Hypothetical Curl Jockey Question

[bullethead74]

If you where to do 1 set of 15 reps each of DB Curls, One DB Tri Extensions, and DB Shoulder Press and the following applied :-

1) The 15th rep was just reachable and used a moderate weight.

2) You did the 3 exercises every night just before bed so no further load on those muscles occured and plenty of recovery time.

3) There was little or no impact on other compound exercises which continued as usual 3x per week.

4) All done in good form at moderate speed to provide best pump

5) The exercises provide noticeable semi-permanent size increase to the muscles involved (through pump admittedly).

6) You dropped these exercises from the usual places in your routine.

Assuming these things then what if any problems could be foreseen, given that this is pretty much what thousands of curl jockeys do to good visual effect???????


No flaming please, only intelligent answers!

[ancom41]

There are too many factors to really give you a definitive answer man. Everyone who posts a response here is probably gonna give you more questions than answers. For example, whats your caloric intake? If your not eating enough.. it doesnt matter what your set/rep's are, your not gonna gain weight. If your asking what are the problems with continueing your current routine, then the only thing I can think of is that you probably wont see significant gains and you will just waist your time. If you want advice on how to tweak your routine, thats a different story. I would suggest a couple of things. First off, take the time and effort, and get on a full body routine. I promise you that you will see much better gains. Second, if your failure point is at 15 reps, then that probably means you need to pump up the weight till your failure goes down to maybe 6-8 reps (that is of course if your objective is size). Perhaps try one of the WBB routines, and see how it works for you. All in all, the most important is probably gonna be your diet. If you are serious about this, then the first step is to see how your diet adds up.

[bullethead74]

I am currently on a 3 day split routine which is going ok, and my diet is good and I'm eating lots of good calories and protein and making gains I think are reasonable.

The question is more about giving yourself a visual boost in the areas that people look at the most, without sacrificing the gains from the big lifts.

Lets face if people always admire big guns and shoulders and since these are areas that recover quickly, are used daily and physically designed to do so is it ok to keep them pumped?

[ShockBoxer]

I read in an article on T-nation (one of Eric Cressey's) that any weight under 50% of your max has practically no effect on your overall training stress. If that's true then what would be the harm of it?

[bloodninja]

Your number 3 bugs me, how do you know there will be little to no impact on your other lifts?

Only one way to find out...try it for a couple months and see if your progress on the other lifts suffers.

[Doobs]

You would probably feel a little pumped up for a few weeks, then the effect would wear off and it would do nothing at all as long as you keep doing it. In this few weeks I doubt you would look any different during the day. In the long term this would hurt your progress because you would be overtrained. Doing a normal routine where you do a few sets a couple times a week of these lifts would give much better results. If you're still doing other compounds normally you might still be able to make some progress though.

[malkore]

I read in an article on T-nation (one of Eric Cressey's) that any weight under 50% of your max has practically no effect on your overall training stress. If that's true then what would be the harm of it?

and what would be the benefit?

reading that blurb, I take it to mean anything under 50% of yoru max has practically no stress on the muscles, so no hypertrophy, so no lean mass gained.

[KingWilder]

and what would be the benefit?

reading that blurb, I take it to mean anything under 50% of yoru max has practically no stress on the muscles, so no hypertrophy, so no lean mass gained.

yeah, this is what I was thinking also

[ShockBoxer]

Yes. That was the gist of it (basically, to not be afraid that doing some high rep very light weight work to condition your joints and work on your aerobic capability a little on off days). It will probably still pump you up... curling soupcans a hundred times can do that.

[bjohnso]

So basically what you guys are saying is that I could do a heavy set of squats (or anything really) once a week and squat light (<50% of max) 6 days a week and this would have virtually no effect on hypertrophy or overtraining?

[ShockBoxer]

I'm trying to find the 50% number again.

I found a 30% number here: http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=548070

Edit: Found what I was thinking of. It's an answer in the feedback of this article: http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=852155

I definitely manipulate all of them. As far as ME is concerned, I base it on the number of reps over 90%. In some sessions, I won't take any; in others, I'll take as many as 7-8. For DE, I'll be anywhere from 6-12 sets.

In your 10-set build-up case, remember that it's not important to really count anything under 70% toward your overall training stress, and for ease of calculations, I generally omit anything that comes prior to the heaviest triples and singles.

[bullethead74]

ok cheers guys, I think I will try this for a month or 2, if I think its impacting the big lifts teh I will stop. I do think that these muscles will respond better to this type of training and the torso and legs to low rep very heavy weights, but time will tell.

[ShockBoxer]

Just be mindful of tendonitis

[mrelwooddowd]

So basically what you guys are saying is that I could do a heavy set of squats (or anything really) once a week and squat light (<50% of max) 6 days a week and this would have virtually no effect on hypertrophy or overtraining?

Read this thread..

http://www.wannabebigforums.com/showthread.php?t=54553


I subscribe to the 60% camp.

[bjohnso]

Read this thread..

http://www.wannabebigforums.com/showthread.php?t=54553


I subscribe to the 60% camp.

Thank you. I read this thread before, a long time ago. I had forgotten about it. It's very informative.