Something i noticed the other night.

I did pullups, then went onto bench press. For whatever reason, I felt much more comfortable with a pump in my lats and was a little stronger (possibly as a result)

I remember reading a good few years about a study done into this...bent over rows i believe done before bench press on a smith increased power output.

ANyone else find a lat pump helps with bench strength?

I believe that training antagonists are agonists (or vice versa) potentiates the antagonist and thus helps increase strength.

That's why I tend to do a set of say Chest Presses, then a set of Chins, and then back to Chest Presses etc etc.

I can find the exact mechanism for this but have read it somewhere.

I find that this works with arms, but not chest and back, but my back is much stronger than my chest so the imbalance may have something to do with it.

Same as si, my back overpowers my chest by a long way so my lats laugh at the lowering phase of the bench, its putting it back up there thats the problem

I have tried antogonistic training and didnt really get one with it, my recovery time was horrible.

I generally train this way, makes inherent sense to me- you're giving each body part a lot more recovery time between sets, but your overall session length remains the same. It also means that if the gym's busy you can keep a bench two yourself by alternating between DB presses and rows, for instance.

The mechanism in question is reciprocal inhibition- weakening (via exercising or stretching) a muscle will allow its antagonist to achieve a stronger contraction. This is useful for stuff like face pulls- stretch your pecs in between sets and you can then achieve greater scapular retraction.

Spit wrote:I generally train this way, makes inherent sense to me- you're giving each body part a lot more recovery time between sets, but your overall session length remains the same. It also means that if the gym's busy you can keep a bench two yourself by alternating between DB presses and rows, for instance.
The mechanism in question is reciprocal inhibition- weakening (via exercising or stretching) a muscle will allow its antagonist to achieve a stronger contraction. This is useful for stuff like face pulls- stretch your pecs in between sets and you can then achieve greater scapular retraction.

Once I'm on a bench it stays mine until I say so
I'm with Mark on this,I just dont recover quick enough.

Noticed this once, but never really found a systematic way to make it effective/

You should recover better if anything though...

To keep it simple, say you're doing bench press and BORs, and would normally leave 2 mins recovery between sets of either. Doing things 'my' way you'd bench, rest two mins, row, rest two mins, bench... and so on. You still have a two-minute break between bouts of exertion, but your chest gets four minutes' rest between sets, likewise your back. There's no way your recovery should be worse than if you did straight sets for chest, then straight sets for back.

I train to destruction, which is normally ok, i may be limping around a few days after legs but thats ok as im training chest or arms next etc. Having 2 big masses of muscle like chest and back wrecked together just seems too much for my aging body.

Arms i like training together tho, biceps/triceps goes very well for me, in fact im adding a day this week to do just this and try and bring my weak arms up.

Marks1972 wrote:I train to destruction, which is normally ok, i may be limping around a few days after legs but thats ok as im training chest or arms next etc. Having 2 big masses of muscle like chest and back wrecked together just seems too much for my aging body.

Arms i like training together tho, biceps/triceps goes very well for me, in fact im adding a day this week to do just this and try and bring my weak arms up.

Ah OK- the A-B exercise approach assumes you're already training chest & back (or whatever the antagonist parts are) in the same session, e.g. on an Upper/Lower split.

Even so, let's say you're doing your arms day- better to alternate between bicep and tricep work then do all of one and then all of the other.

Marks1972 wrote:I train to destruction, which is normally ok, i may be limping around a few days after legs but thats ok as im training chest or arms next etc. Having 2 big masses of muscle like chest and back wrecked together just seems too much for my aging body.

Arms i like training together tho, biceps/triceps goes very well for me, in fact im adding a day this week to do just this and try and bring my weak arms up.

If you get out of the "once per week" way of thnking it could work well

Say doing 2 exercises for each, then hitting it again with a different 2 exercises 4 or 5 days later.

I like smashing each muscle group into submission once a week! Then it takes a week to recover

I like working chest and back together... is a workout that takes a lot out of you but is pretty productive. Alternating sets of weighted chins and dips and then sets of rows with chest presses worked really well for me.

Intreresting split of opinion, myself and Jake both favour training to destruction then taking long rest periods to next session, and were of similar build, and Rab prefers less volume, more times a week.. and he's scottish!

When I'm busy and not traininh hard I do train chest & back together, but all out war, it's back & chest separately.

As an aside, the FST work on back & arms has produced some great doms!

Marks1972 wrote:Intreresting split of opinion, myself and Jake both favour training to destruction then taking long rest periods to next session, and were of similar build, and Rab prefers less volume, more times a week.. and he's scottish!

LOOL.

Antagonistic pairing allows for fuller recruitment of high threshold motor units and has been shown to slow down the drop off curve. It also allows for great volume of training through training density (not necessarily per body part) which is key as the weight lifted on exercises performed with higher volume will increase faster than if you were performing them with lower volume.

If your workload capacity leaves something to be desired then you could use training density as a progression by decreasing rest intervals i.e.,

Workout 1;
A1) DB Bench Press 5 x 5 180 seconds rest with 40kg
A2) Chest Supported DB Rows 5 x 5 <tempo> 180 seconds rest with 40kg

Workout 2;
A1) DB Bench Press 5 x 5 150 seconds rest with 40kg
A2) Chest Supported DB Rows 5 x 5 <tempo> 150 seconds rest with 40kg

The density increases which will improve work capacity, increase capillarisation and hypertrophy gains.

It can be tough to start with if you aren't used to it but can benefit you massively in the long run.

Good point BDCC... training density being an effective, but often overlooked method of training progression. Nice idea to use it alongside antogonist pairings where you normally have relatively long rests between sets of the same exercises.

Reciprical inhibition iirc.

The other day I trained very intensly on back lots of volume and then hit the cgbp and set a pb comfortably (120*8 then 140*2 pb) which was very odd ass I usually feel very drainedafter such a high volume session. The strength was just there felt nice.

Dtlv74 wrote:Good point BDCC... training density being an effective, but often overlooked method of training progression. Nice idea to use it alongside antagonist pairings where you normally have relatively long rests between sets of the same exercises.

I've been doing this for over 2yrs

Poliquin is a big fan on it

health4ni wrote:

Dtlv74 wrote:Good point BDCC... training density being an effective, but often overlooked method of training progression. Nice idea to use it alongside antagonist pairings where you normally have relatively long rests between sets of the same exercises.

I've been doing this for over 2yrs

Poliquin is a big fan on it

Lol, alright clever cloggs! I've also been using improving training density for a while too... i tend to change up my routine every 6-8 weeks and each time i move to a new program, switching main emphasis between load, volume and training density progressions.

Antagonist with A1/A2 pairings etc is actually pretty new to me though and haven't yet used it while working on shortening rest times. I think it was GymBunny who first talked me into trying A1/A2 pairings...wish i'd tried it much sooner to be honest!

It's great, you should give it a go.

You obviously don't look at my journal (not that you have to of course, but it's all in there).

health4ni wrote:It's great, you should give it a go.

You obviously don't look at my journal (not that you have to of course, but it's all in there).

I will take a look. Lol, I actually have a problem with looking at peoples journals... i tend to get too excited about everyones (different) routines and get tempted to chop and change every week! Sounds silly but that's the main reason i stay away from and hardly post in peoples journals... doesn't help my own training consistency!

lmao

"big kid in a candy shop" syndrome eh? haha

health4ni wrote:lmao

"big kid in a candy shop" syndrome eh? haha

yeah, exactly that am afraid!