Every time I walk into the weight room in
my school, I meet a lot of good friends from my rugby team. They like going to
the gym, they train together, don’t miss a workout, and are committed. They
want to get big, strong, and look good! And why not, if this also helps them in
the field, even better.
But, because of the way I am, I can’t help
but notice that they are doing some exercises that fuck their shoulders, like
bench pressing bodybuilding style with weights they can’t control and doing
forced reps. Then they tell me that their shoulder hurts, and it doesn’t
surprise me at all.
Other things they do is super wide pull ups, which apart of not being the best
thing you can do for your shoulders, especially when you play rugby and use them
to tackle day in and day out, don’t allow them to pass their chin over the bar,
or load themselves with any significant weight. When I ask them why they do it
this way, they’ll tell me it is because “it hits the back”. Doesn’t regular
pull ups hit the back, on top of having a much larger ROM (Range Of Motion)? I
can tell you that when I do heavy chin ups, the next day my lats are sore as
hell.
Of course, as any beginner, they’ll squat
bringing their knee forward and putting them at risk of injury, and doing
quarter reps. Actually, they do half reps in every exercise they do, because to
start, their hand placement or hip/knee break isn’t correct.
But because I love these guys, I want them
to succeed, and to avoid wasting years of training, effort, and getting injured
on the way. That’s the reason why I promised them to make a routine to help
them get big, strong, get a nice looking body, and avoid getting injured in the
process.
I recommend this routine to any beginner.
It is a classic A/B, training 3 times a week the whole body, with lots of basic
compound exercises, progressive overload being the focus, and also with
some curls at the end of the workouts, optional of course, just to make them
happy.
