Your Best/worst exercises for Muscle Rounds

[hicksy_ian]

Hi Guys,

I'm starting my third week of FT and i'm curious as to what you've found to your go to exercises for MR's and ones you've found simply don't work, whether that be due to other body parts giving out first or if you simply can't prolong a mind muscle connection with reps of four.

The reasons I ask is that i've found I get a great pump/mm connection with certain exercises, such as flat Dbell chest pres/flyes. PJR pull overs and machine preacher curls etc. However, I really don't feel the same when it comes to training back.

This is especially true with thickness exercises and was wondering if anyone has the same issue? Or if they had any back thickness exercises they felt really worked with MRs.

I believe my issue comes with not being able to get into the power grove when only doing reps of four. I'm normally getting into my grove by the 3rd of 4th rep of a normal straight set and feeling the weight and where to pull for a good contraction and then stretch at the bottom but obviously with MR's i'm stopping at this point and not getting into the movement.

I'm thinking it might be best for me to change the back T's to straight sets in the 6-12 range.

[Altamir]

So I really like cable rows, smith machine rows, and most machine rows for thickness MRs. I've done t-bar rows, barbell rows, and dumbbell rows in the past, but not with the greatest success. Where I have done better with them is when running at a higher tier and putting them last, so your lats are pretty fatigued before hitting them. Two ideas that maybe you might be able to employ that could help, would be.

1. Pre-fatigue: Pull overs are awesome for this, but also any back movement that you really can connect with will do really well. Get your lats nice and fatigued and pumped, and then move onto thickness movement.

2. Forget about weight, and focus on mind muscle connection: I could be reading into this a bit, but you may want to try and drop the "power groove" idea. and reduce the weight, and focus on purely technique, a strong contraction, a nice long negative, and a good stretch at the bottom. The cue I always liked was trying to wrap my lats around my back It can be a bit humbling, at first, but when your lats are so sore it's uncomfortable to lay down at night, you know you are on the right track.

To add, I'll say I'm not against a little controlled body english. I think it has it's place in back thickness movements especially (though I may be prejudiced as that's where I've seen results). But I've always sort of divided this in my head. Loading sets for back thickness, a little bit of control body english is ok. For MRs, as strict and as tight as I can be, while trying to keep progressive overload moving forward. For pump sets, there is nothing but that muscle working perfectly, with no regard to reps, only to feeling.

[ebado]

For back MRs I really like unilateral movements, I feel like it lets me really focus on contracting each side maximally, which can get difficult on two-arm exercises as fatigue sets in later in the MR. Any kind of plate loaded rowing machine is a go-to for this, and pulldowns can be as well with a D-handle attachment. For free weight rowing MRs, especially two-arm variations, I prefer to do them dead-stop, meaning completely stopping the weight (but maintaining tension in my lats) on pins for a second at the bottom of each rep. This helps prevent form from getting sloppy as you get fatigued.

[urogenitalsubsection]

For back MRs, I love rack pulls, Smith rows, and any form of chest supported rows. Also, things like meadows rows or 1 arm B.B. rows where it’s easy to set the weight down or even perform from a dead stop are awesome too. These are great for thickness imo


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