by NotNowChief » Mon Aug 03, 2009 2:25 pm
Vong; To be fair your whole question was about tweaking the program. I was just pointing out that you haven't given the program a chance, that's all. I never assumed you were an idiot, just that as a beginner you are better off concentrating on getting strong enough to move a serious weight before applying that to strength to isolation exercises. I was repeated what you have heard before because I thought it right. I answered your question, I think you will get just as much arm growth alternating pulls and chins as curling. Feel free to disregard.
Killerdude; Maybe, but without that core strength first, I would contend that you can't curl (for example) a big enough weight properly to effect much a change. I would simply argue basics first, for a few months, then mix it up. I curl, I curled before I turned onto 5x5's and I've curled since. I know I got alot more out those curls after I got properly strong enough to move more weight, and when my back, butt and legs were strong enough to hold me steady. I can curl more properly and I feel all that working to keep a proper form, no way I could have done that with the same weight before. I didn't curl when I did stronglifts, my biceps grew, they got defined etc.
Here's someone making my point alot more eloquently than I could;
by Alwyn Cosgrove
My approach to lagging body parts is to look beyond the obvious and try to come up with a real solution to the problem. The key to increasing a trainee's biceps size depends on his ability to handle heavy loads in the barbell curl.
While there's no direct correlation between strength and size (i.e. you can't tell how much a guy can lift by looking at him), there is a correlation between strength increases and size increases. In other words, if your dumbbell curl increases from 40 to 60 pounds, you'll have gained some size.
So if you can handle heavier loads in the curl, you will grow bigger biceps. That much is a given. And if just doing more curls isn't the best strategy, then what is?
Pop Quiz
Which exercise can you handle the most total weight on?
A. Shrugs
B. Barbell curls
C. Dumbbell front raises
If you're like most people, you probably answered "A" followed by "B," and you left "C" for last. This difference in poundage is largely due to the proximity of the load to your body. Simply put, your ability to curl a heavy weight, a precursor for arm size, is dependent upon your body's ability to support that load out in front of you.
Think of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. If I were to build a platform that stuck out from the middle of the tower (like your lower arm from your torso during the midpoint of a curl) and started piling load on it, how long do you think it would be before the tower would buckle and I could collapse the whole thing? Not long.
Your body works the same way. At a certain load, the tower (your back and torso) would buckle. The only difference is, when there's a risk of injury to the spine, your body will shut down the prime mover (in this case the biceps). Your body won't allow that load to get heavy enough to injure you if it can help it.
Why? Because your body is more concerned about protecting your spine than it is about growing massive guns. As wrong as this fundamentally is, we have to go with it. The longer the lever arm, i.e. the further away from the body the load is, the greater the torque through the spine.
Taking this a step further, can you curl more weight standing on two feet or on one foot? Obviously with two feet because you have more support. More support gives you the ability to handle greater loads. Greater loads gives you the ability to grow.
But I did. These guys have been a great help and encouragement through some tough times for me and they probably don't even realize it. - Pagangoddess
