No More Chocolates for the Girls
June 15, 2003

A week from today Laree and I will be boarding the custom Super B-62 aircraft and heading for Florida. As I considered the events of the day, a provocative thought crossed my mind and materialized as a catchy phrase, which you have my permission to quote: Time flies. It was only a few months ago, or so it seems, when a bunch of us metal workers met in Las Vegas (Iron Bash 2) to discuss rust prevention, alloys and the art of sculpting the body with raw iron and steel. We determined that heavy metals are forever; they never lose their gravity, density or coolness, and it’s up to each of us personally to keep them from eroding or becoming ineffective. Consistent and passionate movement of the subject matter, we agreed, accomplished this task most successfully.

We sure had fun harmonizing at the barbecue. What was that little ditty we sang led by “Frankie Z” on the harmonica?

“Push that iron, boys, lift that steel
And, girls, stay away from the chocolates.”

“Make some muscles, men, lose some fat
And, ladies, no more ice cream and cookies.”

“Bigger, faster, stronger, guys
And gals, please unload the leg press.”

“Ab shot, lat spread, kneeling side chest, dudes
And chicks, please apply the oil evenly.”

Yeah, that was a blast from the past. I may have the words out of order, but I can’t get the tune out of my head.

Okay. Enough silliness. No more time for chattering. Put away the pens and notepads, bubble gum and yawns. We have work to do, bombers. It’s Hands-on Lab day.

The subjects of today’s study are handles and grip and stuff like that.

By handles I refer to the variety of attachments we find on and around the cable machines. In our gyms in Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley, we can install a 3,000-dollar piece of equipment for this or that and life goes on. Another day I can add a handle that has a weird bend or a swivel or a thick diameter and I get 10 thumbs up, 20 raves about the serious pump, nasty burn and cool muscle action and one invitation to lunch at the El Palomar. Go figure.

We all love the little gadgets that allow us to get personal and particular with our muscle building. I use maybe a dozen different handles at the various cable sites on our pulley apparatus, each one offering a new direction to go, a greater muscle advantage or welcome relief from a cranky joint pain. They satisfy our moods and often have me searching the gym floor for 10 precious minutes ‘cuz without that special handle, I can’t go on.

From the overhead pulley I attach a wide-grip bar with standard bends on the ends and do pulldowns before the head to work the extreme width of the lats. This is a regularly performed exercise -- week after week, month after month -- and I will change the handle when the timing is right, when the lat insertions are feeling tender, to a six-inch narrower bar for sufficiently altered muscle recruitment.

According to urge and need I will use this narrower bar to do behind-the-neck pulldowns for upper back and lat development. To achieve the maximum contraction of these isolated muscles I pretend to hit the back double-overhead biceps shot, one those crazy bodybuilders perform on stage, flexing the upper back muscles intensely at the peak of the pulldown action. There is a narrower handle, some 30 inches wide, with end handles that are parallel for another satisfying working of the back muscles. Here, a little leaning as I pull down on the bar engages the deeper and more powerful muscles across the back, with less accent on the outer reaches of the latisimus dorsi.

Very popular are a couple of beefy, close-grip handles I had made for the seated lat row and for the overhead pulley system. Imagine: The thickly knurled grips run side by side and are engineered so they are four inches apart at the top and angle out to seven inches at the bottom -- comfortable hand arrangement conducive to some powerful tugging. The close-grip action from the overhead pulley recruits mid-back muscles and brings in some minor pec and serratus. The seated row executed with some decent weight and a full range of motion engages the whole back from Seattle to Maine. Gets so you think you can pull a house down.

On all exercises I perform 5 sets and the reps on those above range from 8 to 12. It is not uncommon for me to go 15, 12, 10, 8, 6 reps, increasing the weight 5 or 10 pounds with each successive set.

