Evan Centopani Q&A | Calves, Delts & Biceps Workout Problems Addressed
Evan Centopani Q&A
Calves, Delts & Biceps Workout Problems Addressed
Do you have any tips for getting my calves to catch up with the rest of my physique? Is it advisable to train them several times a week, or should I just focus on doing more reps on the day that I train them? Also, got any exercises you like to isolate calves with other than standing and seated raises?
The best advice I can give for calf training is to focus on getting a peak contraction on each rep. Too often, I see guys using heavy poundages and simply bouncing the weight with a short range of motion and not putting enough tension on the actual calf muscles. Personally, I think doing calf raises standing on one foot with no weight at all is a great way to build your calves. Just be sure to get all way up on your toes. Try doing as many reps as you can with one leg and switching back and forth until you can’t do even one rep. It’s a killer and you’ll probably see better results with that than you have with standing machine raises.
Do you think it makes any difference whether you do your shoulder presses with free weights or a machine?
I just think free weights are far more effective at stimulating muscle growth during presses, due to the extra factor of having to stabilize the weight. You want to hear something weird? As a kid, I always did my barbell presses behind the head, because a book I had that showed the various exercises showed that version, not to the front. People say it’s an unnatural movement, but it always felt natural to me. When I tried pressing to the front, that felt unnatural. Your head is in the way! I think it’s a superior way to do them if you can, because I feel it more in the whole shoulder. A good compromise is dumbbell presses. You can lower the weights down right next to your ears, so the movement really is straight up and down over the shoulder joints. The only problem with dumbbells is that once they get pretty heavy, getting them up into position to start the set is tough. But overall, I would rate behind-neck presses the best, dumbbell presses a close second, and military presses third. Those seem to hit more front delts than anything else.
Preacher curls have been working well for me. I’ll be getting into the standing barbell curl soon, as that’s what the big guys are doing at my gym. But I feel like there is something about dumbbells that escapes me. I’m usually pretty good with my form, but it’s the bend of my arms and my forearms that feel the most sore in the days after instead of my biceps when I curl with dumbbells. What am I doing wrong?
I think you’re going too heavy! Try going lighter and really forcing a lot of blood in the muscle with something like dumbbell curls before going on to heavy barbell curls. This may go against what you have read, which is to do your heavy work first, but many bodybuilders find the opposite to be true with biceps and especially dumbbells. Very few guys can go super heavy on dumbbell curls and truly isolate the biceps the way you are supposed to.
How important is it to do specific exercises for the rear delts?
It is very important. I was actually a few years into training before I even thought to do anything specific for rear delts. I was in college and training with one guy who finally broke the bad news to me. He said “Evan, your shoulders look awesome from the front. From the side, it looks like part of them was hacked off— there’s nothing back there at all.” From then on I started working them. Having rear delts made such a difference. It seemed to me like my shoulders doubled in size because they finally looked round and full from every angle. My preferred exercises for rear delts are, bent dumbbell laterals and Reverse Pec Deck.