CONTENTS
• Calling for Back-Up! (the ‘Strong as You Look’ Series)
• Lats: the Secrets of the Russian Bodybuilding Underground
• Is the deadlift the king of back exercises?
• Don’t feel your lats? – We’ll fix it!
• Spread your wings and max out on the pullup test with ‘tactical pullups’
• Are bent over rows overrated?
• “Injury prevention by imperfection training”
• The McKenzie Method for a healthier back
• How do the abs protect the back?
• Is the trap bar better than the straight bar for deadlifts and shrugs?
1. One-arm suitcase deadlift
2. Pullup
3. Hise shrug
4. Dimel deadlift
When it comes to all around back development the deadlift rules! The dead has many powerful incarnations and the one-arm DL is way up on the list.
The authentic one arm deadlift is performed with a seven-foot Olympic barbell and is a tremendous feet of grip strength. The dumbbell version is more appropriate for a bodybuilder who wants to blast his back from top to bottom. To make you more miserable, while reducing the poundage required to get a great workout, I shall have you lift the bell on the outside of your hip as a suitcase rather than straddle style.
Semi-squat as if you are getting ready for a vertical jump.
Semi-squat as if you are getting ready for a vertical jump and grab a heavy dumbbell outside your foot. Lock your elbow by flexing your triceps. It is imperative for elbow safety and max power. Tense your lat hard so it forms a ‘shelf’ for your arm.
Inhale, take a breath into your belly, tighten your abs and your whole body, and squeeze the bell off the floor.
Do not let your unloaded side shoot up first! This is not a side bend. Rise evenly, as if you have another dumbbell of the same weight in your free hand. You will notice that you have to flex your glute and obliques on the unloaded side in order to maintain the balance. It will not take you long to painfully realize that the suitcase style deadlift is more than just a back exercise; it is a full body feat!
Lock your elbow by flexing your triceps and tense your lat so it forms a ‘shelf’ for your arm.
Do not let your unloaded side shoot up first! This is not a side bend.
How NOT to do it.
You may let out some air at the top but do not lose tightness. Lower the weight by pushing your butt back. Relax for a moment when the bell rests on the floor before tightening up for another rep. Enjoy the pain, Comrade!
Recommended sets & reps: 4x4
Knock off your silly seated rows and lat pull-downs. Focus all your energy into pullups and your armpits will be chafing in no time flat. Finally you can do ‘the walk’ without simulating lats.
With a thumbless overhand grip, from a dead hang, till your neck or chest touches the bar. Anything less is a joke.
Recommended sets & reps: as many sets of 2/3 of your rep max (e.g., sets of 6 if your best is 10RM) as you can manage
With a thumbless overhand grip, from a dead hang till your neck or chest touches the bar. Anything less is a joke.
This cool shrug, invented by Joseph C. Hise of twenty-rep squat fame, is popular with modern day powerlifters who want their squats to feel ridiculously light. It will do the same for you while adding slabs of beef to your traps and neck.
Inhale as you lift, exhale through pursed lips as you lower your shoulder girdle.
Unrack a barbell as you would for a squat, walk out, bend forward slightly to protect your back from hyperextension, and start shrugging. Inhale as you lift, exhale through pursed lips as you lower your shoulder girdle. Keep your waist tight and make sure not to let all the air out.
Do not carry the bar too high or too low on your back. Position your hands in a way that does not put undue stress on your wrists, elbows, or shoulders.
Joseph Hise shrugged with a cambered bar that made the exercise easier on his joints. You can get one from IronMind.com; it is called the Buffalo Bar™. If you do not have one you will be smart to dust off the bent old bar in the corner that no one at the gym wants to touch. And while I would never endorse squatting with a towel across your back you will definitely need some padding for the Hise shrug.
Keep your waist tight and make sure not to let all the air out.
Go get ‘em, tiger! The traps to make an Olympic weightlifter take notice.
Recommended sets & reps: 2x20-25
Powerlifting coach Louie Simmons credits this unique drill for him taking the late Matt Dimel’s squat to 1,010 and Steve Wilson’s deadlift to 865. A bodybuilder will find the Dimel deadlift an exceptional back and hamstring developer.
Deadlift a very light barbell – Wilson used 225-275 pounds, which was a paltry 30% of his max dead – with an overhand grip. Push your butt back and let the bar drop to slightly below your knee. Your shins should remain vertical. Keep a tight arch in your lower back! Snap your hips through explosively and lock out. Knock off fifteen to twenty reps at a rapid clip.
