Muscle Strain

Q: I've been doing the 10-8-6-15 program for almost two weeks. So far I've got more strength.

But I have sore shoulder muscles while doing the V-bar pulldown. It happened last training day while I did the 1st set of V-bar pull down.

I thought it was because I had not warmed up yet, so I ignored that and finished the program. And I did the stretch carefully. I thought it was chronic inflammation, because I didn't know why it hurt. But I still had the feeling during today's training (V-bar pulldown). I stopped this time.

I went to the doctor tonight and he said my infraspinatus and teres minor muscles were strained. Here are my questions:

Should I stopped training and do the rehab until they are recovered? Like external rotation exercises? Or I can switch the V-bar pull down to lat pulldowns if I don't feel pain in that way?

If I stopped training, should I reduce my protein intake? Because I now take in 126 grams. I think I may get fat if I consume that amount of protein and don't train enough.

I am very depressed now. I am injured and may drop down in weight. I've trained and gotten progress on the program obviously. I don't want to stop, because I know I can get what I want by doing this. Could you give me advice for what I should do and not to do?

BTW I just checked the amount of protein intake rather than carbs and fat. Should I focus on carbs also? Thanks so much for your help.

All the best,
Mike


My Answer: Switching from a V-bar pulldown to a lat pulldown will not help. Try switching to seated cable rows instead and do 4 sets of 15 reps. Replace the lateral raises with a rotator cuff exercise, doing 4 sets of 15 reps. If you find that you can do both exercises without any pain, then go with this modified program. The goal is to induce recovery by pumping the area with blood and supplying the injured muscles with nutrients.

If you cannot do any back exercise without pain, then stop upper body training altogether and just focus on lower body training for 2 weeks. Don't worry about hitting your target of 126 grams of protein during this time.

High protein intake, even if you're not working out as much, will not cause you to gain fat as much as high carb intake. Get over your fear of protein and fats. The Articles and Training for the Busy Bodybuilder have chapters that explain diet.




Q: I am trying out your mesocycle in Neo-Classical Bodybuilding. I am very pleased with the 1st density phase I completed, and now I am into the volume decompression. I am jumping ahead to plan out my next density phase and putting in my own exercises. On page 45 (to be exact) I was wondering what rep range I should follow? Also, you list things like Quads/Hamstrings. Is that a superset? And just one other question: you list things on the T-boost with a “,”. Like "Chest,Triceps." Is this a superset also?

D


My Answer- Supersets are denoted by "/" and "\." So if you have an arms superset, then it would look like this:

/ Biceps
\ Triceps

If you have a single hash mark separating the 2 body parts (such as Quadriceps/Hamstrings) and it says "triset," then choose 3 exercises that work both muscle groups in any combination. For quads and hamstrings for example, you can do back squats (quads/hams), leg extensions (quads) and leg curls (hams).

When the program lists 2 or more body parts separated by commas, then that means you must choose a single exercise to work all of those muscles. So for "Chest, triceps" you would plug in an exercise such as the bench press, since it works both body parts