Starting on BBB tomorrow

[AzBearin]

Some questions before I get started.

1. On the 8 x 3's days are we working to failure or close to it on the LAST set?
2. Pullups - I guess I'm a woose but I just cannot do chinups or I should pullups. Should I just substitute it out for something else, like lat pulldowns or another exercise. There would be way to do pullups, the gym has a machine (not sure what its called -Paramount??) but it assists by setting a counter weight which helps pull you up. Make sense? Should I use that for pullups?

[Lost Dog]

Originally Posted by AzBearin

Some questions before I get started.

1. On the 8 x 3's days are we working to failure or close to it on the LAST set?

Yes. On the last set of 3, you should be pretty close to failure on the last rep.

Originally Posted by AzBearin

2. Pullups - I guess I'm a woose but I just cannot do chinups or I should pullups. Should I just substitute it out for something else, like lat pulldowns or another exercise. There would be way to do pullups, the gym has a machine (not sure what its called -Paramount??) but it assists by setting a counter weight which helps pull you up. Make sense? Should I use that for pullups?

Are you saying you can do pullups but not chinups? I call the ones where your palm is facing backward (supinated grip), chinups. The ones where your palm is facing forward (pronated grip) are traditionally called pullups. Pullups are usually harder for people to do, since you don't get assistance from the biceps. I can do 3 times as many chins as pullups, for instance.

The answer, from my perspective, really depends on how many you can do. Let's assume you mean chinups and can do 3 of them. Obviously not enough to do 8x3. (I was in the same boat as you, by the way.) I did 8x3 with the pulldown machine, with my palm up, so it mimicked chinups as closely as possible. On another day of the week, I did negative chinups, where you use a chair to hoist yourself up and then only do the lowering portion. Take yourself down slowly.

You could also do negatives only on the workout itself, but you will have to do some pulldowns on another day. Negatives only will only get you so far. You need to work both directions.

The problem that I have with those machines is the bar. The ones at my gym don't have a solid bar that allows you to do chinups, only pullups with the wider grip, plus the grip is really fat, taxing your grip. Pullups (palms forward) are hard, so you'd be using the machine for a long time before ever progressing to unassisted pullups.

[mom2w]

I used the assisted pull up machine for a time to get some strength built up. Once I could do a few chin ups, I'd use them for as many sets as I could and then switch to the assisted machine.