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It’s WAR!

Tom Venuto, CSCS, CPT

A good bodybuilder must constantly evaluate his or her physique for size, symmetry, definition and every other quality that’s necessary to be a champion. When you find a muscle that’s lagging even slightly behind other body parts, you must attack it ruthlessly until you force it to grow. Every workout is a battle that must be won, in order to win the war.

It all boils down to prioritization. I mentioned previously that deltoids are an area of priority in my training this year, especially side deltoids (for width). My back is also an area of focus this year, but not just overall back. I get so ripped that my back looks shredded and detailed — enough that I can hold my own in a back double bicep shot even without the freaky thickness of a good deadlifter (my lower back can’t take regular heavy deadlifts). What this war is about is LAT WIDTH, so the back appears wider viewed from the back or from the front. The goal is to create a more impressive V-SHAPE.

When you’re standing “relaxed” during the pre-judging, you can get overlooked very easily if you don’t have that V-shape. Nothing creates a beautiful, symmetrical physique more than two “half-melon” shoulder “caps” along with wide lats that jut out a under each armpit like a Pterodactyl’s wingspan. Width in the lats and deltoids also creates the illusion of a smaller waist.

Did you ever see that classic Picture of Frank Zane in the vacuum pose? His lats are like two giant slabs of meat popping out under each armpit… Yeah!… Like THAT!

This is NOT to be confused with the disease, “I.L.S.”, also known as “Imaginary Lat Syndrome.” This pitiful condition occurs in amateurs who think they have a set of lats so huge that their arms can’t even rest casually by their sides, so they walk around with their arms held out two feet in either direction, while simultaneously holding their breath and inflating their chest into a “perma-flex” vacuum. Unbeknownst to them, they have virtually no lat development whatsoever; their torso is really as straight up and down as a flagpole and their “lats” are nothing but a figment of their imagination. (Tip: Don’t get I.L.S., get REAL lats!)

Yes sir, we are talking about REAL lat width as viewed from the front… “FRONT LATS”… and I have declared war on them.

Here is how today’s battle went down:

BACK/TRAPS

A1 Close Grip Lat Pulldown

Set 1: Ascending set 180, 200, 220 lbs X 6, 6, 6 reps X 4221 tempo

Set 2: Descending set, 250 lbs (stack) X 7 strict reps X 4220 tempo, then 180 lbs X 12 quick reps X 1010 tempo

Set 3: High reps, 160 lbs X 30 reps X 1010 tempo

A2 Close Grip Pull Up

3 sets X bodyweight X 8 + 2 forced reps, 6 + 3 forced reps, 6 + 3 forced reps X 3211 tempo

B1 Seated Cable Row - long straight bar

Set 1 medium supinated (palms up) grip 220 lbs X 11 reps X 3111

Set 2 medium pronated (palms down) grip 180 X 12 reps X 3211

Set 3 Wide grip, pull to chest 140 lbs X 15 reps X 2111

B2 Dumbbell cross bench Pullover

3 sets X 75 lbs X 12 reps, 12 reps, 11 reps X 3120

C1 Barbell Shrugs, medium grip

3 sets X 375 lbs X 12, 12, 12 reps X 1110 tempo

C2 Smith machine shrugs, close grip

3 X 225 lbs X 6 reps @ 3032 tempo, then 6 reps @ 1010 tempo

CALVES (Heavy Day)

A1 Standing Calf Machine

3 sets X 680 lbs (stack + four 45’s stacked on top) X 15, 12, 10 reps

B1 Calf Press On Cybex Horizontal Leg Press Machine

3 sets X 220, 200, 180 X 12 + 3 partials (burns), 12 + 3 partials, 15 +3

C1 Seated Calf Machine (Cybex Plate-Load)

3 Sets X 160 lbs (3 plates + a quarter) X 15, 15, 13 reps

Workout Commentary

When I was preparing for the 2001 NPC Natural Eastern Classic, Richie Smyth (pictured at left), put me through some of the most intense back workouts I have ever experienced. It was so painful, I had anxiety attacks before those sessions, but it was worth it, because with God as my witness, I swear my lats grew after every workout.

Richie showed me how I was cheating myself out of extra lat width by not working full range on my pulldowns and pull-ups. Most people — me included, at the time — cut their range of motion short of full arm extension. There’s a logical reason for this too. Those last few inches into full extension — the STRETCH POSITION — are the most difficult and painful part of each repetition. Difficult because you must overcome inertia (no momentum can be used starting from a dead hang stretch), and painful because of the extreme stretch on the muscle.

This is very similar to the preacher curl bench. The most difficult and painful part of each repetition is the bottom few inches at full elbow extension. Larry Scott, the first Mr. Olympia, calls this “the pain zone” and he isn’t kidding. It’s also the growth zone! And therein lies the catch: Skip the “pain zone,” and you also skip the “growth zone.”

We do all kinds of pull up and pulldown exercises with exaggerated emphasis on the stretch position. This is one of the reasons I use 4-count tempo prescriptions, so I can quantify the stretch. For example, a tempo of 4221 is a 4 second eccentric, 2 second pause in stretch position, 2 second concentric, 1 second pause in contracted position. On a reverse grip pulldown, close grip pulldown or a weighted pull up, leaning forward into the fully extended stretch position and holding it for 2 or even 3 seconds can stimulate some new growth you’ve never experienced before, if you can stand the “pain zone experience.”

Another trick we use is to superset chin ups, pulldowns and rows into dumbbell pullovers, which is also a stretch position exercise for the lats. Pullovers work very well in superset combinations.

Today Mike and I did something different and more difficult than usual — we started with pulldowns supersetted into pull-ups. Pullups are very difficult as the second exercise in a superset pair. Doing pull-ups fresh, I can bang out 20 or 30 reps with body weight and pullup 60-80 pounds strapped around my waist for reps. Doing them second today, the reps were only 6-8 (plus partner assisted forced reps). It’s important to change your order of exercises and reverse your usual patterns and habits in order to keep your muscles from adapting. Who says you should always pull up, squat and bench press first?

We combined very heavy sets (pulling the entire stack) with high rep sets (I got 30 reps with 160 lbs, and then Mike “snapped out.” That maniac must have done at least 50 reps! After he passed 35 or 40 reps, I lost count because I started laughing (I usually don’t do that… after all this is serious… this is war!), but today I couldn’t help it… he was like the frickin’ energizer; he just kept going and going and going. Did I mention he’s an animal?

Sometimes we do traps on shoulder day. This week we felt like doing them on back day. Try our shrug superset for yourself, paying close attention to the tempo prescription. But don’t blame me if you grow two huge hunks of prime sirloin on either side of your neck afterwards… like Goldberg!

We wrapped it up today with calves. We alternate heavy days with lighter/pump days and today was the heavy day. Nothing fancy, just straight sets with a few added partial reps (also known as “burns”) at the end of each set when we couldn’t do anymore full range reps.

My cardio today was in a 2nd session in the evening. 30 minutes of stairmaster, level 7, 409 calories. The plan for now is one session a day, 7 days a week, 30 minutes a clip, and gradually increase the level/calories burned per session… may also mix it up with some interval training and/or sprint/hill/stairs work.

You may notice that today’s back workout was ALL supersets and almost every set included at least one intensity technique. I do NOT train like this all the time, but when I’m prioritizing a body part, like I said, IT’S WAR! You can burn out very quickly with this type of training, but during short phases of specialization work, it can stimulate some pretty amazing growth. As for all those “intensity techniques,” I’ll tell you more about them in future logs.

Until then, train hard, think big and stay strong!

Posted 24 June, 2005 in Workouts

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