 04:51 PM


Attached File(s)
 Shoulder_Assessment.pdf ( 814.55k ) Number of downloads: 61

it's an assessment. IF you are right, you will probably not pass one/two of them out of the four(I am not gonna reveal which one as people tend to be aware of that particular movement and try hard to convince themselves they are ok when performing that movement)


It will help alleviate your pain by laying off pressing motion and working on the corrective exercises.

I think i phrase it wrongly

"If you are right about where the pain is radiating from ... "

3rd assessment - that's a sign of rotator cuff impingement that is expected which is very normal for instance flaring your elbows excessively when bench pressing, etc. I am surprised you can perform the 4th one.

the 3rd one what is your definition of pain ?

do u have
1) less than 70 degree of rotation
2) You raise your head upwards to compensate for the lack of rotation?

rotator cuff impingement is bad = DON"T BENCH WITH YOUR ELBOWS FLARED OUT. a slight tuck is best. the 4th is saying a lot of things which I dun think you can capture it well.

just stay with the rotator cuff impingement and I know the age old bb saying of benching with your elbows flared for more chest involvement. which would you prefer ? short term benching or long term shoulder health.

work on strengthening the rotator cuff stability.

How much do u bench ? if it's at least 60kgs and you can't even pullup, that's clearly an imbalance there.

just follow these
http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article...nster_shoulders

If you can bench with the Oly bar for 8-10 reps, I suggest adding the weight progressively.

DB bench is sometimes easier on the shoulder as we vary the angle freely as opposed to the pressing the barbell (a long rigid stick) with both hands

Regardless, you are still not awesome if you can't pullup at all.

sign of weak lats. Pull-ups are harder. This is because your biceps are in a mechanically less efficient position, which is fancy talk for “you can’t use them as much.” By putting the biceps in a weaker arrangement, you create a weak link. Movement will stop when this link fails, and the decreased load that you can use with pull-ups because of mechanical inefficiency at the elbow joint carries over to less loading on the lats. Therefore, the harder the movement, the less you can do.

But I strongly believe in doing things you suck at, I could do 20 reps of pullups easily when I managed 10 sets of 10 reps per session. Another thing is pavel's mantra of greasing the groove.

if you are just starting out, what is there to tweak ?

eat more and stop over analyzing is probably the best solution.

row At least 3/4 of your bench, you need to balance push and pull movements.

90% of trainees likes to build mirror muscle (aka chest, biceps, etc), there's always too many push movement and lil to none pull movement.

First thing first, u can still do thoracic spine work with tennis balls if u dun have athletic tape, slot two tennis balls into a sock and get the same thing.

PVC has a much denser structure and definitely helps reduce the muscle adhesions and make your wallet lighter. Two feet long and four inches wide will suit pretty much everyone. If the PVC pipe is still too uncomfortable while doing soft tissue work, just throw a towel or a yoga mat on top of it to relieve some of the pressure.

Even perform better sells foam roller with a PVC embedded inside

so it's fine and dandy to think the expensive foam roller makes you part of the Cool soft tissue manipulation community. I do rather stick with a inexpensive PVC pipe and get the job done as well.

People are too caught up with fancy stuffs, like training, they dream of the magical rep range, magical rest period, just train harder dumbass

PS. Just FYI, the foam roller you see actually deforms after using it for quite some time. Using a PVC i can replace it again and again and a dense PVC pipe retains its shape for a long time

This post has been edited by ken86: Jan 31 2010, 09:58 AM

I am not anti-machine but smith is really bad for learning the compound movements

The Smith machine locks you into a fixed plane of motion, which develops what is called 'pattern overload syndrome'. This was coined by Paul Chek and is explained as

People get a pattern overload from using the Smith machine. The more fixed the object, the more likely you are to develop a pattern overload. This is due to the fact that training in a fixed pathway repetitively loads the same muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints in the same pattern, encouraging micro-trauma that eventually leads to injury. If one always uses a Smith machine for his bench presses, he ends up working the same fibers of the prime movers in the bench press all of the time: triceps brachii, pectoralis major, long-head of the biceps, anterior deltoids, and serratus anterior. But he can't change the pathway, the bar will always be in the same position. This commonly leads to chronic injury over time. The weight is stabilized for you. However, the joints operate in multiple planes. Use of the Smith machine, greatly decreases stabilizer activity. That creates a problem when the trainee returns to free-weight training. When that happens, the trainee is exposed to the three-dimensional environment called real life.

This clearly applies to any exercise. Because of the mechanics of the knee joint, the body will alter the natural bar pathway during a free-weight squat to accommodate efficient movement at the knee. A fixed bar pathway doesn't allow alteration of this pathway for efficient movement of the joint, thereby predisposing the knee to harmful overload via lack of accommodation.

Biomechanically the bar path should travel in a straight line when you squat but squatting in a smith machine stabilizes the weight for you and well this leads to injury and little to no carry over to real life situations.

If you've been training for a long time, and looking to target that particular muscle (say VMO ) maybe it would work for a while.

