Lou Skunt is out fighting General Zod today so I am going to drop the first in a series of articles I have been thinking about called How to lift.
If we turn back the clock a little over a year ago when I first started the Team WB Fitness Website, the primary motivation was to talk about where people have gone wrong with lifting. People who go to the gym day after day, year after year, study programs online, work hard and dedicate large chunks of their lives to lifting are in the gym every day lifting wrong. They are lifting contrary to their own goals, in ways that will get them hurt and most of them have no idea.
If you go back to the first dozen or so articles here we really stress light weight and form over putting weight on the bar.
Today we are going to have homework. The following video is required Team WB watching. It is a short video of Kai Greene explaining to someone in the gym where they are going wrong with their lifts and their weight choices as well as their form and why.
Kai says it clear, I am not a weightlifter. I will never be a weightlifter. I am a bodybuilder. He shows this guy how to get maximum stretch and maximum contraction on curls, both dumbbell and barbell (yes Kai curls in the squat rack…at his size you are allowed to) and why if you are lifting properly, getting a full stretch and a full contraction, with more and more
Not sure what you are doing in the gym, but Kai is over hear curling a 40 pound EZ Bar.
resistance, at a high volume number of reps that is where you will trigger your hypertrophy and muscle gains.
In this short video Kai very clearly explains, in a way that leaves no room for argument, the major philosophy behind WB Fitness.
What Kai has to say about curls in this video goes for every single lift. You want to get the absolute maximum of stretch and the absolute maximum of contraction on the targeted muscles while keeping the other muscles and joints as still as possible. That very well may mean you will be lifting less weight than the 105 pound girl on the bench next to you and much less weight than the chubby dude on the bench on the other side. Don’t sweat it. They are both lifting with ego and ignorance. You are there to do a job.
Kai on those 20 pound preacher curls.
I get it guys, we have a competitive spirit. I am here holding a 15 pound dumbbell and the guy next to me is holding a 60 pound dumbbell and my instinct is to put my 15 down and go grab a 70 pounder. This is stupid. This is pride. As Marcellus Wallace tells Butch, Fuck pride.
I am not telling you to ditch the competitive spirit. Not by any means. I am telling you to focus it intelligently. Look to the left. The girl who weighs half what you weigh in the lululemon gear she bought just that morning lifting the exact same weight as you, look at her musculature, not at her weight. Is she in shape or is she just there moving weight around? Does she know what she is doing? Now look to the right. Chubby guy lifting much heavier than you. Look at his form. Is he lifting with the primary muscles or is he letting his joints and tendons do some of the work? Is he still or does he use rough jerking motions to get momentum to move that weight? Does his body look lean, strong and well defined?
Instead of making the competition about what is on the bar, make the competition about the
This is how you grow arms
final product. Remember, you are sculpting a body. Over the course of the next 7 months we will be eating, lifting and in all ways focused on building the best physique as possible. If you want to look left and look right and be in competition as a motivator that’s great…but make it about the results, not about how much weight is on a bar.
So here is the take away, the lesson. When you get into the gym to do a lift (for this article I will stick with curls, but it goes for ANY lift) take the lightest weight the gym has available (even if this means just the bar with no weight for things like squats or benchpress etc). Before you start your working set, set yourself up with that weight, lets say a 5 pound dumbbell, and do a few reps of your lift. Focus hard. Stretch your muscle until you cannot stretch it any more. When you have a full stretch, contract the muscle until you cannot contract any more. Remember, if you just make a big show off muscle bicep flex hard enough it will eventually hurt…you don’t even need weights. Do two or three reps of the FULL range of motion with that light weight. Then gradually increase in the smallest increments possible until you get to a weight that you feel you will not be able to do 10 or 12 or whatever a full set of reps is if you stick to perfect form and get a full contraction and stretch. Then drop back to the weight you can. If this weight is 15 pounds, then it is 15 pounds. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT IS ON THE BAR! ONLY THE RESULTS MATTER. After you have the right weight, punch out the sets. You will know when you have become stronger and need a heavier weight and then do the tests again.
The goal is never to lift the heaviest weight. The goal is to built the best you. You can’t do that with half reps, wounded joints and tendons and a bunch of ego where your brains are supposed to be.