“Eggs are still pretty easy to find here but a curious thing has happened. The price of local, pastured eggs has not gone up much at all – 0-50 cents a dozen. But low quality factory eggs have skyrocketed. Eggs from the local factory farms are pushing 8 bucks a dozen while organic/pastured eggs are the $6 – $6.50 they have been the last several years. Not sure how to explain this. Maybe the more responsible producers are not having the disease issues that factory farms are seeing. Not affecting my near-daily egg consumption at all, especially since a couple of our ducks started laying due to the freakishly warm winter this year.“
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Bodybuilder Ryan Terry entered the 2022 Olympia with hopes of a landmark victory. Unfortunately, while he brought his personal best to the stage, the Men’s Physique competitor and 2016 Olympia runner-up would fall short, dropping off to seventh place. In the midst of a landmark off-season for this seasoned veteran, Terry recently revealed his unique strategy to try and make up for his disappointing Olympia result.
On Jan. 29, 2023, Terry posted a video to his YouTube channel where he breaks down one of his apparent strategies for bulking and building mass. The recording features the athlete walking through what’s in his massive (pun not intended) 1,874-calorie protein shake.
Here’s an overview of what Terry puts into this large protein shake:
Ryan Terry’s 1,874-Calorie “Mass-Building” Protein Shake
Oats: 180 grams — 584 calories
Full-Fat Milk: 300 milliliters — 198 calories
OrganicHoney: 40 grams — 135 calories
Nut Butter: 50 grams — 310 calories
Frozen Mixed Berries: 80 grams — 27 calories
Whey Protein: two scoops — 200 calories
Two Bananas: sliced — 220 calories
Cyclic Dextrin: two scoops — 200 calories
Total — 1,874 calories
It’s apparent Terry’s nutritional plan for the protein shake is methodical. He seems to have accounted for every step of the process, the way one would expect from an established bodybuilder attuned to the minute details of his fitness.
Terry adds in a pair of bananas which have the benefit of a bevy of potassium. Then the oats he includes feature a healthy amount of fiber. Elements like the cyclic dextrin comprise an easy dose of digestible carbohydrates for the mix. The two scoops of whey protein — Terry’s favorite flavor is chocolate mint, in this case — add density and texture, as well as a critical nutrient for muscle growth, while the frozen berries can be seen as a source of antioxidants. Throwing in a combination of cashew butter, peanut butter, and almond butter is Terry adding flavors he likes to this monster shake while bumping up the total calories from this rich source.
Aside from his 2016 Men’s Physique Olympia runner-up finish, Terry might be most known for respective wins in the 2015 Pittsburgh Pro, the 2017 Asia Grand Prix, and the 2021 Arnold Classic UK. While winning these contests was undoubtedly impressive, it’s clear Terry has his aims set a bit higher within the confines of his extended career: winning the Men’s Physique Olympia title.
A comprehensive nutritional benchmark like this sizable protein shake is one demonstrative step in Terry preparing to reach his long-term goals on that front.
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When a constellation of some of bodybuilding’s biggest stars align at the 2023 Arnold Classic (AC), most will understand who to point their “telescope” toward. Some of the usual suspects like 2021 AC winner Nick Walker, former two-time Mr. Olympia (2020-2021) Mamdouh “Big Ramy” Elssbiay, and two-time 212 Olympia king (2020, 2022) Shaun Clarida figure to maximize their time in the Columbus, OH, limelight on Mar. 2-5, 2023.
However, some believe reigning 2022 Texas Pro and 2022 Arnold Classic UK champion Chinedu Andrew Obiekea, a.k.a. “Andrew Jacked,” will lay claim to a dominant performance at the 2023 AC. After a recent addition to his training plans by working with Chris “Psycho” Lewis, such an assertion might not be out of the realm of possibility. On Feb. 1, 2023, Jacked’s other primary trainer, Chris Aceto, appeared on a podcast episode with RxMuscle. While updating Jacked’s ongoing work for the 2023 AC, the trainer maintained that the athlete would appear in tip-top form in Central Ohio.
According to Aceto, Jacked is taking well to a new strength regimen that Lewis is putting him through. Lewis appears to have a mission to break Jacked down before building him back up, but the bodybuilder doesn’t sound fazed by such goals.
” … Andrew [Jacked] is pushing back against Chris ‘Psycho’ Lewis,” Aceto explained. “I know Chris. Chris wants to just absolutely crush him and part of it is to see where he’s at mentally. Then, the other part is to see, can he [Jacked] really handle the training Chris wants to put him through? On both of those accounts, I would say Chris would grade him as an ‘A.’ He takes the training and he pushes back. Chris is pushing him as far as Chris thinks he needs to be pushed.”
