Scapular Retraction: Why you should work the lats

This world class powerlifter, Andy Bolton, gives tips on how to enhance and strengthen scapular retraction while you bench press.







The point of scapular retraction is it's a rubber band mechanism that you load up with tension by pulling your shoulders behind you and then release while you bench press the bar away from your body.  Working the lats helps with this process. 

Bolton in the first couple minutes goes through a lat row movement on a machine that directly mimics the concentric phase of the bench press, aka the lowering of the bar to the chest.  Notice the detail in which he makes sure the handles are pulled to right below the pecs, the exact same place he puts the bar on his chest when bench pressing. 

Any lat row movement you do should mimic that concentric phase.  It will help with activating that rubber band mechanism along your front deltoids and help increase your bench press when you shoot your shoulders in front of you.  However, mind you it's only good for 1 rep maxes because it will take you out of position to do any reps in a chest pressing set.

Progress Report: Scapular Retraction

This guy knows what scapular retraction is:

And so does this guy:

A lot of people say to do it while bench pressing, and I have to agree with that.

Here I am attempting a dead press of 235 lbs trying to do some scapular retracting:

As you can see I didn't get that far. Maybe a little more than an inch off the crossbars.

The reason I bring up scapular retraction is that when I'm deadpressing there is very little clearance between the bar and my chest in order for me to properly scapular retract. The more I try to pull my shoulders back the more my chest rises and the bar ends up digging into my ribcage which by the way is very painful.

Who cares you ask? If I did have enough clearance I then would be able to properly pack my shoulders and lats into the bench padding.

Who cares you ask? Well you see, what a lot of people seem to miss and not understand about bench pressing and scapular retraction is that the more you can swing your shoulders back and behind you, the tenser the stretch reflex can be imparted into your front deltoids.

You see when I was using the leverage chest press machine I was able to get 370 lbs up for an inch. The reason that was is the machine enables you to adjust the handles so they can be set behind the vertical plane of your chest. See the video below:

So what I would do is get the handles about three inches behind my chest and this would put a serious stretch reflex on my front deltoids. I would actually stand up and then slam my butt down into the seat and wedge my body between the back pad and the handles which allowed me to move heavy weight.

I always knew this was happening but I underestimated this stretch reflex effect so when I went to bench press my pressing strength was severely lagging.

Enter the dead press. As you can see I can't even lift 235 lbs. So how do I go up? I train without the stretch reflex caused by scapular retraction. Like I said the bar stops that when dead pressing. My theory is that by dead pressing without scapular retraction you're recruiting more muscle fibers in the front deltoids, triceps, and pecs. This should in turn should lead to an increased touch and go bench press when the shoulders and lats are properly set into a scapular retracted position.

Does it work? I don't know yet. I have been making small micro gains in my dead press though. A couple weeks ago I could barely get 225 lbs off the crossbars:

Anyways here's my numbers. 

Gym Thursday 11:20 a.m. 8/21/14
Shoulder press seated 285-1, 285-1, 305-0
Stiff legged one legged deadlift
Left 235-0, 235-1
Right 235-1, 235-1
One hand rack pull
Left 325-0
Right 325-1
Decline press free motion cable machine 200-2
Life fitness seated leg press machine wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves 405-0, 405-1
Bicep curl free motion cable machine 150-2
Romanian deadlift without straps 275-0, 275-0
Romanian deadlift with straps 295-4, 345-0, 315-1
Incline press Precor machine 220-0

Gym Monday 11 am 8/25/14
Conventional deadlift on 45 lb plates 525-0
Stiff legged deadlift on 45 lb plates 515-0
Dead chest press 235-1, 245-0
Dead chest press legs in the air 245-0
Life fitness seated leg press machine wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves
405-1
Lat row seated life fitness machine 305-1
Life fitness Tricep extension rope attachment cable machine 130-1
Pec fly dumbbells pair of 55's-2

Workout notes:

As you can see, I've been resting for 96 hours and it's been a positive experience. My lifts are going up and I feel a lot more explosive. The only problem is my joints and spine fall out of alignment with the extended rest and I have to remember to do spinal stretches to straighten my spine out before attempting heavy deadlifting. I did have a slight vertebra disc slippage when I pulled up 415 lbs because my hips and lower back were slightly misaligned.  It was painful but I stood with my back to a wall and bent over backwards to pop my spine back into place. No big deal. Problem solved and I finished the training session albeit with a slight pain in my lower spine.

