Yeah. You know if it WAS really easy then you could have hit a rep or two, said, "this is too easy" rested again and put on more then hit your 3 reppers. The idea of the program is to go all out with the most you can do with good form. It is NO BIG DEAL anytime you want to start cautious, feel it out, and then start again.

I know that you are being cautious because of your shoulders of course and you are the only one who can judge what you should be doing.

u changed workout clothes. sneaky.

True ,you are the only one that knows how and what to do with you body. Just saying how it looked.

Oh I was agreeing with you, Talo. It's just from personal experience whenever someone has an injury history I put on that addendum like I did at the end. The central point was not only do I agree...if you can, do more. Only instead of trying to add volume, i.e. pump out more reps..stay with the purpose of the day and just add intensity. You know, volume will never replace intensity for strength development. You know, I just want to be clear that a lot of times people think I'm disagreeing when I'm not it's just little differences in details.

Gottcha.

In your opion when someone has an injury what would be better to do high reps with lower weight or low reps higher weight ?


sorry for the highjack, wolf.

Well that is a question that it would be better not to answer unless you know what is going on with an individual. And it depends on the movement and what the PURPOSE of that movement is.

Look at leg extensions. Leg extensions at light weights and sort of high reps CAN be useful when reabilitating knees. May not always be the best thing but still can be usefull. But leg extensions with very heavy weights are really bad for you knees. You take what is appropriate for the injured and what is not appropriate for them and generalize that...you get into trouble.

So let me be clear that what I was saying is that Anuj has a HISTORY of shoulder injuries...subluxations, etc. It is still a concern and he just recently had a troubling episode but he doesn't seem to be actively injured right now. He has instability though for sure. If he WAS actively injured I wouldn't be saying what I said above about more weight but at the same time, high reps could be even worse.

When it comes to his shoulders I think it is best to pay attention to that sense of "apprehension" he may or may not get for a given weight. If you take the time to build up and warm up slowly, get a sense of what is happening for your shoulderes or whatever else...then low reps with heavy weights should be the safest for those things you have found you are OK with. As for high reps it is probably better to say "high volume", you know? Should Anuj be doing 4x12 incline bench press over time? NO. Chronic overuse do too high volume is much more the 'general' problem than low reps with heavy weights. Given, of course that everything should be treated on an individual basis.

IF you do those things, and IF you can really pay attention then you should be in good shape. But high reps high volume can feel just hunky dory for such a long time...until you're fucked.

But of course when it comes to what is termed "prehab" or "activation" that will most be very light weights and higher reps. But it's really the lighter weights that matter and not really a given rep range. You are talking very small muscles that may have become inactivated or inflamed..

Some of the scapula stuff you may do up to 20 reps. Or at least 12. But you don't HAVE to.

What I was posting about, though, was what I thought was the best approach for THIS program and not about what is best for injuries. I.E. I fest comfortable recommending it given my knowledge of Anuj and since I know he wouldn't do anything he personally felt uncomfortable with. I don't know if I've answered that question, very well TALO! It's the kind of thing you hesitate to give an answer to :). My opinion really is that when someone gives you an opinion about injuries, it's no skin off their nose if it bites you in the ass, so if they haven't taken the time to ask questions, etc....I'd disregard it.

Hey guys...

I agree with all you guys: I could've taken a bit more weight.

But see, the problem is that I am not used to doing Incline Dumbbell Presses. Add to that I had a shoulder dislocation less than a week ago!

So what happened is that on some reps the weight was actually light but then on others it got extremely heavy for me. I reckon I could've handled 90 lbs however it was a risk I wasn't willing to take on this workout. I used this workout to just roughly gauge my strength. Now next workout I am required to do 2 sets x 2 reps and I plan on taking 90 and if everything holds up I might even take 100 for the last set. Dumbbell Pressing is something I really like and am willing to crank out a few reps on. However, I just wanted to get a feel yesterday. Like Eric said: I should've increased the weights on the following sets but I wasn't sure of myself. Now I am sure of myself. So hopefully next workout will be fun.

On a side note: I am still damn sore from Sunday's workout. WTF???

You did the right thing.

Part of why I said about stopping and adding more weight is that I've found that people get so caught up in finishing sets that they think it's a sin to abort a set if it is just too light. They are also stuck in the mindset of linear progression. I.E. that's ok if it's too light I'll add more next time. Well, this isn't linear progression AND it's not exactly a loose template. There's a time-frame involved for everything. The reps get reduced next time, etc and so on...

And I know we've had this type of discussion before so I was just re-making that point if only for future reference.

I took advice a good while back on what I should do for my back. I was frustrated with my progress and I did stuff that was against my better judgement. In the back of my mind I was thinking nobody knew MY back better than I did. It was no-one's fault but my own. Long-story short...back 10 times worse and I got to play catch-up and re-hab for a while. Good news is that I learned a lot and my back is better than it was when I was 19..course that's when I screwed it up the first time, lol.

No, I have that mentality sometimes where I am too caught up in just completing the workout that I forget that I can add weight - or even reduce the weight!

I have come to understand that just because Set 1 feels light and if I increase the weight, then set 2 is just too difficult (making set 3 feel impossible) it is perfectly ok to reduce the weight again.

I hear you, sir.

Good to hear your back is fine now but damn....that sounds like a nasty experience.

At that point my back had already been bothering me since I was aound 19. Including very bad sciatica. The difference was that after that it went from being very bad about twice a week to every day of the week :D