Dubster wrote:
I've been doing it for about 10 days (skipped a few days with work) & think I have got the gist of it. I feel strong & think I am definitely going to stick with it. The mrs is digging the guns too
Great to hear people are trying the routine out and getting results!
I got (am getting) a better feel for the muscles targeted in each exercise now i have been doing it a while, yesterday my deltoids just gave up! I have definitely noticed a change across my shoulder girdle and also finding it is helping a few nagging injuries that normally hurt if I train daily. I am working on doing the sun salutation in the morning & 'watch' in the evening & really enjoying it.
sounds like you're well on the right track - I noticed the shoulder girdle and arms responding first - and surprisingly quickly. You almost think "is is it just me or is this working already?" - good to have the Mrs confirm you aren't imagining it! Whichever muscle or muscle group responds best for you (deltoids maybe in your case) you will find that you can really induce the ideal effect in them. Once you've "felt it" there and you know what you're aiming for you can work towards inducing that exact same feeling in every area. Eventually you can get your spinal erectors or your obliques to give up in exactly the same way.
Paranoid android wrote:
Definitely works, only complaint I have is the chest seems neglected
It's a fair point - from the modern strength training, conditioning and bodybuilding perspectives there's not much that directly hits the pectoral muscles and from those perspectives it might seem that the chest had been forgotten about. Actually, it's not an omission so much as one of the main ways in which this approach purposely differs from the modern one.
The exercises were designed to (in a functional sense) perfectly develop, strengthen and balance every muscle of the body, and "bring them to perfect condition and under the perfect control of the will" - and (in an aesthetic sense) bring about "a perfect and pleasing development approaching the ideals depicted in classic sculpture" (Professor Attila's words)
Thing is, what was regarded as a perfectly functionally developed body then differs from the popular image we have of that today and also the popular image of a strong muscular bloke today differs markedly from the bodies depicted in Greek statuary:
if you google "chest muscles" you get loads of images like this -
whereas classically they looked more like this:
and all the oldtime strongmen and the three boxers referenced in the book sport those same flat but defined chests:
indeed most modern weight trainers would say Sandow's chest above was underdeveloped compared to the rest of him, while if oldtime strongmen saw pictures of modern bodybuilders or anyone who bench presses heavy and regularly they would wonder why all these men had so massively overdeveloped their chests in relation to everything else.
Strength was thought to originate in the large muscles of the core and be transmitted to the limbs by the powerful muscles of the back and "loins" - what we now call the muscles and fascia of the "back line".
A couple of the old book use the example of a tiger - whose big muscles are concentrated all along it's back and powerful shoulders while it's front is smaller and softer and Attila mentioned the natural strong build of the gorilla - compare a gorrilla's musculature to Sandows -
compared to the guy at the top they both have small flat chests - but both ludicrously strong.
That said - Paranoid android if you want to hit the chest more I'd alternate sets of the "floor dips" with one set concentrating on the back, serratus anterior etc... then the next concentrating tension on the chest - just make sure that in doing so you don't allow the serratus to switch off and the shoulder blades to wing out or round the shoulders too much. Also once you get really good at controlling and contracting each muscle maximally you can use the first shoulder exercise to directly target the pectorals strongly on the return, inward, movement.
- hope that helps
Dave