With the 2023 AC still weeks away, Aceto maintained that Jacked is already in an optimal position to capture his first title at the contest. Though, with so much time left to prepare, the trainer isn’t putting a ceiling on what the bodybuilder could accomplish soon enough.
“I think his [Jacked’s] best is coming up in five weeks [at the 2023 Arnold Classic],” Aceto said. “I think his best look so far was today [the day of the interview]. It is probably the best look. That includes having been on an Olympia stage. I think he’s better now than he was on stage at the Olympia. … If the [2023] Olympia was tomorrow, and he brought this package, I think he’d be a little bit fuller and tighter than he was the day of the show. That’s just everyday training sessions.”
Time will tell how Jacked fares on the 2023 AC stage. The athlete may have simultaneously enlisted the help of two expert trainers in Aceto and Lewis, knowing there’s quite a gauntlet of experienced competitors to overcome. If these hints of Jacked’s ongoing process are to be interpreted correctly, early March should be quite the showcase.
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Before the onset of the annual Olympia, there is often a small spate of surprising last-minute withdrawals. One of the bodybuilders who surprisingly bowed out of the 2022 iteration was Classic Physique competitor Logan “The Texas Oak” Franklin. Perhaps best known for his Men’s Physique victories in the 2020 New York Pro and 2018 Tampa Pro, it seemed like Franklin would try to build on a ninth-place Olympia finish from 2020. Instead, the athlete had to disappointingly step away from his potential second chance at bodybuilding’s highest title.
On Jan. 31, 2023, during an interview with Muscular Development, Franklin discussed the aftermath of his difficult decision to withdraw from the 2022 Olympia. While the athlete didn’t specifically disclose why he decided to not compete, he maintained he’s already prepared to look forward and try to make 2023 another productive year in his career.
After stopping short of the finish line of an entire competitive year, Franklin shared that he was understandably shaken by his choice. To be so close to a high-profile athletic endeavor but ultimately not participate might be hard on any competitive personality.
It made Franklin rather emotional.
“It sucked. The whole ordeal was very disappointing.” Franklin said. “I cried for three days after it. I couldn’t stop crying, just all the work that goes in, thinking about a whole year’s worth. … Putting all that work in and all that effort, creating a routine that I was very excited to present, and just how I was feeling about my progress leading into the show. I was very disappointed and having to make that decision. But we have to make very hard decisions to move ahead in life.”
With murmurs abounding of who might compete in the upcoming 2023 Arnold Classic, Franklin clarified his next competitive appearance won’t be in Columbus, OH. It appears to be too fast of a turnaround after his latest ventures, which wouldn’t let him recover enough as he pleases.
“The Arnold [Classic] is just too close, I need to take a break,” Franklin explained. “I actually have trained only four times in the last five to six weeks. Going to the Arnold just wasn’t in the cards for me. Having a full long year, I need to allow my body to rest. I’m not one of these guys that’s just going to keep going show to show, and do this for years and years and years. That’s how you run your body down and you eventually fall off. I want longevity.”
As for what lies ahead in the long term, Franklin noted he will now coach himself during his training routine for the time being. He had previously worked with experienced coaches like Miloš Šarčev. Franklin elaborated that this path will have him “betting on himself” as he works toward his contest return at the 2023 Texas Pro on Aug. 19, 2023, in Irving, TX. For this Texas native, who fell just short of the said competition’s title in 2021, there might not be a better place to show off his hard work and mass again.
It seems to be only the first step of his grand ambitions this year.
“I plan on winning the [2023] Texas Pro,” Franklin said. “It’s right here, not my home town but the home state, in Dallas. I lost that show by one point back in 2021, so it would be a good show to go back there and get some redemption. The [2023] Olympia will be 11 weeks after the Texas Pro, and then I’ll be doing the [2023] Hawaii Pro on Nov. 20. That’ll be two weeks after the Mr. Olympia, so I can basically just prep for those three shows and knock them out, bam-bam.”
Some athletes might take more time to recalibrate and figure out what’s next after halting their professional plans. That’s because such decisions usually carry a ton of weight and can weigh on the mind. For Franklin, it looks like he’s already healthily compartmentalizing what happened because and is now ready to shine on stage once more.
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For most lifters, a week full of workouts just isn’t complete without some tickets to the gun show. But good arm training goes beyond simply ripping through some biceps curls and triceps pressdowns. There needs to be a method to the madness if you want to do more than build a pump that only looks good in the mirror.
Arm training doesn’t need to be overly complicated, however, it’s important to understand the anatomy of the working muscles in order to properly focus on complete development.
