JB

Haha no that's fair enough. Next time there's someone I know in the gym when I'm pressing, I'll get them to take a video or picture of me doing the 65s.

Pullovers with 40kg is pretty strong though. DBs in my gym go up to 70kg. Gives you something to aim for. I pressed them for 3 (I think) once when my brother was down, just so someone was there to make sure I didn't die! Not sure what happens with my DB bench... I don't work particularly hard on it. I just seem freakishly suited to it.

Flat pressed the 65kg DBs for the last phase of my GVT routine last week - getting them into position was a workout in itself! Dead lifting them off the floor wasn't too bad but getting them in front of my legs before I sat down was a killer!

I read a good article by John Meadows where he recommended the cross body hammer curl as the best exercise for building the brachialis. Since then, I've alternated them with reverse curls each week (supersetting them with other biceps work) and found them excellent. I tend to do straight hammer curls on an incline bench. A great little biceps routine, using agonist supersets is this: 1A Standing EZ curl x 6-8 1B Standing cross body hammer curls/reverse EZ curls x 12-15 3-4 sets 2A Incline curls (palms supinated throughout) x 8-10 2B Incline hammer curls x 10-12 3 sets Do that once a week and boom.

You'll be tacking on mass in no time [emoji6]. Standard and hammer curls isolate different parts of the bicep. Standard supinated isolate the biceps brachii, whereas the hammers target the brachioradialis. I bet you were dying to know that.

Try the dead-stop raises. Fairly certain you'll love them. Really feel them in the shoulder with the trap taken out of the movement. I have a love hate relationship with glute ham raises. Dread doing them but love the feeling after.

There are not many exercises potentially more injurious than the dynamic lateral raise generally favoured by the bros (aka clearings in the woods) in the gym, whereby they pretty much throw the weight up to their sides at pace, with an accompanying forward lean. It should be done slowly. It is not an explosive movement. An excellent variation is what's called the dead stop lateral raise. Basically sit in the middle of a flat bench so that the two ends are either side of you. Start with the (light) dumbbells raised out to your sides with straight arms. Lower them until they come to rest against the bench. Your hands and the DBs should be at least 4inches away from your body. This is your starting position. From there, raise the DBs out to your sides and lower them until they come to rest against the bench again and repeat for reps. This takes the momentum out of the movement and the gap between your hands and body takes the traps out of the equation. Lots of people tend to be trap-dominant on lateral raises, which can cause problems. Leading with your pinky finger is good, too.

Question here for Professor JB and Stevo. I have always done shoulders (usually some form of shoulder press) on the same day as chest, my reasoning being that both are involving the triceps. I then alternate with back and arms, and a leg days to make up the week. Has never been a problem but recently I developed a bit of niggler in the front of my left shoulder which is taking ages to go away. I'm wondering if its because I'm doing shoulders on the wrong day. Trouble is the shoulder is so connected that if you really think about it there seems to be no right way to do it in terms of working out every(week)day and not hitting the same areas on consecutive days. For instance if I switched up and did more of a routine like the one above (Stevo) then arent you effectively working out your biceps on Day 2 (various rows and lat pulldown) and then Day 3 (biceps curls etc)? This is a really common problem. There is no such thing as a "wrong" day. However, you may have seen me banging on about balancing push/pull movements before. My guess (and it's nothing more than an educated guess) is that your routine may be a bit push-heavy. Try balancing this out with some properly executed, high volume upper back/rear-delt work, maybe as an antagonistic superset, e.g. 1A Incline bench press x 6 1B Face pulls/band pull-aparts x 15 I always do a set of pull-aparts after any heavy benching. This approach worked wonders for me when my shoulders were flaring up. Touch wood I haven't had any problems since. The shoulder is extremely complex and very easily injured, commonly from overuse. Too much pressing on one day is going to take its toll. I'm speaking anecdotally here so take this advice as you will but I don't do much direct shoulder work anymore and if anything they've grown. I usually just do some form of lateral raise and rear delt work and leave it at that. I've just started doing explosive snatch-grip (lol) barbell high pulls too, which are great.

So many variables that it's almost impossible to say. I find that it's generally easier not to get bogged down thinking about how many calories you're burning. It can over-complicate things and lead to paralysis by analysis (if that makes sense?). Rather, I'd just focus on how many calories I'm taking in and the intensity of my training. Then monitor and adjust accordingly.

God Will Hunting: Arrogant high school janitor thinks he's better than everyone else. Starts a cult.

The Hrt Locker. Feature-length adaptation of Loose Women. Menopausal women chat shit for 90 minutes.

The first season of Eastbound and Down is as close to comedy perfection as I think I've ever seen. The drop in quality of the subsequent seasons was stark, though... they were patchy at best. Seemed like they started trying too hard to be shocking. Stevie became incredibly unfunny and annoying. Interesting. I personally thought season two was funnier than the first. Season three was a bit disappointing, but it's still funny. The differing opinions are indeed interesting! I can rewatch season one again and again and it's still hilarious. The bit where he jizzes his pants... I remember watching the first episode of season 2 with some mates and we didn't laugh once. It was actually pretty grim, which I think was probably the intention. The first episode of season 3 was great but that went down hill fast - the Ashley Schaeffer episodes were woeful (Will Ferrell is hilarious in the first season, though). And the final season was equally hit and miss. Mainly miss.

The first season of Eastbound and Down is as close to comedy perfection as I think I've ever seen. The drop in quality of the subsequent seasons was stark, though... they were patchy at best. Seemed like they started trying too hard to be shocking. Stevie became incredibly unfunny and annoying.

