Have you seen and EMG comparison between max effort shrugs and bench press, illustrating which presents a greater stimulus?
The bench press offers a greater range of motion, yet the shrug allows for greater loading.
The bench press involves more muscles actively contracting, while the shrug involves more static contraction from synergists/stabilizers as well as spinal loading.
The bench press is much easier to qualify, as the shrug (when max loads are used) becomes difficult to qualify due to increasingly shorter range of motion.
I agree that the bench press is the optimal primer, however, I’d be curious to see which one serves as a greater CNS stimulus.
I see the two as being equally far removed from the sprinting action.
This is one of those threads that makes CF.com priceless, awesome!
If you are having problems with shoulder involvement in the bench, then us/ experiment with different grip widths to find a position that will protect your shoulder. You will then limit shoulder range of motion but still get the CNS stimulation needed.
Aside from some of the suggestions made below, you may simply have to adjust your taper plan in terms of the sprint componant, just as a female sprinter, who cannot achieve sufficient CNS stimulation via the bench press, must.
if you’re having shoulder problems a heavy weighted pull up is not the way to go. bench with the shoulder blades pulled together, elbows in, and press in a straight line not back over the face and you should be ok. by the way, i read the post in the recovery forum, with being a lineman & doing upper body gymnastics at such a heavy weight, you are placing tremendous stress on the labrum.
I am only looking examining this idea because of my shoulders(i posted in the recovery forum). And the bench press is very stressful on the shoulder joint, thus my resorting to bodyweight exercises and assistance exercises.
Numba56,
A possible suggestion is to use dumbbell bench press with your hands facing in towards your body. This grip keeps your shoulder in a natural alignment. Also make sure that you press your shoulder away from your ears (you should feel more lat involvement), your elbows are at a 45 degree angle from your body and push the weight straight up (not back towards your face like some bodybuilders).
Now the problem is obvious that you can not use as much weight however there are a few ways to get around this problem if you are willing to.
Purchase dumbbell racks (not to hold the weight while you are not using them but they hold them in a position that you can grab them and use them just like a regular bench press)
Have strong partners available to help
Use slow eccentrics (lower the weight slowly and you can use whatever speed you want to raise it)
Use pauses on the way down (two or three is fine)
I have had a problem with my shoulders also and have tried a number of different ways and this has helped me.
I would imagine that anyone’s taper plan wouldn’t yield significant hypertrophy in the course of time that is allocated for the phase, plus with intensity exaggerated more than volume, I don’t see it as a problem. Thoughts?
The One, I agree with Landon in saying that the loading parameters utilized are not targeted towards hyperthophy, but rather, max intensities and low volume.
Heavy singles and doubles, etc., while presenting a high stimulus to the CNS are not much of a stimulus for adding muscle mass.