When it comes to arm size, the biceps and triceps will be the two key players, but using the standard curl for biceps development is only half the answer, since curls are typically performed with a supinated (palm-up) grip which emphasizes most, but not all, of the biceps muscles.
Credit: Paul Aiken / Shutterstock
For total arm development, it’s important to involve the forearms, which is why the reverse biceps curl should be part of your arm-training arsenal. Here’s a breakdown of this seemingly simple, but incredibly useful, curl variation.
The most common types of biceps curls involve a supinated, aka underhand or palm-up, hand position. In the standard curl, your palms will be facing away from your body at the bottom of the curl and facing toward your body in the top position.
To do reverse curls, however, you “reverse” your grip and take a pronated, aka overhand or palm-down, hand position. Your palms will face toward your body at the bottom of the rep and away from your body at the top. Take a second to simply make fists and discretely perform both curling movements without holding any weights. You may notice a difference in how your arms feel, and maybe even how they look when they’re fully flexed at the top.
Step 1 — Choose Your Implement Wisely
Credit: MDV Edwards / Shutterstock
Like most curl exercises, you have the option to use a variety of bars or dumbbells when performing reverse biceps curls. Using dumbbells will require a bit more stability at your shoulder joint so your arms can stay in the right proximity to one another while curling. Poor wrist mobility can also turn the reverse biceps curl into a hammer curl, which change the exercise and muscle recruitment.
Holding on to a traditional barbell asks the most of a lifter’s wrist mobility because of the straight angle. Some lifters, especially if they have a bigger frame, may not possess the joint range of motion needed to fully pronate their hands onto a barbell. Over time, forcing yourself into the position can lead to chronic wrist pain and detract from the benefits of the reverse curl movement.
Using an EZ-curl bar (which is a bar specifically designed with ergonomic curves) can help a lifter find the comfortable degree of pronation without placing your hands completely “flat” the way a standard barbell will ask. This is typically the most popular and most effective option.
Form Tip: Assess for yourself by trying barbell reverse curls with a light weight. If your gym has a rack of short, fixed-weight barbells, you may be able to go as light as 10 or 20 pounds. If the movement still isn’t comfortable, stick with the EZ-curl bar.
Step 2 — Establish Your Stance
Credit: Jacob Lund / Shutterstock
Hold the bar slightly closer than shoulder-width, using the required overhand grip. Your hands should be resting on the front of your thighs. Stand with your chest “proud” and up, your shoulders pulled back, and your neck long and tall.
Look straight ahead — Performing the exercise from a slouched position with forward head posture doesn’t help anything. Engage your glutes and abs by flexing both muscles while standing.
Form Tip: Don’t just think about keeping your arms straight in the bottom position. Think about contracting your triceps to fully straighten your arms and activate more muscles.
Step 3 — Curl
Credit: Slatan / Shutterstock
Grip the weight tightly and bring your hands up toward shoulder-level. Don’t let your elbows flare out to the sides or drift significantly forward. Your elbows shouldn’t need to move more than a couple of inches to accommodate different body types and arm lengths.
As you approach the top position, you’ll notice your arms reach a natural point where they can’t flex any more. That’s a natural and effective place to stop the lift, rather than trying to force your hands as high as possible. Return the weight to the straight-arm starting position under control.
Form Tip: Be aware of what your elbows and shoulders are doing during the movement. If your shoulders shrug up or your elbows come too far forward during the lift, it’s a clue that the weight is too heavy and you’re recruiting too many extra muscles to move the load. Keep the movement strict to keep tension exclusively on the target muscles.
Reverse Biceps Curl Mistakes to Avoid
Curls often get disrespected and performed casually, with a lack of focus, which can lead to technical errors. These mistakes can lead to poor muscle activation and potential injury. Take the exercise seriously and approach it with a good mindset to get better overall results.
Swinging Your Hips
Using “body English” to start the movement means your hips, core, and lower back are driving the weight upward instead of your biceps. That’s not the best approach when your goal is to actually train your biceps.
Swinging and heaving the weights up without muscular tension also puts your lower back at risk by forcing it to move the weight in an unstable and awkward position.
Credit: Jacob Lund / Shutterstock
Avoid it: Before lifting the weight, tighten your core and flex your legs to ensure a stable base. Consciously focus on curling the weight by bending your arms to get the weight moving. If your hips are bouncing into the bar, you’re off to a bad start.
Missing Full Extension
Failing to fully straighten your arm into the stretched position could be a technique to maintain muscular tension and trigger more growth. (1) However, more often than not, lifters skip the lower portion of the repetition out of bad habit rather than deliberate action.