Dimel deadlifts will be fine while you are at them, but I can assure you that your backside will be barking the morning after.
Recommended sets & reps: 2-3-15-20 two to four times a week
Push your butt back and let the bar drop to slightly below your knee.
Your shins should remain vertical.
Wrap up your back workout by stretching your back and hamstrings and hanging from a pullup bar to decompress your spine.
Keep a tight arch in your lower back!
Snap your hips through explosively
Question: Aren’t deadlifts dangerous?
Prominent Russian strength coach S. Y. Smolov, Master of Sports asks, “Which movement skills are vital to a person? Some people will tell you running and jumping, others skiing and biking, and someone else will say swimming. They are all right. Yet no one will list lifting a weight off the floor as one of the most vital skills. Nevertheless in our industrial age the majority of the population does not run, jump, ski, bike, or swim. Yet every one of us, from a school kid to a retired person, lifts and carries something all day long: briefcases, bags, various household items, tools, etc.”
Alexey Vorotintsev, Master of Sports, a former USSR record holder in kettlebell lifting, is so determined to teach everyone how to lift things off the ground properly that he has been crusading for introducing deadlifts into the Russian high school Phys. Ed. Curriculum. Myself, I have dedicated a whole book, Power to the People!, to the deadlift. You are not going to avoid deads in your day-to-day life so you might as well learn how to do them right, and I do not mean the inadequate and unrealistic OSHA recommendations to stay upright and lift with your legs.
Comrade Smolov goes on, “Haven’t you seen a person grab his back and writhe in pain having tried to lift something heavy? I am convinced that everyone has witnessed such a scene, and regretfully more than once. Now try to prove that the deadlift is not a vital skill!”
Case closed.
Question: Is it true that my lats will grow faster if I stretch them?
Yes. To keep in line with Russian muscle research and Arnold’s Muscle Beach experience, stretch your lats between the sets. With your hands close together hold on to a sturdy object at your waist level. A power rack is great, but the doorknob of an open door will do, if you are certain that the door will not collapse under your muscular weight. Face the edge of an open door and hold on to the knobs on both sides of it. Your feet should straddle the door under your hands.
Stick your butt out and hang on the door or the squat cage while keeping your arms nearly straight, your head down, and your back rounded. Yes, rounded! Your knees should stay slightly bent throughout the drill.
Spread your shoulder blades if you can. By humping your back and imagining that you are pushing away from the doorknob you should make them kick out in a short time. If you have done it right, you should feel a pleasant stretch between your scapulae. Do not get bummed out if it takes a few workouts to get it right.
The lat stretch.
If you have done it right, you should feel a pleasant stretch between your scapulae.
Spread your shoulder blades if you can.
Keep your arms nearly straight, your head down, and your back rounded. Yes, rounded!
By humping your back and imagining that you are pushing away from the doorknob you should make them kick out in a short time.
Question: Should I arch my back when working my lats?
Arching recruits the scapulae retractors or mid back muscles. You should do it most of the time to develop them and to ensure good posture.
But some round back lat work will do your wings good. Watch a professional arm-wrestler when he is backloading his opponent. His back looks exactly as yours does during the lat stretch I just described. If you look up an anatomy textbook you will learn that the lats assist in extending the spine. Round your back and you will pull on the latissimus’ origins, thus stretching and loading them.
The safest exercise to incorporate round back lat training into is the one arm dumbbell or kettlebell row. Plant your other arm solidly on a bench to unload your spine.
Question: What should I do if I do not feel my lats working?
Quoting The USMCRD Special Company Drill Instructor Guide to Pullups, that I wrote at the Marines’ request, “Controlled striking of the target muscles will teach a recruit or Marine to contract them more intensely. The strikes should not be painful, just noticeable. Do a pullup, assisted if necessary. After a brief rest do another one and concentrate on pulling with your stronger lats rather than the weaker biceps. Most likely you will have very limited success. After more rest, do another pullup and have your training partner chop your armpits from the moment you are about to start pulling until you are half way up. Note a greater involvement of the lats and greater ease of performing pullups.”
Bodybuilding was not encouraged by the Soviet government that considered it a vain and decadent ‘bourgeois perversion’. Teenage street toughs who sought more muscle for their daily fights set up their own gyms or kachalki in apartment building basements. They were unheated and lacked the most basic equipment. Pullups from plumbing pipes and squats with a bunch of kettlebells hanging precariously on a rusty bar were normal. Mirrors were unheard of.
