WhatWouldHulkDo
Level 8 Valued Member
With the shoulders I think it's at times hard to say where exactly the line between the strength exercises and the mobility/flexibility/restoration is. Some of the little muscles get a lot of work in from a little load.
That's definitely been one of my takeaways from StrongFirst / Flexible Steel; strength and mobility are really the same thing.
Personally, I try to do the push and the pull both vertically and horizontally each week. I also try to do it with various methods, use little differences in angles etc, all the time.
I've noticed that in your logs, and it seems like a really good idea - varying up the primary movements every few weeks. That's what I would call "antifragile" training - subjecting the body to a little more chaos, but still in a controlled, progressive fashion.
I tend to have mindset issues with that - I'm prone to thinking "if I switch to doing X, I'll lose the gains I've gotten on Y!" Which is dumb... I'll get smarter someday...
You bring up the point that the session can only be that long. But I find that most of the exercises or drills I do I do outside of the training session or between exercises or very shortly in the session. So I don't find that they demand a lot of time.
Hmm, not a bad idea. Currently, between exercises I always go through the Flexible Steel joint mobility sequence. Just a couple of movements between sets, so over the course of the session I get through the sequence once. Maybe some opportunity to mix in a little more light work there...
Regarding your triggers again; even if dips or a decline press is a solid addition in a program, the push press or the straight arm pulldown could be better.
Good suggestions. I was doing push presses combined with TGU for a while, but switched to strict press because I was wanting to work on the dead-stop strength from the rack. But, push press might be a better complement to the more ballistic nature of volleyball... And the pulldown and maybe a raise where a couple of things I was thinking about for when I get my bands (this week, I hope...)