By not using a full range of motion, you shortchange potential improvements in flexibility and mobility in your wrists, elbows, and shoulders. (2) This means, if you’re having trouble achieving a fully pronated grip, you’re not making any strides toward fixing the problem if you perform half-reps.
Credit: ESB Basic / Shutterstock
Avoid it: Begin and end each repetition with your arms straight and your hands touching, or nearly touching, the front of your thighs. Contracting your triceps can also be a cue to check for a good straight-arm position.
How to Progress the Reverse Biceps Curl
Some lifters might consider the reverse biceps curl to be a simple exercise, but it’s actually an intermediate variation of an otherwise simple exercise — the classic biceps curl. For this reason, it’s effective to use the reverse biceps curl after developing a foundation with traditional movements. The reverse biceps curl isn’t a movement to neglect, but it needs to be tackled at the right time in your overall program for maximum benefit.
Biceps Curl
Before going in “reverse,” make sure you can handle the standard movement. Like the reverse biceps curl, the supinated curl can be performed with dumbbells, a barbell, or, if your wrist mobility restricts a comfortable supinated hand position, an EZ-curl bar.
The overall body position and technique should nearly mimic the reverse biceps curl, with the sole exception being the hand and grip placement. The range of motion and other performance factors will also be identical with either movement.
Thick Bar Reverse Curl
You can increase the grip-building benefits by making the bar more difficult to hold. While this may sound counterintuitive — “make the exercise harder, not easier” — a larger diameter handle will increase the demands on your gripping and forearm muscles. (3) While it may, in the short-term, lead to performing fewer repetitions or using slightly lighter weights, you’ll benefit in the long-term with improved results, a stronger grip, and more overall strength.
These benefits are especially noticeable when you revert back to using standard-sized handles which will feel significantly smaller (and relatively easier) in comparison. This movement can be performed on a specially designed thick bar manufactured with a larger overall diameter or you can attach individual, removable handles to any bar.
Benefits of the Reverse Biceps Curl
Curl variations often get lumped into the “for looks only” category, but that’s a relatively short-sighted outlook that misses the bigger benefits of training your arms directly with the reverse biceps curl.
Grip and Arm Strength
The pronated grip emphasizes the gripping muscles of your forearm because you need to apply a constant “crushing” grip to prevent the bar from falling out of your hands. This makes the reverse biceps curl an efficient way to increase strength in your grip, forearms, and upper arms.
If bigger arms are on your wish list, the reverse biceps curl can be a major player in adding size to your upper and lower arms. The unique hand supinate hand position emphasizes the brachioradialis muscle, which isn’t often targeted with other curl variations.
While your primary biceps muscles are also highly active during the reverse biceps curl, the brachioradialis takes up a relatively large amount of space on your arm, and increasing its size with the reverse biceps curl will pay dividends for your total arm size.
Healthier Wrists and Elbows
If you’re a lifter who suffers with recurring pain around your wrists or elbow joints, tries to work around weak wrists, or has general grip-strength issues, it’s worth incorporating the reverse biceps curl into your training plan.
The increased activation of the forearm muscles can help to improve wrist and elbow health by developing the muscles around both joints, leading to improved joint stability and strength.
Muscle Worked in the Reverse Biceps Curl
The reverse biceps curl doesn’t “only” train your biceps. The pronated hand position creates unique muscle recruitment that activates muscles not typically trained during many other curl variations.
Brachioradialis
What makes the pronated (reverse) curl so different from a supinated (classic) curl is the fact that now a huge player in arm strength and size gets to enter the picture: The brachioradialis muscle. (4) This relatively large muscle runs from your wrist, along the thumb-side of your forearm, crosses over the elbow joint, and attaches near the bottom portion of your biceps.
Credit: MalikNalik / Shutterstock
It plays a role in turning your wrist (pronating and supinating), while also flexing your arm at the elbow joint. Using a pronated hand position is the only way to specifically emphasize the brachioradialis.
Biceps Brachii
The biceps brachii are “the biceps” that get all the attention, front and center on your upper arms. The biceps are still the prime movers for this exercise since elbow flexion, the biceps’ primary function, is still the fundamental movement.
How to Program the Reverse Biceps Curl
Whether you’re replacing supinated biceps curls with reverse biceps curls or using them as additional biceps training in your program, there are a few programming concepts and effective approaches that will let you get the most benefit from the movement.
Curl After Bigger Lifts
It’s important to remember the exercise’s role — it’s an accessory movement and, under most circumstances, it should be performed toward the end of your workout.
