Hi Paul,
I am 53 years old and I have competed twice as a younger man, but never as an “over-50” competitor. My next contest will be in May, 2009. My main problem is my limited equipment and getting the most out of it. I train in my basement with a free-weight Olympic Set, a homemade squat rack, a flat bench and a few dumbbells. I have a hard time getting full-leg results from squats; and, even though doing dumbbell fly’s for my chest seems to be a good exercise, I am not sure that I am doing them properly because I see no results in my pectorals after five years of resent training this way. Can you help me put something together with the equipment that I have?
I know how hard it can be to train alone, in your basement gym. I won my first contest that way, so there is surely a way to win, and ways to do many exercises, even with limited equipment. First, with squats, I would do the following. Let’s say that you are training every other day. That would mean that you would do your legs once a week. Let’s call one day a “heavy day,” and the second day, a “specialized day.” On the first leg day, equip your self with as much support as possible so that you can squat as heavy as possible, but for at least 8 reps or more. What I mean by equipping yourself is to wear high-top shoes, boots, or weight-lifting shoes that support your ankles. Secondly, wear a double-thick power-belt. (If you need it; wear a second (“regular”) belt above the power-belt. The power-belt will allow your stomach muscles to push against something tight so as to keep your spine (and back muscles) in place as you lift heavy. The second belt, if you chose to wear one, will help keep your body from bending forward. (This is best suited for guys who are tall and have a long torso). You may also want to use knee-wraps, but only on your heaviest set. Do one warm up set and one set of 15 reps with a weight that is comfortable. Now, pick a weight that you can do twelve times with relative ease, but only do 8 reps. For the heaviest set, shoot for a weight that you can imagine yourself doing six and do everything in your arsenal to do eight reps.
These are very difficult to do properly. With that in mind, and the fact that they only help those with a very flat chest-cavity (thorax); with moderate to wide and square shoulders (with little indentation of the clavicles), and pectorals that are low and full; therefore, these should only be done by those with a combination of high Thoracic, high Pressing Motion Scores[1]. Having said that; most recently I found a way to incorporate these into my chest program. After decades of failing to get any stimulation in the direct chest area from them, I began to change the focus away from the “stretch and hug paradigm,” to one concentrating on what part of my hand pushed the dumbbells upward and what I found was simply amazing. For decades, no matter the weight, I would do them as I had seen so many great bodybuilders before me (such as Arnold and Franco, etc) and I could not replicate their form—my shoulders, hands, forearms and triceps made the dumbbells slant towards my neck area, with much more emphasis and strain put on my shoulders than pectorals.
These former great whom I speak of all had great pectoral development; and more importantly, their fly-motion was perfect. I used to wonder if it was a “chicken-or-an-egg problem.” Did they build those huge pectorals because they did (heavy, perfect) fly’s; were they born with the perfect pectorals for doing fly’s with a perfect motion (which then added to their ever-growing mass). When I usually did them, no matter how hard I tried to stretch out and slightly back; while pulling up with my pectorals—they generally made my frontal deltoid do the majority of the work, as my forearms automatically cocked the dumbbells so that it was easier for my body to handle the weight. I noticed that whenever I would do them, the dumbbells ended up over my chest; however, they were not parallel and even—they where pointed toward my neck and had a much larger gap at the back than in the front of the pair (of dumbbells in my hands). I decided to start pulling up from the bottom of the movement with the palm of my hand, albeit, beneath my ring and baby finger. I was amazed at what happened. My chest blew up and it was extremely sore the next day. What had been happening all those trial years was that my grip-strength forced the dumbbells up with the strongest areas—my thumb, forefinger, and forearm—(that which an arm-wrestler has most strength in); and this then forced my deltoids to do the lifting. So, as with your feet when doing various multi-jointed exercises, you can adjust your focus to the part of the hand that is doing the “flying” and get different results than if you allow your body to do as it pleases—despite making the arching motion that everyone knows as a “fly-motion.” (I have seen many people do very heavy fly’s, 100 pound dumbbells or more; but, they were merely doing presses with their hands in a neutral position—this is not what you want. Perfect of not only objective form (that which looks right), but so too must it be subjectively felt (or that which you feel in that perfect spot).
[1] For a really excellent view of how to do Flat Bench, Dumbbell Fly’s: Watch Arnold doing them in the movie “Pumping Iron.” His form is perfect; and, you can watch the stretch of his pectoral muscles as his long arms are brought back and downward, then bringing them together at the contraction point, as his pectorals are squeezed to the point where they look as though they are about to explode through his yellow Tank Top. * Also, if you are one of the few that have a ARMS PULLING SCORE high enough to do them: Watch Arnold do One Arm Dumbbell Concentration Curls. He does those perfect also. The one thing that I might point out is that he stops at the bottom part of the curl; however, no one else ever had such mammoth, highly peaked biceps either.