Also notice my inclusion of the Romanian deadlift on 8/21. It definitely has great carryover effect to the conventional deadlift. My bar speed coming off the ground is very easy and fluid thanks to the Romanian deadlift, and it works the low back without the heavy load placed on it when conventional deadlifting.

Also you can see my incline press on the Precor machine severely decreased. On 8/13 it was 300 lbs for a "1".  8/21 it was 220 lbs for a "0". The reason was that I set the handles on the machine right at chest level thereby reducing any chance for stretch reflex along the front deltoids.

Also notice on 8/25 I cycled the pec fly back into my workout. I'm also going to put a reverse fly to work the rear deltoids. My reasoning is that if I attack the muscles involved in scapular retraction and front deltoid stretch reflex, my touch and go bench press should go up.

Progress Report: What got you from point A to point B will not always get you to point C

Here's my progress report and the numbers recorded.

Gym Wednesday 10:45 a.m.  8/13/14
Life fitness seated shoulder press machine 205-1
Stiff legged one legged deadlift
Left 225-1
Right 225-1
Precor incline press 300-1
Life fitness seated bicep curl cable machine 150-1
Life fitness seated leg press machine 405-1
Life fitness seated decline press cable machine 200-0, 200-1
One hand rack pull
Left 315-1, 335-0, 315-1
Right 315-1, 335-0, 315-0

Gym Sunday 2 pm 8/17/14
Dead chest press 235-0
Dead chest press legs in the air 235-1
Conventional deadlift on 45 lb plates  515-1
Stiff legged deadlift  on 45 lb plates 515-0
Tricep extension rope attachment cable machine life fitness 130-1
Seated leg press life fitness machine 405-1
Life fitness seated lat row machine 305-1

Here's a video of me attempting a 235 lb. dead chest press attempt:

Now mind you I gave this attempt a "0" because even though I got it off the rack crossbars, it was just my chest and stomach muscles bracing upwards against the bar and consequently lifting the bar up not my arms.  That's why I gave this attempt a "0" on 8/17.

Interestingly enough however I did manage to clear the bar off the racks when I crossed my legs in the air using mostly my arms and a negligible amount of upward force from my activated stomach and chest muscles, so I gave it a "1" on 8/17.  When my legs are crossed and dangling in the air, it makes my chest and lower back flat, so I have no noticeable arch in my torso.  This seems to make it easy to get my arms underneath the bar and consequently load my lats with tension which provides some liftoff assistance. However, I don't know the real reason why I'm stronger with my legs crossed in the air while pressing as opposed to when my feet are on the floor. It's just something I've noticed and I don't know how to address it because it's generally thought that chest pressing with your feet on the ground is supposed to be the more stable and thus stronger lift.  I'm just going to ignore this weird phenomena and focus on the fact that I'm making progress in at least one of my chest press lifts.

I wish I had a video of my dead chest press with my legs crossed in the air, but honestly I didn't think it was going to be more powerful than with my feet on the floor so I didn't even set up my camera phone for the shot.  Next time I post a progress report, it will have a video of the lift.

Moving on to the deadlift, I've been experiencing lower back pain due to me conventional deadlifting 500+ lbs and rack pulling the same amount in the span of a week, so I decided to switch my back strengthening lifts up and do one handed rack pulls instead of the double handed rack pull.  It was a success because it did alleviate my lower back pain due to the lesser amount of weight I can pull with just one hand compared to a double handed pull, but it was also a failure because when I went to do my conventional deadlifts I couldn't even get 415 past my knees while standing on two 45 lb plates.  Usually I have no problem with that kind of weight.

To my remedy this, I plan on adding a Romanian deadlift to just focus on my spine and hamstrings. Here's a video of the lift if you don't know what I'm talking about:

Of course I'm going to do it my way because I'm stubborn and don't want to listen to anybody.  I'm going to do heavy singles with my knees in an almost locked position.  Who knows? I might even lock my knees.  I'm just going to experiment with it and see how it goes.  Maybe I'll sever my spine in half and have to retire from lifting and stop cluttering the internet up with my pseudoscience.

The trick to the Romanian deadlift is keeping the spine straight.  You do that by sucking in a little amount of air through the nose to elevate the chest and lock the upper back but not so much air that you put the lower back into an arched position. You hold your breath throughout the entire range of motion of the lift until you reach the top.  This should help in preventing slipping the discs of your spine.