If you train with a dedicated arm day, some leeway can be given as to when the exercise is performed in the session. However, if you’re like many people, you probably like to crush a bit of arm training at the end of a workout that has already targeted a larger body part, like your back or chest.
Credit: Jasminko Ibrakovic / Shutterstock
The last thing you’d want is to fatigue your arms early in a session, which would inhibit the strength and performance of bigger movements like rows, pulls, or presses. Be wise and realize that the muscles targeted by the reverse biceps curl act as synergists to other big movers, aiding in those larger movements, and they should be trained with proper awareness and relative priority.
Moderate Weight, Moderate Repetition
When it is time to start curling, stick with the tried and true approach for building size and strength — three to four sets of eight to 15 reps. This will let you hit the reverse curls with enough load and volume to trigger muscle growth and strength gains.
Using extremely heavy weight for low reps, on any kind of curl, is just asking for your lower back to help out. Going super-light for very high repetitions will unduly fatigue your smaller hand and grip muscles without sufficiently targeting your biceps or brachioradialis.
Reverse Biceps Curl Variations
Once you’ve gotten the hang of the simple reverse biceps curl, you can add some variety to the movement for continued progress. Changing the training implement — switching from an EZ-curl bar to dumbbells to a straight bar — is one option. Specific exercise variations can also be useful
Reverse Cable Curl
By attaching an EZ-curl bar or straight bar to a low cable pulley, you can increase the time under tension which can lead to a greater muscle-building stimulus. The cable provides constant tension, which means you can pause at points during the repetition to further boost the tension.
For a more advanced and more focused movement, you can attach a single handle to the low pulley and perform the exercise with one arm at a time, similar to using a single dumbbell. This could let you really zone-in and focus on each individual arm.
Zottman Curl
This old school bodybuilding exercise combines a standard dumbbell curl on the concentric (lifting phase) and turns into a reverse dumbbell curl on the eccentric (lowering phase), creating a “best of both worlds”-type of movement.
The Zottman curl is typically performed in an alternating fashion, raising one dumbbell while simultaneously lowering the opposite hand. If that coordination is too much to handle, you can perform the movement with both hands at the same time — curl with both hands palm-up, lower with both hands palm-down.
FAQs
How often should I perform the reverse biceps curl?
Including this exercise once per week should be plenty for most people, if their overall training plan is well-designed and includes sufficient rowing and pulling exercises with other direct biceps training. Generally, you don’t need to go overboard with biceps training to end up with bigger arms. A complete weekly training routine that incorporates “the big lifts” like the bench press, shoulder press, row, and pull-up will recruit your biceps and triceps along the way. Complementing those big lifts with targeted arm exercises will let you get the most bang for the buck.
Reverse for Forward Progress
Biceps curls, in general, don’t get enough love and attention in most people’s programs. It’s almost as if “arm training” has fallen out of fashion in the gym, but if you want to build bigger arms, it’s time to embrace your goal and go full-tilt toward it with a complete plan. That will probably mean programming an arm day in your training week. The reverse biceps curl can go a long way to boosting your grip strength, improving your wrists and elbows, and, of course, splitting your sleeves.
References
Burd, N. A., Andrews, R. J., West, D. W., Little, J. P., Cochran, A. J., Hector, A. J., Cashaback, J. G., Gibala, M. J., Potvin, J. R., Baker, S. K., & Phillips, S. M. (2012). Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men. The Journal of physiology, 590(2), 351–362. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2011.221200
Afonso, J., Ramirez-Campillo, R., Moscão, J., Rocha, T., Zacca, R., Martins, A., Milheiro, A. A., Ferreira, J., Sarmento, H., & Clemente, F. M. (2021). Strength Training versus Stretching for Improving Range of Motion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 9(4), 427. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9040427
Krings, B. M., Shepherd, B. D., Swain, J. C., Turner, A. J., Chander, H., Waldman, H. S., McAllister, M. J., Knight, A. C., & Smith, J. W. (2021). Impact of Fat Grip Attachments on Muscular Strength and Neuromuscular Activation During Resistance Exercise. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 35(Suppl 1), S152–S157. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002954
Kleiber, T., Kunz, L., & Disselhorst-Klug, C. (2015). Muscular coordination of biceps brachii and brachioradialis in elbow flexion with respect to hand position. Frontiers in physiology, 6, 215. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2015.00215
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Former two-time Mr. Olympia (2020-2021) Mamdouh “Big Ramy” Elssbiay entered the 2022 edition of the contest with high hopes. Should he have come out on top, he would’ve become only the ninth athlete to win the competition at least three times. Elssbiay would fall short of that lofty goal, taking home a fifth-place finish instead. In the immediate aftermath, the Egyptian competitor reflected on what lies ahead in his career, vowing to come back “stronger than ever.” Roughly a month later, in January 2023, it was revealed Elssbiay would make his second-ever career appearance at the 2023 Arnold Classic (AC) in March. It’s there where one of the people closest to the athlete’s professional exploits thinks he can get back on track.
