Lagging muscles.....

[Machdiesel]

When someoen posts up a pic, theres always a responce "your chest is lagging, or work on your arms?? what the hell does this mean? i know where im lagging, but how do i target that muscle, work it more then others, work it less then others? i mean its not like im negelcting these muscles, there just not growing as quikly as others.
Basic question is how do u target lagging muscles, work them out more often, less, more sets, more reps???

[AAS@HH]

I agree with you. I feel it's somewhat about the genetics, and you can only moderatly affect the whole proportion.

[doby48]

Some of it does have to do with genetics, and no matter how hard you try you may not be able to get a certain muscle group to grow like you want. But also in genetics is the ability for you to grow another muscle group quite easily. For example, if you are told great shoulders but your chest is laging not only does that mean that due to genetics you "may" not be able to get your chest as big as you would like, but it also may mean that you have been blessed with great genes with regards to your shoulders.

Anyways that being said, if you have a group of muscles that just is not responding, don't start to overwork them because this will accomplish nothing. Although you may need to work that muscle group differently such as higher (or lower) reps, working to failure, or not working to failure, different exercises, more (or less) sets etc. An example of this is when I work chest I go to failure on my exercises but when I work my back I don't go to failure because there becomes a point where I stop working my back and start working my bis more. My tris respond very well to higher reps like 3 sets of 10 where as my shoulds respond better to 4 sets of 6.

[Flexor]

spot on doby, very good post. I'm 100% agreed.

Nice looking back there

[doby48]

Nice looking back there

Thanks Flexor... Sometimes its hard to tell on forums if a person is all talk or they really do the work. Figured I would make my avatar a pic of myself for a while so people can see that I actually do workout and am in shape, not just a coutch potato hiding be hind a screen name.

[Flexor]

Thanks Flexor... Sometimes its hard to tell on forums if a person is all talk or they really do the work. Figured I would make my avatar a pic of myself for a while so people can see that I actually do workout and am in shape, not just a coutch potato hiding be hind a screen name.

I never thought that anyway

If someone knows what they are talking about, it is likely that they are in good shape because they take their own advice, and that is what I thought about you.

[pilipo]

you can focus more on a lagging muscle without overtraining or even changing much about your training just use the priority method an work your lagging muscles first in your workout

[Canadiantiger]

In some readings i have seen some suggest about prioritizing them in workouts or even doing them first in the week when the body is the freshest. Overall I would agree with doby48 100%.

[ODC0717]

Sounds like you might need to incorporate some intensity techniques like...
1)Static contraction
2)Negative
3)Superset
4)Asending/Desending Sets
5)Rest-Pause
These are some just to name a few. Change up your routing maybe.

[lilKimmy2]

Dobys suggestions are great I for example felt my shoulders were something I needed to work on, I wanted them to be fuller and more developed, therefore I started working them out twice/week for 8 weeks before a show. I did 3-4 sets of 6-8 as well as making sure I was taking in extra protein etc etc for "he****g" and repairing if you will. That approach worked really well for me-Its trial and error you will find out. happy training