The reason I'm adding the Romanian deadlift is that it should help tax the spinal muscles and align the vertebra in my back.  The reason I couldn't do well in my conventional deadlift this past week was my spine and the muscles that are responsible for keeping it straight atrophied and became lax because I neglected to do a double handed type deadlift variation.  I only did the one handed rack pull and one legged deadlift on 8/13. These types of lifts focus more on the oblique muscles and to a severely lesser extent the spinal erector muscles, so I'm going to add the Romanian deadlift to address this issue.


Of special note you'll notice my rest periods between workout sessions are longer.  I took around 99 hours to rest and recover between training sessions last week.  The reason is that I don't want to burn out too quick.  My last block of training lasted about 6 months and then I took an almost two week rest between training sessions.  I lost a lot of strength in that two weeks, and the reason for that was I felt I needed the rest to allow my central nervous system to recover. I was only allowing myself 72+ hours of rest between workouts and that had a lot to do with me burning out in my opinion.

Another thing about the 96 hour rest period is that when I go into a workout after that amount of recovery timelength I feel explosive and even a little bit enthusiastic to pump iron.  Because all the lactic acid burns itself out of my muscles due to the extended recovery period and hence my muscle soreness subsides, my mind seems to be in a better mood and not made to feel so victimized to go into a heavy lifting training session and attack the weights.

Dave Tate on accessory movements

The article he wrote which he talks about in his lecture.

Progress Report: Why this blog should be called Plateau Training without Steroids

This represents a gain to me. I rested for 94 hours before attempting this.  Even though I didn't finish the rep, I lifted it up a couple inches higher than my previous dead press attempt shown below a week earlier:

As you can see I could barely budge it.  This one was attempted after only 72 hours rest.

The reason for the gain is threefold.  The most important was the fact that I rested for 94 hours between workouts.  Take a look at my numbers for this week:

Gym Tuesday 11:20 a.m. 8 /5/14
Shoulder press life fitness machine 205-2
Incline press precor machine 260-1, 300-0
Rack pull 505-1, 505-1
Freemotion bicep curl cable machine 150-1
Life fitness seated leg press machine wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves 405-1
Decline press dead 235-1
Stiff legged one legged deadlift
Left 215-1
Right 215-1

Gym Saturday 8/9/14 9:30 a.m.
Conventional deadlift standing on 45 lb plates 495-1, 505-1
Stiff legged deadlift standing on 45 lb plates 505-1
Technogym leg press machine 440-0
Dead chest press 225-1
Dead chest press legs in the air 225-1
Life fitness seated lat row cable machine 260-4
Tricep extension rope attachment cable machine life fitness 115-1, 130-0

The second reason for the gain was my dead press form changed.  As you can see in the second video I had the bar sitting close to my neck, but in the first video I had the bar sit right below my rib cage on the upper abdomen.  This changed the mechanics of the dead press.  In the second video because I have the bar closer to my neck I can't use abdominal muscle activation to help with the lift off.  In the first video I'm contracting my stomach muscles. This provides for approximately a 1" liftoff heightening because the bar is sitting on my air filled torso and my activated abdominal muscles.

This may not be the strictest adherence to the name of the lift, the dead chest press, but I'll accept that slight digression because there is no way possible for me to make the lift without taking breath into my lungs and holding it, and bracing my stomach muscles.  These two techniques provide stability throughout the range of motion of the press.

The last reason for the gain was added accessory movements. On 8/5/14 I did a shoulder press, incline press, and decline press.  On 8/9/14 I did the dead press, dead press with legs crossed in the air, and tricep extensions with a rope attached to a cable machine. This all added up to me making a gain.

So what's my next step?  Add more weight.  That's right.

Most people would look at the above video and they would suggest my next move for my next workout on the dead press is to stay at 225 lbs. and try to get a full complete rep.  Maybe I shouldn't add more weight, they would suggest, until I can bang 225 lbs out for a couple reps.

But I don't think like most people.  I don't have time for their retarded way of thinking.  I've tried their useless ineffectuals methods. I've spent hundreds of dollars on their stupid useless e-books, books, dvd's, and websites. If you name it, I've probably done it.

So that's right. I'm going to add ten more pounds to the bar on my next dead press session bringing up the total to 235 lbs and I'll post a video of what happened next week.

And oh yeah before I go, I didn't address the blog post title:  Why this blog should be called Plateau Training without Steroids. I was just joking.  I would never change the name of this blog to that. Plateaus are for loser idiots.  This blog ain't about losing.  It's about winning and telling people I told you so and making all those idiots following Elliot Hulse, from whom I stupidly bought an e-book, look like fools.