On Jan. 29, 2023, Elssbiay’s coach Dennis James discussed the bodybuilder’s chances of winning the 2023 AC in Columbus, OH. In a contest that will likely require Elssbiay to topple former AC champions like Nick Walker (2021) and William Bonac (2018, 2020), James maintained if Elssbiay shows up in top form, he’ll capture his first-ever AC title.
While breaking down the 2023 AC contenders, James spoke with fellow trainer Miloš Šarčev. Per the latter, overlooking Elssbiay at the Mar. 2-5, 2023 competition would be a mistake.
“Big Ramy [Elssbiay] slipped from first from fifth [at the 2022 Mr. Olympia] and Nick Walker was in third, his highest placing,” Šarčev said. “Obviously going into the Arnold [Classic], you would assume the highest-placing Olympian would be the favorite. But how do you ignore Big Ramy, who was a two-time [Olympia] champion? Okay, he slipped a little bit, but assume he’s going to be in better condition.”
Meanwhile, James believed Elssbiay should’ve won the 2022 Olympia, despite the eventual judging going against him. According to the coach, if Elssbiay looks roughly the same as then, he can expect to put an AC trophy on his mantel.
“All I’m saying if he’s [Elssbiay] going to look like he looked leading up to the [2022] Olympia five days out, I don’t see why he shouldn’t win the Arnold [Classic],” James said. ” … If he can put that weight back on and he fills out like he was and the conditioning is right.”
James and Šarčev are not the first prominent members of the bodybuilding community to tout Elssbiay as one of the 2023 AC favorites. Former four-time Mr. Olympia champion (2006-2007, 2009-2010) Jay Cutler believes Walker should have the pole position but that a “100 percent” Elssbiay is capable of anything.
Elssbiay uncharacteristically entering the 2023 AC might not only be related to the athlete seeking a quick rebound from his disappointing output at the 2022 Olympia. In mid-January 2023, the Arnold Sports Festival revealed the first-place prize for the competition would be $300,000 — a $100,000 increase from the previous year. Someone who likely also would’ve centered only on Olympia preparation, Nick Walker, admitted the lucrative money was a deciding factor for him to participate in the 2023 AC. It’s not hard to imagine a comparable Olympia-level bodybuilder like Elssbiay being similarly incentivized.
That said, being able to beat his elite peers again probably comes first and foremost for Elssbiay. He has noted professional bodybuilding is his passion, and the implication of first-place achievement is arguably baked-in for a former champion.
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At this moment in time, Tyler Scott Obringer remains a relative unknown in strength sports. He’s got a limited competitive history and hasn’t been someone to step into the limelight just yet. Though with potential rising stars (or blazing comets), it’s sometimes hard to predict when precisely they’ll streak across the sky. Judging by his latest earth-shattering display of power in the gym, it might be time to keep tabs on Obringer’s various exploits in the year 2023.
On Jan. 29, 2023, Obringer shared a video on his Instagram where he manages to successfully lock out a 192.8-kilogram (425-pound) Axle Press. The athlete’s loaded barbell featured the sizable Apollon Wheels — named after Louis Uni, a.k.a. “Apollon the Mighty,” a man who was famous across the world for his ridiculous strength in the late-1800s. Obringer wore a lifting belt, wrist wraps, and elbow sleeves, and he utilized a thumbless “suicide grip” to complete this huge lift.
Obringer’s lift is not a traditional strongman movement, as many contests would more likely implement an Axle Clean and Press rather than a one-rep Axle Press on its own. That said, the sizable weight Obringer presses overhead is within screaming distance of some of the largest in history.
According to Strength Results, Obringer’s 425-pound Axle Press would be logged as the 16th-heaviest of all time if he had first completed a clean with his bar. Current Axle Press World Record holder Cheick “Iron Biby” Sanou has the top mark with a 217-kilogram (478.4-pound) press from the 2021 Giants Live Strongman Classic. Former 2017 World’s Strongest Man (WSM) champion Eddie Hall (216 kilograms/476.2 pounds) and four-time WSM winner (2009-2010, 2012, 2014) Žydrūnas Savickas (215 kilograms/474 pounds) round out the top three heaviest official Axle Clean & Presses in history, respectively.
