AWESOME AUSSIE LEE PRIEST ISall about volume in his training. Known for doing 20 or more sets per bodypart (a strategy also employed by Arnold Schwarzenegger himself), Lee leaves no muscle fibre unturned in his session.
>> “Because pressdowns are more of a shaping exercise for me, sometimes I do them first for a warm up, especially if I’m going heavy for the rest of my routine,” Lee says. >> Don’t train chest the day after a triceps workout — it’ll affect your pressing strength. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SEATED OVERHEAD DUMBBELL EXTENSIONSTART: Sit on a low-back chair and hoist a dumbbell overhead, holding it with both hands, palms cupped against the upper inside plates.
MOVE: Using a slow, continuous motion, keeping your upper arms right beside your head, lower the dumbbell behind your head, then lift it back to full extension. “You pivot from the elbows,” he explains. “Don’t go too deep, or you’re going to irritate the tendons in your elbows.” At the bottom, Lee’s forearms are slightly above parallel to the floor.
EZ-BAR CLOSE-GRIP BENCH PRESS (FEET UP)START: “I normally use the EZ-bar here because it takes some of the strain off my wrists if I go heavy,” says Lee. “The straight bar tends to bend your wrists back more.” Lie back on a bench and grasp an EZ-bar on the inner curl.
MOVE: Press the weight up in a forceful motion, then come down so your hands just touch your chest. Although Lee has his feet up on the bench here and on the lying French press, he says that it’s generally a good idea to keep your feet on the floor for stability. “When I’m going light, I tend to put my feet up,” he notes. “When I’m going heavy, I keep my feet on the floor.”
LYING FRENCH PRESS (FEET UP)START: Lie face-up on a flat bench, holding an EZ-bar at arms’ length above you.
MOVE: Keeping your upper arms as still as possible and hinging just at the elbows, bring the bar down to your forehead, then push it straight back up. Lee will sometimes superset this movement with a set of 6–8 reps of closegrip bench presses with the same bar “to really flush the muscle and pump as much blood into it as possible.”
V-BAR PRESSDOWNSTART: Attach a V-bar to an upper pulley and grasp it overhand, forearms parallel with the floor.
MOVE: Press downward forcefully by flexing your triceps, bringing the bar toward your thighs. At the bottom, squeeze for a second for a strong contraction. |
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