proportion matters

insane

I am new to this kind of board and i am from Greece!I would really appreciate if anyone could give me advise to the following problem:monstrous legs and shoulders nice back little chest (i hate it) and arms out of proportion with my shoulders.Thanks in advance!

nebodybuilder

stop training legs and shoulders and hit your chest and arms with more intensity.
it`s not rocket science.

jackamo

easy mate hes only asking! , yeh mate just train your other muscle groups hard but dont stop training your legs ans shoulders just do lighter weights too keep the muscle size till u feel you hve the right muscle proportion

tom84

i wouldnt say do lighter weights just focus more on other areas. ie for every 3 shoulder days make sure u have done 4 shoulder workouts or something like that. In this way ure shoulders wil still build but at a slower rate and hopefully ure chest will catch up. My arms are out of prop with my shoulders too just genetics i reckon thou my shoulders blow up but i have to work so hard on my arms.

good luck buddy

zx9rjas

I used to have the same problem as you, not on my chest though is it blows up at a silly rate. My arms though used to be a problem. I changed the way I trained my biceps and triceps. I used to train them real hard with 6-8 reps and quite heavy weights, this combined with the pounding they took by myt chest and back workouts were holding them back. I slowed my rep speed down and used a lighter weight, to get a real good pump in my bi's and tri's to the point of a painful contraction, with a hard squeeze at the top, Usually about 10 reps. Also I probably used to overtrain them with too many sets so cut them back too.

Chest however is a tricky one, most people find that is the hardest one to build apart from calves. I have never had a problem so I'm probably not the best to comment on how to get great pecs. All I can say is change your exercises every 3 weeks to recruit different muscle fibres and keep the pecs guessing.

J

nebodybuilder

i would not train legs or shoulders at all. if they are overpowering the rest of your physique, don`t train them at all. forget this train lighter rubbish, the best way to bring up lagging bodyparts is to focus all your efforts on them for a while. your body will put all it`s resources into these bodyparts. if you want, include a leg or shoulder session every 4 weeks or so but if you're gunna train, train with 100 % intensity or don`t bother training at all. give it a go, it`s the quickest way to even everything up i`m telling you.

GettinSwole

I don't think any body part should be neglected... just change your focus. I know what my focuses are and they change about every 4-6 weeks. Right now my focus is my arms. They just weren't as big w/ my chest and shoulders. I think you need to work all body parts but know where your focus is and push yourself harder on those days to go heavier and with more intensity. Leave the other days as more of a "maintaining" phase

tom84

sorry i meant 4 every 3 shoulder workouts makesure 4 chest workouts didnt mean to repeat myself said shoulders twice .

Dont agree Neo this could lead to overtraining of the bodyparts intending to grow and be counterproductive, and only training two bodyparts and 'not over training' would surely cut down on the number of your potential workouts and slow progress in general. IMO best way would be to maintain some overall progress whilst trying to slowly even things up obviously your way would be quicker in evening up the body but counterproductive in general.

nebodybuilder

wrong. if you`ve got genetically good legs and shoulders, that respond really well to training and other bodyparts that are struggling to match up, why would you continue to train the dominating bodyparts at all ? and as for maintenance training, that is purely a waste of time and energy. train the strong bodyparts once every for weeks or so if you're worried about losing size in them, but always train hard. taking it easier and trying to slowly adjust your physique to a more balanced one will take a long time but if you do it the way tom84 suggested above, it will take litterally years to achieve if ever. trust me guys, i know what i'm talking about here. i have personal experience of a similar problem. ask any of the top competitors how to approach it, and i bet they'll say the same.

tom84

I definately dont agree Neo gotta agree with Gettinswole on this one. Changing the focus of ure training i think would be much more beneficial overall bcoz all bodyparts would still grow. If a ratio of 4 to 3 doesnt work then id suggest 4:2 bt that would be where it stops. Training one bodypart twice as much would even your body out for sure. Obviously it would take longer than your way but would produce a better body overall IMO opinion training a bodypart once every four weeks could severly reduce its size depending on genetics and whilst this may have worked for you every1 will respond differently and my way is guranteed to produce positive if slightly slower results (in terms of evening out) but much better results in terms of general gaining. And as for your own experience dont we all have this problem every1 has bodyparts they are not happy with. My shoulders are far genetically better than my arms and i rectified this problem by just training them harder and more regularly.

As for the pros I remember Arnie himself had shit calves for ages he just trained them far more often he didnt neglect other bodyparts. You cant seriously be suggesting squats deadlifts and shoulder presses only once every 4 weeks these compound lifts are far too vital too overall growth. Your method may even him out but he will probably dependant upon genetics be in worse albeit even shape then when he began your method