Training for "SHAPE" pure bull****? Or it has some merit?

[FlexManning]

It's 95 percent bullshit. You can't train outer, inner, upper, lower pecs like some
people think. You can train different muscles of your thigh. Remember, quad means
four, in other words your quads are actually 4 separate muscles. Also you do have
an outer biceps muscle, your biceps brachialis. There's stuff like that, you just can't
train parts of the same muscle.

 

[FlexManning]

Actually I saw a picture of Robert Kennedy from a few years back without a shirt on
and he was in pretty good shape for an old man.

 

[goahead]

way i see it, the truth is (as usual) somewhere in the middle.

Muscle shape and size may mostly be genetically determined, but it is the way you train your muscles which determines how much and which parts of your genetic blueprint will show developement.

I do noticed more 'peak' development when i incorporated concentration curls and scott curls.
You cant develope a peak that is not there, but you can forget to develope a peak that may be there....

I say hit your muscles from all angles, starting with the basic bread and butter compound movements first, for 8-6 reps and the so called shaping movements for 12-10 reps after that.

Doing heavy barbell curls before concentration curls will in time yield much more biceps strenth than doing concentration curls alone and you will be able to do heavier concentration curls (now you're making some real progress)


Like one of the other posts said: "Science may have found that 10-8 reps is the best range for hypertrophy, and 6-4 reps for strength, but i find it hard to get stronger on 10 reps, so i do 8-6 reps"

10 reps ARE ok if:
- you are on juice, which will help you to do that many reps with substantially increased weight, and help you recover faster from the taxing tissue damage.
- you have done a powertraining cycle with low reps, you have become stronger and now wanna get rewarded with muscle size
- you've done the basic power movements in your workout first with 8-4 reps

 

[FlexManning]

Here's kind of what I think about the multiangular training: It's good for
avoiding overtraining a movement (chronic overruse injuries are the most common
injuries for bodybuilders), you can do movements that include a stretch (which is
good), and you can allow the most resistance to be placed on the muscle at a different
point in the rep (Larry Scotts arms were obviously suited to the range of motion
and resistance at the bottom of the rep that the preacher curl gives). I've
read many articles dismissing shape training portions of a muscle and I tend to
agree because of this: if you really could shape train a muscle effectively many people would
develop lumpy muscles. I'm mostly criticizing the otherwise intelligent writers who
seem to think you can train 4 separate parts of your pecs.

 

[Cackerot69]

I didn't expect you to be able to, Valdez.

Anyway, muscle shaping is almost pure BS. There *may* be specific size increases under certain circumstances (such as a muscle immobilized in the elongated position - in a cast, for example). Primarily because of the stretch it is under. This would have the visual effect of a lengthened muscle.

But, through everyday training - it is not possible.

 

[Valdez]

if you are under 6% bf training with higher reps can bring out more striations that's what I was getting at. muscle shape is genetic no matter what anyone says, agreed.

"no" means I have seen it done and I don't want to explain it even if I could (which I can't) but I've seen it happen.

 

[FlexManning]

This is always a hot topic of debate because it would be incredibly hard to prove
either way in a study. I also tend to believe that bringing out striations is almost
always the result of losing bodyfat while retaining muscle and not the result
of toning the muscle through pumping movements and high reps. You might
notice that some very striated abs belong to pros that barely train them.
That's not to
say that you can't increase vascularity somewhat through certain rep ranges
and movements, at least in theory.