Arm stability during Press & Training to failure.

[Lazylifter]

Right ok two things on my mind that I want to put to the panel.

1) My bench press at the gym is suffering because I find it hard to keep the dumbells steady, you know they wobble arround abit, back and forth, left and right. So what excercises should I do to increase stability of my arms when I'm pressing.
I'm already doing Trusilvers alphabets, but I can't get to the end of the aphabet holding any weight at all lol

2) How many of you train to failiure? Is it a good thing to do (a good way to speed up strength gains) or a bad thing (really just increases recovery times with no real benefit)
I also suspect that my idea of training to failiure is not quite right- I am lazy afterall! I kinda pick a dumbell up and go OOOhh thats a bit heavy and put it down again. he he he

[stikfigure]

Originally Posted by Lazylifter

Right ok two things on my mind that I want to put to the panel.

1) My bench press at the gym is suffering because I find it hard to keep the dumbells steady, you know they wobble arround abit, back and forth, left and right. So what excercises should I do to increase stability of my arms when I'm pressing.
I'm already doing Trusilvers alphabets, but I can't get to the end of the aphabet holding any weight at all lol

2) How many of you train to failiure? Is it a good thing to do (a good way to speed up strength gains) or a bad thing (really just increases recovery times with no real benefit)
I also suspect that my idea of training to failiure is not quite right- I am lazy afterall! I kinda pick a dumbell up and go OOOhh thats a bit heavy and put it down again. he he he

I suspect you're quite a bit less lazy than you let on

lifting to failure is a great way to shock muscles to grow. when people lift like that though they are usually on a 3 or 4 day split routine meaning they rotate body parts so that usually it's about 4-5 days before you kill that muscle group again - giving time for repair and growth, but in the mean time you'd be busy trashing (in a good way) the other body parts.

It's really smart to listen to your body and respect what it has to say about limits but as long as your form on any particular exercise is clean and safe it's perfectly fine to exhaust the muscles - "feel the burn"!

here's just one example of a split workout. you can fashion your own really easily with the exercises you like to or already do.
Dougs 4 Day Split Workout - Muscle & Strength

[5kgLifter]

Originally Posted by Lazylifter

Right ok two things on my mind that I want to put to the panel.

1) My bench press at the gym is suffering because I find it hard to keep the dumbells steady, you know they wobble arround abit, back and forth, left and right. So what excercises should I do to increase stability of my arms when I'm pressing.
I'm already doing Trusilvers alphabets, but I can't get to the end of the aphabet holding any weight at all lol

2) How many of you train to failiure? Is it a good thing to do (a good way to speed up strength gains) or a bad thing (really just increases recovery times with no real benefit)
I also suspect that my idea of training to failiure is not quite right- I am lazy afterall! I kinda pick a dumbell up and go OOOhh thats a bit heavy and put it down again. he he he

I notice I had that problem, of the weight wobbling around all over the place, when I had slept on my shoulder wrong, a joint that had already suffered due to being slept on wrongly for too long, or something...I can do my shoulder in just by vaccuuming under the bed, so I have to watch how I move, which isn't a bad thing. But, anyway, other than the instance mentioned, I've never noticed a problem, so it could be that the weight is too heaby for the shoulder at present, and you may want to drop it by even 1kg, which would make a difference; or do less reps, but a few more sets, so you get to recover a bit more before pressing. One way to consider the dumbbells, is to visualise you are in fact pressing a bar, not two separate items, that also tends to help, because you will then tend to push both up as one unit.

[MJFitCore]

Originally Posted by Lazylifter

Right ok two things on my mind that I want to put to the panel.

1) My bench press at the gym is suffering because I find it hard to keep the dumbells steady, you know they wobble arround abit, back and forth, left and right. So what excercises should I do to increase stability of my arms when I'm pressing.
I'm already doing Trusilvers alphabets, but I can't get to the end of the aphabet holding any weight at all lol

2) How many of you train to failiure? Is it a good thing to do (a good way to speed up strength gains) or a bad thing (really just increases recovery times with no real benefit)
I also suspect that my idea of training to failiure is not quite right- I am lazy afterall! I kinda pick a dumbell up and go OOOhh thats a bit heavy and put it down again. he he he

Hi Lazylifter,

I can't say much about your arm stability issues since I am having the same problem. I'm assuming that's because my shoulders are still weak. I suppose when you gain more strength, your arm presses would become stable. Otherwise, use resistance bands.

... lifting weights to failure. It seems to work well for me. I have more strength that I did when I began this training to failure. But to benefit from a muscle failure training, you have to allow your muscles to recover. I usually have one day cardio training in between muscle training to allow for muscle recovery.

Good luck!