Pulley pushdowns have been a favorite of mine since the early years of my training. Incredible, barely a week has gone by in the past 45 years that I haven’t done at least a dozen sets of pushdowns. You’d think I’d have figured life out by now and gone on to something sensible, gotten a real job or run over chasing an ice cream truck, gotten lost, or captured or surrendered. Maybe next year, right now I’m too busy.
Pushdowns with a rope handle had long been my favorite for triceps (it’s the versatility) until recently. The torque the rope handle puts on my wrists is causing tenderness and I’ve gone to a steel 20-inch handle with slight zigzag bends (20 degrees) starting one inch or so from the center (I drew you a picture but it’s on my desk). This close grip affords hand and wrist comfort with a favorable triceps action and good power advantage, and the length adds mass to the handle for non-chatter stability. You are also able to affect a variety of triceps contractions by shifting your body in relation to this handle and the apparatus:

Standing erect and directly before the cable with your elbows pinned to your sides, extend arms downward (contract tris)

Leaning over the handle with your head to the side of the cable, push downward contracting the tris

Hunkered down and standing two feet away from the cable, contract tris by extending your arms from those stationary, near-torso elbows down and toward (into) the body.

You can stand with your back to the cable and lean forward and by contracting the tris extend the handle from an overhead position to a full forward position.

The above variations of the triceps cable movements can be performed from a kneeling position for an interesting and agreeable change.

Any variety of these actions can be compiled into one set of high reps (20) to squeeze the max from the muscles involved. I do it all the time.

Again, 5 sets but with the reps on the high end, 15 to 18. I start with a standard pushdown for very strict reps and rearrange the position every four-five reps to shift the muscle action to wherever the work is needed or whatever region can handle the load. Thrust comes into play the last four reps. Fried.

Honest body thrust thoughtfully engaged on curls or pushdowns or pulldowns and similar basic, non-power movements can afford muscle- and power-building advantages, healthy overload and good training fun. Done with wrong intentions (to get the weight where you want it to go, no matter what; embarrassment; insanely poor form, wrenching back, elbows and shoulders, taking out bystanders) can be costly.

About barbells and the width of hand placement: there is the standard medium-grip placement for all persons, which varies according to all structures, short, tall, wide shoulder or narrow, long limb or short. This grip satisfies the natural requirements and healthy development of the muscles under the workload. Pressing suggests bench presses, declines, inclines, press-behind-necks and military presses. Within all the movements, the muscles being worked can favorably respond to some small degree of hand adjustment -- wider or narrower hand positioning -- which can serve to give relief to the pain and inflammation of an overloaded region or to change the muscle’s engagement sufficiently for further development or exercise novelty. Improper modification can be dangerous if you exceed the natural tracking of the muscles and the joints involved. Be careful. The bench has the widest range of adjustment, mostly on the inward side. The closer the grip, the more you recruit the triceps and the inner pecs. Going too wide is very tough on the rotation cuff, as is going too heavy or practicing any kind of body thrust (there ain’t no honest bench press body thrust… it’s called cheating). To deaf ears I say again, be careful.

Variations of grip in curling are limited also for the same reasons. Too close or too wide will feel interesting at first, but continued curling out of whack to hit the inner this or outer that will cause tendonitis and you’ll turn into a grouch with skinny, throbbing guns. Nothing worse. Incidentally, the bis will seek their biggest and best growth with standing bent-bar curls using some of that HBT (honest body thrust) plus, of course, your other favorites. Genetics (and its muscle predisposition) plays a major role in the shape, size and density of the muscles we’ve been dealt. Play hard.

One more notion and I’ll get out of your hair. The thick bar -- the Apollon Axle from Ironmind.com -- is a fun instrument of musclebuilding. The two-inch diameter of the bar changes the groove and attitude of the pressing or curling movement and you’ll find yourself grinning as you get more out of a lighter weight and different muscles come into play in a different way. The increased surface of the thick bar distributes the bar’s resistance over a broader surface of the hand, a welcome aid to tired, bruised or arthritic mitts. Terrific for wrist curls and hand strength. Deadlifts and rows become a real gripping challenge.

Lab’s over, skysters.

Well, whatta ya waiting for, bombers? There’s sky out there. Let’s seize the boundless blue beauty before it fades to gray.

Draper

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