Any particular things to do for that, should I be adding a specific rear delt move into my routine?

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Ant, can you drink too much water? I'm drinking 7+ litres a day. Will I be leaching vitamins and minerals with that amount? Or is that ok?

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The Rear Delt Row is a good move to add in as part of your back routine.

You can under certain circumstances, for example, drinking a lot of water in a short space of time without replacing the necessary minerals. But if you're drinking your water nicely spaced out throughout the day, while eating regularly (and if you're losing fat, I'd imagine you're eating 5-6 times per day), then there's no evidence to suggest it will be harmful to you.

Anthony

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does a dumbbell overhead press hit the rest of the shoulder area?

I'm having a bit of split squat troubles, could be mostly balance and getting use to the movement but do you have any general tips. Cheers

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Hi Anthony

As you know, my DD goal for my shoulder press is to get up to 14kg dumbbells.

I’m still only able to do 13 reps at 8kg straight through with good form and you said I should do 14 reps before I move up to 10kgs. I’ve been able to do 13 straight through for the last 4 workouts. Should I wait for 14 reps or move up to 10kgs now?

I’m just concerned that time is slipping away and I’m not making progress that quickly! :-/

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Yep.

You will have issues with balance, etc. at first. What specific issues are you having?

General tips:

- Pull your stomach in, and pull your shoulders back. First thing you'll likely do as you concentrate on other stuff is let your shoulders hunch as you hold the dumbbells.

- Space your legs out a bit (not too wide) so they're roughly shoulder width apart. This will give you a slightly wider base.

- Push through the heel. It'll help you push back rather than just straight up (which wont help your balance!)

- Focus on one spot straight ahead and fix your gaze there.

Yes you can. Should knock you down to about 8 or 9.

Another thing you can try when the reps get hard is pausing slightly to get another rep or two. In this situation, I like to employ a 3 breath rule, so take 3 deep full breaths, brace your midsection, then go. Don't dawdle, Breathe, breathe, breathe, brace, and go!

When you finish that rep, do the same again and you may get another one.

Keep it up!

Anthony

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My leg resting on the bench crashes into my leg doing the movement. I'm not sure what kind of distance from the bench will be best. Does the other general squat rules apply to this, knee in same direction as leg, pointed slightly outwards? Don't let my knee stick out over my toe? Should I basically be going up and down almost centrally between my two legs rather than above the leg doing the work.

I also find I just did 10 reps on the left leg, then stopped, then with the other, because of all the wobbling and effort from first leg I only managed five. Should I be going to failure on both legs, because If I go failure on the first leg, I won't have anything left in the tank for other leg? Cheers for the tips above, I'm thinking it might be worth spending some time on my rest days trying these unweighted to work on the movement.

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I'm finding that quite hard to picture. Can you elaborate? Or any pics you can post?

Generally, you want to be far enough away from the bench that your front leg is at a 90 degree angle in the bottom position.

That's right.

Your knee shouldn't go over your toe because your foot should be far enough forward that your leg is at roughly 90 degrees, so your shin will be pointing almost straight upwards.

You'll kind of be moving forwards and back aswell as you push your knee forwards.

I tend to do the first set to failure with my non-dominant leg, so in my case that will be my left leg, then do the same amount of reps with my dominant leg. Counting down rather than up on the second leg can help too.

I do this with most uni-lateral movements - one arm rows, that kind of thing.

Anthony

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I'm thinking it is because my stance was quite narrow and I was trying to go up and down over leading leg, so the tips so far should solve that.

This stumped me? pushing my knee forwards to get it to that right angle with my shin staying vertical. But forwards and back.. will I be moving back, and my knee moving forwards.

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A question for you dear Anthony Sir.

Speaking to Phoniex the other day I came out with a comment about how theres not much you can do wrong when taking skinfold measurements. However when taking them today I thought hang on, how do I know the way I do it (and have always done it) is correct! So I looked up info and it appears the way I was doing it was correct but that I have a habit of pressing down on both sides of the caliper (when squeezing it together) rather than just pressing on the side which clicks. When I do it my usual way, my abdominal skinfold is 12,12,12. However if I really make sure I only press on the side of the caliper you are meant too (ie the clicky side), I get 14,14,14. So I am actually a touch fatter than I thought. Although still less than the 15-16mm you reccomend getting down to before starting bulking.

When taking bodyfat measurements should I continue to take them how I always have, and carry on from the 12mm measurement. Or ensure that from now on I take them strictly and use the 14mm measurement as my starting base. ???

Also, I have a question about goals. As I've been bulking for about 1.5years now! I obviously don't want to be doing it forever, so I thought about what I'd like to achieve before I stop. I was looking round for physiques I'd like to achieve and would like to achieve something like that of Cristiano Ronaldo here and here or James Toseland. Both of whom are a similar height to me but about 6-8kg heavier than me (and probably a little leaner). To achieve this I thought perhaps if I were to gain about 10kg (which I reckon I could do whilst keeping my abdominal skinfold 20mm or less) and then lose whatever flab neccessary (probably 2-4kg) using one of your Hard Body Programs (to get back down to around say a 12mm abdominal skinfold). Does this sound a wise plan, and most importantly, going off howI look now and considering what you think my potential may be based on the pic, is this achievable and if so in what sort of time scale?. STE seemed to think it was a bit of a high goal.

Also, at what abdominal skinfold do you generally think people should stop bulking?

Richy

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