To you who tried DC training - problems with..

[MrRTTB]

for you who tried DC training. Did you experience any problems in musclegroups that never really responded as other ones?

I use DC right now, but I feel that some bodyparts doesn't get what they need on this program. I beleeve it's great for Chest, Quads, hammies, back, but for arms, shoulders(sides and back) I feel different. first off, arms might be overtrained easily. Day 1 is back thickness and width, doing lat pulldowns or chins or rows biceps will get a lot of stress. Then one or some days later biceps are trained. shoulders sides I do not get enough frm the DC training system they are almost never stressed as i mostly work only in the militarypress.

How do you feel about the system?

 

[guldukat]

for you who tried DC training. Did you experience any problems in musclegroups that never really responded as other ones?

Hey man,

Hmm...not really. I did have troubles getting my lat/pulling motions to respond for a bit, but that's always been an obstacle for me.

I use DC right now, but I feel that some bodyparts doesn't get what they need on this program. I beleeve it's great for Chest, Quads, hammies, back, but for arms, shoulders(sides and back) I feel different. first off, arms might be overtrained easily. Day 1 is back thickness and width, doing lat pulldowns or chins or rows biceps will get a lot of stress.

Then one or some days later biceps are trained. shoulders sides I do not get enough frm the DC training system they are almost never stressed as i mostly work only in the militarypress.

How do you feel about the system?

1--Biceps

I'm not so sure your biceps aren't responding because of overtraining.

That's possible, but before we conclude that, I recommend you take the following measures (in my order of preference, meaning I'd try A before B, B before C, and would only reach D or E if all else fails!):

A. Take a "cruise" period, and I mean just CRUISE in the gym. A few of Dante's acolytes say you should still train to failure during cruising. They're full of it. Don't! Even take off a week if necessary.

B. Up the reps on all biceps exercises, like 20-30 RP. Dante says this usually does the trick.

C. Get away from the Pecs-Delts-Back-Tri/Bis-Legs split. Instead, try this:

Day 1--Chest/Delts/Tris
Day 2--Back/Bis
Day 3--off
Day 4--Legs
Day 5--Chest/Delts/Tris
Days 6 and 7--off
Day 8--Back/Bis
Day 9--Legs
Day 10--off
Day 11--Chest/Delts/Tris
Day 12--Back/Bis
Days 13 and 14--off
Day 15--Legs
etc.

This split has just about the same frequency as the original two-way job (everything's trained 3 times in 15 days vs. the original's 14), but it was designed with stronger, more advanced trainees' recovery abilities in mind.

D. Lay off the forearm stuff.

In my experience, direct biceps training usually wasn't too much in Dante's 2-way split. Rather, forearm training pushed me over the brink. Reverse, pinwheel and hammer curls are nice if you can handle them, but if not, ditch them immediately.

E. Stop training biceps directly (or for the most part) or as intensely.

In a different context (5x5) I wouldn't hesitate about this for one second; still, we gotta do what we gotta do. Try things in this order...

--forgetting about rest-pausing for biceps. Just do straight sets. Keep the reps relatively high (10 minimum, more like 15+).

--drop a curl from one of your workouts.

--drop two curls. This way you'd only hitting biceps directly once every 2 wks.

--Drop curls completely, and focus like hell on setting heretofore unrealistic PRs on chins and rows (which we're doing anyway ). Your bis WILL grow in the process.


F. Insert more rest days.

Simply, rest an extra day here and there before your biceps/lower body workouts. It doesn't have to be a routine thing; you'd just rest an extra day every couple of weeks or thereabouts.

That's certainly not my favorite option, but in some cases I've heard about it working pretty well. Consider it and dropping biceps stuff altogether your dead-last resorts.


2--Delts

A. How much have your pressing exercises increased lately?

B. I've had to put on a lot of weight to notice a totally different "look" to my delts.

Point being, if you're not putting on a fair amount of weight, don't expect them to look a lot different.

C. You can do laterals in the program. A gent of Dante's acquaintance named Iron Addict recommends that you do them in the 20-30 RP range.
Try some in your rotation and see what happens.

D. If your rotators can handle it, try some upright rows as well. Just be mindful: from many accounts, those things can fuck up your shoulders in a hurry. They didn't bother me much, but I never went over 150-160.

Again, that's roughly in preferential order. I'd concentrate on putting on some bodyweight and upping your pressing poundages first and foremost. If that doesn't add the desired beef to your medial delts, you might try some Iron Addict-style laterals (cable, good machine, DB--all should do).

Hope that helps.