Athletes who would notably be just ahead of Obringer include two-time WSM runner-up (2018-2019) Mateusz Kieliszkowski (195 kilograms/429.9 pounds) and 2020 WSM champion Martins Licis (195 kilograms/429.9 pounds), whose lifts place them as part of a five-way tie for eighth all-time.
Per Strongman Archives, Obringer has just one strongman contest to his name at this point in time, the 2022 Official Strongman Games, where he finished in 10th place. According to Open Powerlifting, the athlete has also competed as a powerlifter in the past, perhaps most notably winning the 2019 Southern Powerlifting Federation (SPF) Slingshot Record Breakers in the 110-plus kilogram weight class with wraps.
A recent Instagram post alludes to Obringer trying his hand at a Giants Live competition in 2023, though it doesn’t appear he has qualified for one yet. Should the competitor find himself throwing around weights alongside some established elite strongman in an official capacity, it might not be hard to see him thrive.
When most people think about lifting weights, they think about their biceps, triceps, shoulders, and lats. Their legs, quads, hamstrings, glutes. They think about what to do with the body parts that move, that hold the weight, that push against the ground—but neglect to think about the abdominal muscles that brace, resist movement and allow you to even lift the weight in the first place. Abdominal bracing isn’t flashy or sexy, but it’s the most important part of lifting weights and moving your body through time and space. The best way to train your abdominal muscles are not sit ups, crunches, or leg lifts- it’s bracing, intra-abdominal bracing, or abdominal bracing.
Whenever you move your body or lift a weight, you practice abdominal bracing. In fact, this bracing, this increase in intra-abdominal pressure, occurs spontaneously whenever you move your limbs.1 That’s how central it is to human movement.
If you want to deadlift, squat, or overhead press, you brace. If you want to throw a punch or throw a ball, you brace. If you want to jump over on obstacle or dunk a basketball, you brace.
Abdominal bracing allows force to transfer efficiently throughout your body so you can act on the physical world. If you don’t practice abdominal bracing, you lose energy, drop force production, and open yourself up to injury.
Another reason to focus on and perfect abdominal bracing is that it’s a great “ab workout.” By fulfilling the primary function of the abdominal muscles—to stabilize the body in order to transmit force—you also give your entire abdominal complex the greatest workout ever. The heavier the weight or the faster the movement, the more bracing you require and the greater the training stimulus you’ve just applied. The better your abdominal bracing, the more force you can generate. The more force you generate, the more force your abs will have to resist. The more force your abs resist, the stronger your abdominal muscles—all of them—grow.
Now, the thing about abdominal bracing is that we’re always doing it. It’s a subconscious autonomic response of your body to movement and lifting. Actually, it’s more than a response. It happens before the movement, almost as a forecast or prediction. The contraction of the diaphragm and tensing of the abdominal muscles occur before you actually move.
How to Practice Proper Abdominal Bracing
Stand up right now and try this out. The only way to understand abdominal bracing is to actually do it in practice.
1. Prepare to take a punch.
Imagine you’re about to take a punch. What do you do? You tighten your abs, engage your core, engage your erector spinae (back muscles that run down your spine), tighten your butt hole, and gird your loins. Apologies for the language but there’s no getting around it.
2. Take a breath into your belly.
Keeping your core engaged and tight in preparation for the “punch,” take a nasal breath into your belly. A big one. Now, the air won’t be going into your belly, but this is a great cure to really breathe with and engage your diaphragm.
3. Breathe “downwards.”
In case you don’t know, the diaphragm is a large slab of muscle that sits underneath your lungs, attaches to them, and “pulls” on them to expand and allow air in. The diaphragm pulls the lungs downward. In doing so, the diaphragm also helps compress the entire abdominal musculature and creates more intrabdominal pressure.
You should feel everything tighten up even more.
4. Expand your ribcage.
Proper abdominal bracing means expanding your rib cage as the obliques contract and tighten.
5. Push out, not inward.
Imagine your abdominal musculature pressing out on all sides: against your ribs, your belt, your back. Sucking your abdominal muscles inward will compromise your position and make for suboptimal abdominal bracing.
Tips for Abdominal Bracing
Abdominals are not just the six pack
You’ve got the classic abdominals that face forward and show prominently in people with low body fat. You’ve got the obliques, which cover the left and right sides of your torso. You’ve got the erector spinae, those large sheathes of muscle that run down your back on either side of your spine. They all matter when abdominal bracing. They all must be engaged.
Think about a can of soda.
A soda can has structural integrity. It’s a vertical column that can support weight without crumpling, but only if the top is closed and it’s full of liquid. That’s intra-abdominal pressure. That’s abdominal bracing. Once you open the top and pour out the soda, the can crumples and can bear no weight. Lifting or moving without abdominal bracing is like standing on an empty soda can.