Lacking the means but not the drive, these comrades developed very impressive physiques and the strength to match. Frequently supervised by retired weightlifters who did not want to hang up their lifting belts for good, the kids followed the ‘low tech/high concept’ methods Russians are famous for.
No one heard of pulldown machines and other gimmicks in the golden decade of Russian bodybuilding, the 1980s, and that was for the better. Pullups were worked with a vengeance and the lats had no choice but grow. Muscles that were good for nothing but show did not impress street fighters. And every underground muscle head, including those who topped the scale at over 220 pounds could easily knock off at least twenty, dead hang, palms forward.
Lighter bodybuilders did – and still do – even better. In one of the former Soviet republics, Belskiy (2000) made a comparative study of the physical development and strength of experienced middleweight and light heavyweight athletes from different strength sports. Iron Curtain bodybuilders showed an average pullup performance of 23.8 repetitions. Just in case you start arguing that your muscular pecs are weighing you down, Russian powerlifters specializing in the bench press got an even higher score of 26.6 consecutive pullups! Even three event powerlifters, chafing thighs and all, were good for 22.5 pullups!
In other words, you have no excuse for barely being able to squirm a dozen jerky half reps with your strongest grip. Here is your guide to pullup excellence and elite lat development, three ‘low tech/high concept’ programs born in the basements of Russia in the last years of the evil empire.
Lyubertsi, a small town in greater Moscow, is Russia’s “Muscle Beach” The boys in the basement gyms of Lyubertsi held a firm belief that a bodybuilder wannabe had to be able to do at least twelve to fifteen overhand pullups and forty to fifty pushups – or fifteen to twenty parallel bar dips – before he was ready to start training with weights. The following complex of exercises is similar to the programs employed in the perestroyka era basements to quickly bring a beginner up to that base level.
RUSSIAN BODYBUILDING NUDERGROUND BASE LEVEL PULLUP PROGRAM
Perform two to three sets per exercise. Do as many perfect reps as you can. For the record, ‘RM’ or ‘repetition maximum’ means doing as many reps as possible in good form, not squirming till you fail!
David Whitley, Senior RKC, one strong man who casually plays with 106-pound “Beast” kettlebells and lifts his colleague, Master RKC Andrea Du Cane, overhead with one arm, clearly explained the difference between training to failure and training to the limit or RM on the dragondoor.com forum: you have got to push “until you complete the last rep, not conk out in the middle of it.”
Have your training partner assist you if necessary. Recognize that ‘assisted’ reps and ‘forced’ reps are not the same thing. The partner should be acting as a pullup or dip assist machine and enable you to do your drills with confidence. No drawn out, shaky forced reps please! Shoot for five clean reps per set if you must resort to outside help.
Do not do any more reps than you can manage with crisp perfection. Commit to stop before your form deteriorates. And, very importantly, do not become a slave to numbers. The “I did ten reps last time therefore I will not settle for anything less than eleven today” mindset is a road to injury, no gains, and frustration. You cannot gain every workout; at least not once you achieve a decent strength level, the point of diminishing returns. And if you try you will be subconsciously cheating to make the reps. Before you know it your technique will be atrocious, with all the undesirable but logical consequences.
A conservative number of “Swiss watch precision” reps builds strength that carries over to allout efforts with a very heavy weight. Bouncing and cheating for max reps does not. What you can get away with when you are handling a light poundage will not fly once the hard and cold reality of heavy iron sets in.
Take one of the greatest back exercises – correction, one of the greatest exercises, period – the deadlift. You could maximize the number of reps with a light barbell by jerking the bell from the floor – and then bouncing it off the platform between repetitions and not locking out the lift on the top. But if after a period of such ‘training’, you tried to apply yourself to a heavier, low rep pull you would either hurt your back when jerking the bar off the ground or simply fail the lift.
Powerlifters know that a heavy dead must be ‘squeezed’ off the platform and always do so even with light poundages. It sacrifices their rep count but they do not care; they know that they are getting stronger and that is all that matters. Come to think of it, a near zero potential for injury is nothing to sneeze at either.
Ditto with pullups Put on a flak jacket or hang even a small barbell plate on your waist and practice those cheater half reps. You will be stopped in your tracks, dangling on the bar like a helpless sausage.
Besides, you will not build any muscle by swinging and jerking on the bar like an ape. So record your reps, but do not try to top them at any cost. Form and substance over numbers.
Put on a flak jacket or hang even a small barbell plate on your waist and practice those cheater half reps. You will be stopped in your tracks, dangling on the bar like a helpless sausage.
The tactical pullup.
Form and substance over numbers.