Progress Report: A lesson in patience

In today's world of instantaneous gratification, strength training doesn't jibe well. Unlike the information age where you can go online and have vast amounts of knowledge and propaganda and disinformation at your fingertips in a moment's notice, strength training takes patience.

Of late I've been experiencing a nagging problem with a dead chest press plateau. As you can see I didn't even budge the bar in the first video and I budged the bar up a little bit in the second video. I'm going to blame it on central nervous system fatigue. I only gave myself seventy two hours rest after my previous workout where I went crazy on my triceps and front deltoids with a deluge of chest and deltoid press variations.

What the numbers mean.

Gym Tuesday 11:40 a.m. 7/29/14
Seated shoulder press dead 285-0
Incline press dead 255-0
Rack pull 525-0, 505-0
Decline press dead 235-0
Technogym leg press machine 420-0, 420-1, 440-0
Freemotion bicep curl machine 200-2
One legged stiff legged deadlift
Left 195-1, 215-1
Right 195-1, 215-1

As you can see I did a shoulder, decline and incline press to stimulate an adaptive response in my triceps, pecs, and deltoids. I pretty much did what most common sense people do when they have a problem: throw everything at it except the kitchen sink. That might be overkill to most people.

Maybe it was. Take a look at my numbers for the next workout.

Gym Friday 8/1/14 1130 a.m.
Conventional deadlift on 45 lb plates 445-2, 485-1
Stiff legged deadlift on 45 lb plates 495-1, 505-0
Dead chest press 225-1
Dead chest press legs in the air 185-1, 205-1
Life fitness seated leg press machine wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves
 415-1
Seated lat row life fitness cable machine 260-3
Tricep extension rope attachment cable machine life fitness 100-1, 115-1

Now take a look from the previous week almost the same workout.


Friday 1 a.m. gym 7/18/14
Dead chest press 185-0, 185-1, 225-1,
Legs in the air dead chest press 175-1
Conventional deadlift 1"deficit on forty five lb plates 465-1
Stiff legged deadlift 1"  deficit on forty five lb plates 475-1, 485-1
One legged leg press machine life fitness
Left 90-1, 110-0
Right 90-1, 110-0
Lat row seated machine life fitness 260-1, 260-2

On 7/25/14,  my dead chest press plateaued but my dead chest press with my legs crossed in the air went up by 30 lbs. I'm going to blame that on the fact when I put my legs in the air while dead pressing my chest gets flat because my feet aren't on the floor putting an arch in my back and consequently making my breast plate rise. This makes for a mechanically advantageous position to push the bar up because it creates more room for me to slide the bar down on the crossbars to a mid chest position. As you can see from the above videos the bar was sitting high close to my neck. Excuses. Excuses.

Anyways here's a video  of that conventional deadlift on 45 lb plates I did on 8/1/14. 

I wasn't feeling energetic and I went into the training session a little frazzled and my central nervous system wasn't cooperating either and it shows in my lifts. Excuses. Excuses. 

I think I'm going to take 96 hour blocks of rest time between workouts. My reasoning is this, a comparison of two almost identical workouts with 96 hours of rest time preceding them. 

Gym Tuesday 11:40 a.m. 7/29/14

Seated shoulder press dead 285-0

Incline press dead 255-0

Rack pull 525-0, 505-0

Decline press dead 235-0

Technogym leg press machine 420-0, 420-1, 440-0

Freemotion bicep curl machine 200-2

One legged stiff legged deadlift 

Left 195-1, 215-1

Right 195-1, 215-1

Gym Tuesday 11:20 a.m. 8 /5/14

Shoulder press life fitness machine 205-2

Incline press precor machine 260-1, 300-0

Rack pull 505-1, 505-1

Freemotion bicep curl cable machine 150-1

Life fitness seated leg press machine wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves 405-1 

Decline press dead 235-1

Stiff legged one legged deadlift 

Left 215-1

Right 215-1

If you compare the decline dead presses, the one on 8/5/14 went up slightly so I'm thinking the 96 hour rest might be helping my numbers. 

Anyways that's it for now. 

Lose weight by walking

I've tried both walking on an empty stomach and after a meal. I definitely feel better when I have food in my stomach while I'm walking.

The other way walking while hungry leads to better weight loss but I've found it also loses muscle and consequently strength loss, so I walk at a brisk pace for thirty minutes right after a meal at least once a day on my non-training days.

So far walking coupled with increased intake of fruits has led to a ten pound weight loss that I've been able to sustain over the past couple weeks.

Bench press form