Maintain proper posture.
Posture comes first. If your spine is not aligned, you’ll be resting on your skeleton rather than using your musculature to brace. Don’t be overly extended with your belly sticking out and your butt sticking out and a big hollow in the small of your back. That’s “tucking” the pelvis, and it’s a recipe for disaster. Aim for a “j-curve” spine: mostly straight back and pelvis with the “curve” coming from your glutes.
Should you always practice abdominal bracing?
If you’re dancing or playing with your kids or jumping or playing tennis, you probably don’t want or need to be consciously bracing the entire time. You also need fluidity and motion, and our bodies are usually very good at modulating the level of abdominal bracing depending on the movement we’re engaging in. Most of us can trust our bodies to handle the bracing we need for basic movements.
However, this kind of conscious bracing becomes particularly important of heavy weight lifting—for movements where you’re “preparing” for a big effort. That could be a heavy set of deadlifts or squats, a max effort lift in competition (or just in the gym), or any situation where you know you’re going to be exerting a huge amount of force. If you’re going for a set of 5-10 heavy squats, you’ll want to consciously and proactively brace before lifting. Many people find that abdominal bracing improves their strength and performance in the gym, giving them a 5-15% boost in strength right away.
Also, if you’ve been out of the game for a long time, or you have a history of tweaking your back or throwing it out during simple everyday activities like picking up a remote control off the ground, you might need to practice conscious abdominal bracing until it becomes second-nature. That would mean following the abdominal bracing steps up above whenever you go to move some furniture, empty the dishwasher, lift your kid up, or do any other activity that requires a stable spine (which is pretty much everything!).
I’d love to hear from you. Do you practice conscious abdominal bracing? How has it helped you in your life—both in the gym and out of it?
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
In his current competitive ventures, Shaun Clarida has little to prove. The bodybuilder has won two of the last three 212 Olympia titles (2020, 2022) and, as he maintains his impeccable physique with diligent nutrition and training, he seems destined to continue said reign for as long as he pleases. However, for the time being, the athlete might be ready to challenge himself and try ventures outside his usual comfortable scope. He’s implied as much by competing in the upcoming 2023 Arnold Classic in the Men’s Open division.
A recent update on his 2023 AC preparation suggests Clarida is set to maximize this opportunity. On Jan. 31, 2023, Clarida posted a picture to his Instagram profile where he wrote that his body weight in the photo is 190 pounds (86 kilograms).
“We ain’t hiding for this one. Ready to shake things up in Ohio!”
With the 2023 AC roughly five weeks on Mar. 2-5, 2023, in Columbus, OH, Clarida’s present mass — including stacked lat muscles on his 5-foot 2-inch frame— makes it appear he could push his larger peers.
According to NPC News Online, the 2023 AC will not be the first instance where Clarida competes in the Men’s Open division. His previous and only other appearance category happened at the 2021 Legion Sports Fest Pro, where he came in first place. Otherwise, the bodybuilder has been a 212 athlete in 22 of 25 career contests.
Some in the bodybuilding community have surmised that Clarida would eventually work toward a permanent shift to the Men’s Open division. In 2022, the athlete did not quell these rumors until mid-November, noting he had “unfinished business” en route to his second 212 Olympia title the following month. At the time of this writing, Clarida hasn’t made his plans clear for the 2023 Mr. Olympia — set for this November in Orlando, FL. He may choose to chase a repeat championship and his third 212 victory in the last four years. Or he might follow in the footsteps of the peer who supplanted him for the 212 title in 2021, Derek Lunsford, and try to shine on the Men’s Open level under brighter lights.
What Clarida’s berth in the 2023 AC might suggest (a $300,000 prize notwithstanding) is that he’s now seriously considering making a move. He could be starting a new journey in his illustrious career in due time.
Regardless of where Clarida takes his career next and how he fares at the 2023 AC, it’s apparent that this titan isn’t planning to fade into obscurity any time soon. Be it in the 212 or the Men’s Open, Clarida is liable to continue making noise on enormous stages for the foreseeable future.
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When most people think about lifting weights, they think about their biceps, triceps, shoulders, and lats. Their legs, quads, hamstrings, glutes. They think about what to do with the body parts that move, that hold the weight, that push against the ground—but neglect to think about the abdominal muscles that brace, resist movement and allow you to even lift the weight in the first place. Abdominal bracing isn’t flashy or sexy, but it’s the most important part of lifting weights and moving your body through time and space. The best way to train your abdominal muscles are not sit ups, crunches, or leg lifts- it’s bracing, intra-abdominal bracing, or abdominal bracing.
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