For beginners, it's highly discourage, look for a gym with a rack.

That's just plain SUCKY programming.

Let's say a good training routine like 5/3/1

It emphasizes on

1. Warm up. Static stretching, jump roping, foam rolling
2. Lift weights - using the 5/3/1 protocol
3. callisthenics - dips, pullups , single leg squats (at least 50 - 100 reps per week)
4. conditioning on off days - like dragging a sled, running hills, pounding the tire with a sledgehammer
5. metabolic circuits as finisher so you wouldn't run out of gas (eg. Mr. Tabata)

Look at crossfit - I dun entirely agree with the programming especially high reps olympic lifts in a fatigue state etc

but It's not hard to find guys in pushmore performing 20 rep pullups, squatting 1.5 BW, deadlifting 2 BW, ring dipping, single leg squats, muscle up, military pressing 3/4 BW.

It's all about your training routine.

Let's continue where we left off in our PMs

"and yeah im prone to being fat, should i ditch the dairy even if im drinking no fat milk? @>@ ouh and i didnt mean cereal per se, meant oats and weet bix XD"

Being fat is not about eating fat. It's the excess carbs that is making u fat provided your caloric intake is within your range. Weet bix and oats are a great start for complex carbs source. Eat your veggies also.

I have posted a post on how to perform your 1st pullup and I am too lazy to search it. It involves performing negative pullups, the pullup machine has very little carry over to the real pullup. I say man up and give the bar some tuggin.

What are your goals again ?

noticed the human doing the pullup machine, she has a vagina.

as a beginner that can't pullup, do you need a myriad of accessory work ? pulldowns ?

training economy at its best, I'd do rather do dips for chest and shoulder and tricep for accessory work then doing tricep pushdown, tricep pullover, cable flys, whatever.

"I recently got a fellow friend to perform pullups ( he was really out of shaped prior to this)

Progression I used ( those that can't perform pullups for nuts)

Everyone is strongest at the eccentric portion (lowering portion) Climb, get help from a training partner, or jump up to a static hold with your forehead to the bar for a count of two. Then, slowly lower the body until your arms are locked out at the fully extended position. Then, put your feet down and repeat the process,

Start with 3 sets of two. Every 2-3 days , add 1 extra set until it accumulates to 10 sets of 2 = 20 deceleration pullups. 1 month later, he grab the pullup bar and started tugging miraculously. magical. "

guide to your first set of pullupS.

I got my assess and correct from sharing and caring with like minded individuals.

split or not, as long as you include some basic compound movements (squat deadlift bench ,military press) look around the strongest and biggest did this lift.

Strength” does not mean training like a powerlifter. Everybody immediately defaults to this position without even thinking about the argument. Powerlifting is a competitive sport that requires specialized training to increase strength in the three lifts. Training to increase your 1RM in the squat, bench, and deadlift qualifies as getting stronger, yes – but that is not the only way to define ‘getting stronger’. Increasing your strength might mean increasing your best set of 8 reps; or it might mean going from one set of 5 to four sets of 8 with the same weight; and it can even mean going from a maximum set of 5 to a very easy set of 5 (by using the relative feel of the set as an indicator).

you just started out, you are weak as hell
as long as
1) focus on getting stronger
2) work on those compound movements
3) no need to 3 different of type of curls or 3 variations of bench (incline bench, decline bench, flat bench)

everything works if you set your goal and trudge towards it. Give a half ass routine to a dedicated guy, it will work. even the most well thought out training regime wouldn't work for someone unwilling to adhere to it.

lol I like that answer.

if you don't even know what to eat, you have no business using a fat burner.

Introducing more nutritious food aka eating cleaner than what are u are doing now is gonna elicit a fat loss.

summary
- introduce more nutritious foods to the diet and start working on BASIC nutritional principles.
- Keep water with you at all times (or MOST times) - and DRINK IT.
- Drop 90% of the sugar from your current diet. Post-training is the only time of
the day you can get away with it.
- more frequent meals albeit in a smaller portion.
- supplements are not magic

your theory is flawed. And yes you should carry heavy weights, do i look fat to you or anyone of us that actually lift some man weights look fat to you ?

10kgs each side, I think my sister does more than that.

What does all this trainer learn these days .. geez

Musashi , Max's Nutrition or something along the line and Aussie bodies are quite inferior brands to be honest. Even the locals seem to support US based brand products as the price of these aussie-based brands tend to be even more expensive in australia despite the fact that the US brands are imported. If i m not mistaken, Musashi sponsors some aussie footy team was it geelong cats or bulldogs, can't recall.

Of course u can train without supplementss, you are a student now I assumed, minimal stress (I know study is quite stressful wait till you see the real world and bills flooding in) access to your mom's money for groceries.

If you are playing rugby, 173 cm and 57kg is rather puny. Eat more lift more, rest more is what u need. At this age, you should focus more on proper lifting techniques as bad motor patterns is really hard to correct.

At this weight, you should eat more dead animal flesh, nuts, rice , and the occasional cheese burger.