I haven't watched it a great deal recently but Bray Wyatt is awesome. From what I hear they've **** things up with him a bit over the past year though.

Too many finishers look like they don't even hurt these days. Cena's in particular is a joke. Then you have guys kicking out of flying DDTs...

I think the done thing in these circs is to draw a dustbin and a defender. sorry JB - great minds and fools think alike. N.B. I'm a fool, so you need to be a great mind. Bah. I bet you've done Jas as well haven't you? Stars Ryan Gosling as a young Australian soap star working his way up to becoming the voice of Boj's dad on Cbeebies, chronicling his drug hell. Memorable quote "You're going to need a bigger bong".

Argo - dramatisation of the making of a fictional movie during the Iranian hostage crisis. Directed by the Coen brothers.

So predictable it wasn't even withy predicting. Grow some **** balls, Villa!

Watched The Babadook last night. It wasn't quite what I was expecting and I wouldn't really class it as a horror/scary film but I thought it was fantastic.

He's driving from Birmingham to London isn't he?! Glad it wasn't just me then... I've heard that it's quite highly regarded. Wanted to love it. Didn't. If it wasn't for the fact that it was quite a novel idea, I probably would've thought that it was shit.

Just watched Locke on Netflix. I haven't heard many on-screen accents worse than Tom Hardy's attempt at a Welsh one. Did nobody at any point during the film's production notice just how shit it was? It was like he was doing a really, really bad Anthony Hopkins impression. I thought that pretty much all of the people he was speaking to on the phone delivered their lines pretty poorly too - they didn't sound natural or believable and the football talk was cringeworthy. That said, I was quite gripped (considering it was film largely about concrete) and admired the idea if not necessarily the execution.

Good question . I know exactly what you mean but in my opinion, the answer is no. If you're referring to the dead lift variations then they are what are known as 'hinging' movements, as they (should) involve hinging at the hip (not flexing the lower back as many people seem to think). Muscles in the back are used as stabilisers and those movements will obviously help you pack some muscles on there but in order to balance out the pressing, you need some scapular retraction. In other words, you need to row as the shoulder blades are static in the deadlift and need to retract (the opposite of what they are doing when pressing) to get the benefits. A really, really common mistake when rowing is letting your guns/pythons do all the work. Learning to row properly was a game changer for me. Basically, make sure you're squeezing your shoulder blades together (or just retracting one if doing single arm) before you flex your arms and when you do, consciously lead with the elbows. They shouldn't come too far past your torso. Crucially, row slowly. Dynamic rows are shit IMO. The batwings I mentioned before really helped me with this. A very simple movement but I can't recommend them enough. With regards to the balance, it doesn't necessarily mean you need to do more sets of rows - reps count. So for example, if you did 4 sets of 5 on DB bench (20 reps), you could just 4 sets of 10, or 3 sets of 15 etc. on your rows and your ratio is sorted. I tend not to do anything below 10 reps on rows when doing my own programs. Awesome video on rows (this guy is intimidatingly smart): Anecdotally, I think I mentioned that I'm doing the advanced GVT program at the moment... Not sure how I feel about it as a whole but what I do know is that it's quite pressing-heavy and my shoulders haven't felt this shit for a long time. I've tried sticking 3 sets of 20 band pull-aparts on the end of my workouts which seems to have helped somewhat. Still can't wait to finish it, though.

I feel your pain. My gym is out of this world equipment-wise but there are some right clearings in the woods in there. It's now full of chavs and selfie-taking Instagram words removed. I think I've been caught in the background of about 7 or 8 videos or photos this week alone. What's worse is that the gym now seems to be encouraging it. Put your **** phone away and lift some weights you knobs! It was awesome in there at first as the guy who owns it is seriously into his training (I think he's won a few big bodybuilding titles) and he seemed to have just created a bit of a playground based on all the stuff he wanted and saw in American gyms and kept a bit of exclusivity about the place but he just seems obsessed with making more and more money now. He's filling it with some really shitty personal trainers, putting on constant classes that take up most of the equipment and relentlessly marketing it to the point that it's way over capacity.

Progression, man! You wouldn't stroll up the bar and try to deadlift 200kg straight away so apply the same principle to your conditioning. Work:rest ratios of 1:3, even 1:4 are fine to begin with. So is just doing 4 or 5 rounds while your build up your stamina.

Don't worry about it, i'm always open to constructive criticism. The volume for me isn't an issue and I still manage to hit the exercises intensely, I guess it comes down to personal preference. I think there is a decent balance between pulling and pushing though isn't there? What would you suggest I take out and add? Bare in mind i'm only using free weights. Surely volume that high would impair your recovery, even if you don't necessarily realise? Especially if you're doing those workouts twice a week. How long do those sessions take to complete?! I'll be honest and say that 90% of the advice I give people is based on mistakes I've made myself. I made great progress when I cut the number of exercises I did in a session but did say, 4-6 sets and hit them hard. Gave me more scope for switching things up! With regards pulling and pushing, you are doing 14 sets of presses in your CDT workouts and only 6/7 rowing variations in your BBF sessions (no mention of rep ranges). If anything, that ratio should be reversed. You're doing pretty much the same number of sets for biceps as you are for upper back... Also, doing different grip barbell rows in the same workout seems a bit pointless to me (and quite taxing on the lower back). I'd save that switch for different workouts. I'm going back to personal preference (again) but I do very little direct shoulder work now other than dead-stop/incline lateral raises and some rear delt stuff, with the occasional set of front raises, and if anything, they've grown and feel 10x better. There also don't seem to be any vertical pulls to balance out the overhead pressing.