Wrap up with four sets of hanging knee raises to the chin. Get a full stretch of the abs and the hip flexors on the bottom and a full contraction on the top. The above routines were alternated daily until the trainee felt fatigued. Then he took a day off and carried on with the rotation. Sometimes he trained five days in a row and others only two.
Note that although you will be working the same muscles almost daily you will be alternating high volume and low volume days; this is a basic Russian approach to cycling or ‘waviness’ of loads. Needless to say, do no other upper body work for the duration of this routine, which is typically six weeks. Classic twenty rep squats three times a week will take care of your legs. Plug them in before the knee raises.
Proper pullup technique is of the essence. First you need to learn how to pull from your elbows rather than your hands, to really recruit the lats. Bend your elbows and raise them over your head as if you are about to perform a French press. Have your training partner press his or her hands against your elbows and provide resistance as your are bringing your elbows down in a semi-circle until they are tucked into your sides.
The lat activation drill.
Now the same thing up on the bar. Get a shoulder width grip with your palms facing forward. Do not wrap your thumbs around, this will weaken the biceps and help you focus the effort on your latissimus. So will keeping most of your weight on your little and ring fingers rather than closer to your thumbs.
Onward and upward! You have not completed a pullup unless your chin has cleared the bar. Some units in the armed forces and law enforcement in the former Soviet republic Belarus even require that their personnel touch the bar with their necks. That way there is no doubt that you have completed a rep.
Going all the way down is also a must if you are going to claim a legit pullup. To protect your joints, squeeze the bar as you are about to hit the full stretch.
RUSSIAN BODYBUILDING UNDERGROUND ADVANCED LAT ANDPULLUP SPECIALIZATION ROUTINE #2
Monday (heavy load/20 sets)
1. Wide grip pullups – 5×RM
2. Medium grip pullups – 5×RM
3. Bent over rows – 6×6
4. One arm kettlebell or dumbbell row – 4×12
Wednesday (light load/10 sets)
1. Wide grip pullups – 5×RM
2. Pullups on a V-handle – 5×RM
Friday (medium load/15 sets)
1. Medium grip pullups –1×15, with weight 5×10
2. Medium grip chinups – 5×RM
3. Narrow grip T-bar rows – 4×10
The second underground program from Lyubertsi is aimed at a more experienced bodybuilder. That means you should be good for at least twelve to fifteen clean wide grip pullups. Again, it’s slightly modified, because the original included pullups to the back of the head – which can do a number on your shoulders and neck,
Soviet bodybuilders of the eighties were convinced that the lats were virtually impossible to overtrain and best responded to what they called ‘the head on strike’ – a brutal onslaught of pullups outlined above. The lat load was cycled according to the heavy-light-medium format. To avoid systemic overtraining other muscle groups were worked only once a week, which was quite unusual for the 1980s. Deadlifts were included.
When doing pullups use your bodyweight only unless otherwise specified. The V-handle can be found at a seated row machine. Take it off, hang it over a pullup bar, and do your V-handle pullups to the sternum. You will find that tilting your head back – and looking back as if you are trying to do a bridge – will help. Force your chest to the handles as if you are doing a bench press.
If you have no access to a V-handle, grab a standard pullup bar with a staggered grip and your hands close to each other. First pull up with your head on one side of the bar, then the other. Switch the hand position on your next set.
A word on the bent over row technique that prevailed in Russian underground gyms. Deadlift your barbell with an overhand shoulder width grip. Fold over until your torso is almost parallel to the ground, your lower back arched, your knees bent. Rest your forehead on a bench of an appropriate height to assure that you will not be cheating. Let your shoulders drop and move away from your body and the bell swing forward naturally before pulling. Taller bodybuilders with long arms may have to stand on an elevation or use small plates. Pull in a long arc and finish with the bell touching your lower stomach. Draw your shoulder blades together and flex your lats tight.
A tip for the T-bar row. Inhale and expand your rib cage as you are lifting; exhale through pursed lips on the way down. But never lose sight of the meat of these programs – pullups and lots of them.
Talk to anyone who has great lats. There is a pattern you cannot miss – all these comrades do a lot of pullups and would never contemplate using the lat pull-down machine for anything other than a place to park a towel or a water bottle. Now talk to the bodybuilders whose lats are nonexistent. Without doubt you will hear excited speeches about how much burn they feel in their pits on the lat pulldown machine. Sherlock Holmes would call it a clue. Even Inspector Clouseau would. A lot of pullups is the only road to lats and everything else is just icing on the cake. Period.
