Second Spark Fitness

Signs you’re underhydrated:
• Low energy
• Headaches
• Poor pumps
• Cravings that feel like “hunger”

Simple fix?……just drink some water!

Consistency beats chugging.

Drink like it matters. Because it does.

You silly water buffalo

Calves? Little?! Nooooo never.

I’d call this a partial movement. With quads, (and other muscle groups of course) that stretch is turrrribly important.

Occasionally you’ll find movements that call for them, but 9/10 times, full range eclipse partials. Wait for the proper machine to open up, do alternate movements, or rearrange your exercise order for the session. It’ll be as easy as….pie? 😅 Happy lifting!

Chest ✅
Biceps ❌

This is actually a pretty common occurrence. So much so that their biceps become a limiting factor in the movement. Let’s keep you away from that, shall we? 😄

Make sure to scooch the pad low enough on the curl pad to ensure you’re actually generating much more stretch and range at the bottom. If it’s too high, yeah it’ll feel comfy but shwwwwoooooop that pad low enough to feel the stretch.

I criss-cross apple sauce those hamburgers will be cookin……ps bring ketchup.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about lengthened partials. I have to tell you, THIS is an exercise where I think they could be cool, although watching the video back they look like good range of motion shrugs lol.

I am intentionally stretching the weight as far as down as I can, really depressing my scaps (so I can make impressive traps), and then shrugging only high enough that my arms remain straight throughout, then I repeat.

I used to do shrugs with a serious high pull at the top, realllllly bending my arms and getting my shoulders close to my ears (in theory, that’s obviously not possible Kevin), and if I’m really being honest, they didn’t work my traps the way I wanted them too.

Sure it looked cool, I thought I liked it at at the time yes, but in retro I was always left wanting.

Doing shrugs this way for me currently feels a lot more right both in the traps and in my heart (what matters most).

YoungCows
Aka… Calves 🐄

1. Control your feet
As sets get hard, feet like to roll out to the sides.
That reduces calf stimulus and increases foot pain. A double loss.
Lower the weight if needed and keep the pressure straight through the ball of the foot.

2. Short rest periods
These animals recover fast. 10 to 60 seconds is plenty.

3. Moderate to high reps

4. Train them early
Calves are quick, low fatigue, and easy to knock out.
Train them first instead of crawling over to the machine an hour into your workout

5. Control the eccentric
Lower the weight slowly.
Milk it like the utters of a young cow.
No bounce bounce.
No wobble wobble.
No shakey shakey.

6. Pause the end ranges
Not mandatory, but very effective.