Note: A quaint bit of history here, Sport. Some training tips, ideas and an ad for a few products from the past. Finding weak points and putting the resistance at different angles can be used to improve aesthetic iMbaLanCeS or increase NUMBERS in lifts.
And here we have a beautiful photo of a person engaged in exhibiting something he enjoys being part of -
Now then, to the article:
"Angle" training isn't new, but it hasn't been used as widely and fully as it could have been; the rest of its potential still lies unexploited. Yet angle training can be one of your keys to bodybuilding success because - when properly used - it transforms a dull, arduous, run-of-the-mill workout into an exhilarating and inspiring, enjoyable and productive experience!
And isn't that much of what we want from weight training?
Originally there was only one kind of angle training: the body was tilted so that weaker, less-developed or harder to get at sections of a muscle group could be made stronger, larger, shapelier.
Later this body-tilt principle was used - strictly for aesthetic or remedial reasons - to exercise certain muscle groups without affecting auxiliary muscles more than minimally, in order to prevent such muscles from becoming larger than desired or injured if they're relatively weak. For example, the hack squat with machine, which "saves" the buttocks and lower back some of the work they'd do in a regular squat and can put more of the stress on the frontal thighs when done appropriately for the purpose. However, be sure to exercise your lower back separately - especially if it's the weak link that made you turn to hack squats; otherwise it'll become proportionately weaker.
Some hack squat variations:
And we're also not referring to "comfortable" sets that exclude those last tough but most productive reps.
I'd like introduce two new, simple and inexpensive pieces of apparatus that finally may make some upper-body exercises more comfortable AND more effective at the same time. They take the elbow strain and grip fatigue out of French presses, upright rowing and lat machine pressdowns.
Weights, headband and stick-on stache not included
The triceps attachment bar even gives you two new angles of grip that are far more effective than doing pressdowns with the usual straight bar.
The upright rowing bar is completely new - nothing like it has existed before.
We're reading this article in 1975, for all those unfortunately addicted to cementing themselves in linear chronological suits when they read anything. Get with it and ditch time when you read, fool! But not those dry history types who can't seem to get out of their own hides, trapped in the flesh of death re-incinerated on the hell of Earth again, ash alone, no laughs remaining, a sad state of lower rung in some ringing inferno from the past writ by a Dante-not-Trudel . . . I don't fucking care in the least what you see as "the world" . . . or something along those poetically vitriolic lines that I would usually use, okay?
The key words here are "simple" and "inexpensive," because anything else as effective as either bar costs many times as much and this ad spiel goes on a while, so let's skip it . . .
There is a third type of angle training: tilting an unexercised part of the body in relation to an adjacent, exercised muscle group so that it can be worked more intensely - such as in chest work (examples will be given later).
What could be called a fourth type involves placing the feet at certain angles so that while doing any type of squat certain muscles of the thigh are worked more than others. Foot width/stance and its effects can be considered as well if you can bloody find the time and energy to fucking do that. Take a lap-and-a-salt-pill and blow me, asshole. "Showers . . . NOW!" No, wait . . . what?
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It's worth looking into the different forms of back squatting and positions, regardless of whether your weak point is strength-based or appearance-centered.
It's also worth looking into all of the squat positionings and the reasons for them. Note that as the foot width and bar placement changes the number of plates increases. Always ask yourself why you're doing squats the way you're doing them. What do you effing want to accomplish? So dust off that bosu ball, load that bar and hop on, Tiger!
Now let's examine some other common exercises and see how angle training can be of use in physique training.
If you have long legs for your height . . .
Here's a fella with very long legs upper and lower who found a way to squat strong and efficiently nonetheless:
All this crap about limb lengths and leverages. Watch this guy snatch his lifetime best . . . the man's a hardworkin' pillar of the lifting community for god's sake and I wish him well. This gentleman has saved many a lifter from simply lying on the train tracks and dispassionately waiting for the next one to come and coldly hack off his giraffe-like limbs . . .
Now just shut up about genetics and aim for YOUR best, you abhorant idiot.
If you have long legs try a raised-heel lifting shoe, or a two-inch block under your heels for better balance if you're on a low budget for now. I have found it's cheaper to pay for a gym day pass and pinch someone else's lifting shoes from the lockers, but hey, to each his own way.
Go as deeply as possible with good form (work on it) and keep the knees slightly unlocked when you come up (nonlock at the top). Don't rest between reps; take only one or two quick deep breaths (knees unlocked). Keep moving! If you're a serious bodybuilder (lousy oxymorons, they're all fent-folders now), this will give you the intensity of effort so necessary for maximum progress.
The best thing immediately after a vigorous set of squats is
a cold beer?
Nope, a set of stiff-arm pullovers with a well-lit, make that light dumbbell while lying across a high, preferably narrow bench, with your shoulders flush with one edge of the bench, your head hanging down and your back arched as much as possible and kept that way for the whole set. As far as shoulder flushes go I just about put my left one down the shitter for good doing dips quite a while ago. All better now and there was no need to see a plumber, er, doctor.
"Would you like some meds and an infection with that scalpel, Sir?
Can we wire you to any opioids and stop prescribing suddenly?
You's-all can trust us!"
Don't start inhaling (it's called a bill clinton) on the pullovers until the weight is at a 45-degree angle. This will give your rib box a better stretch than if you'd started inhaling when the weight was directly overhead. "Pullover Complications" -
If you're pressing from a flat bench for shape and size, cross your legs above you so you can't bridge (making it harder to cheat), and lower the weight to your neck instead of your chest. Be careful at first. Ease into anything new.
Read freakin' research papers on it if you must -
This bench-method gives you more range of motion because your neck is lower than your chest and closer to the pivotal shoulder joints. Benching this way forces you to flare your elbows also and no, it's not a power movement, you bozos who effed themselves up with the whole wrong approach to doing this one.
Keep your chin dug into the chest during the whole set while bringing the bar to where the chin and chest meet. Bob Kennedy was good friends with Vince Gironda and agreed with his views on physique development. You can see this clearly in his choice of certain articles and editorial comments during his mag's run, especially the first year or three or two. This is all becoming something of an "American Psycho" Huey Lewis & The News soliloquy. I'm going with Dr. Craig Whitehead at his finest/lowest for the "Pat" Bateman role here. Sprung like a motherfucker and spewing strength and health-related truths all over the neighborhood in the nude at five a.m. on a snowy December Sunday while wearing a full scuba suit and pushing a lawnmower. Go, Doctor Craig!
Raising your head helps take the lats out of the exercise; in this instance it's desirable. You really won't have much luck cheating with this style, the stretch is available in full and, if you can't feel your pecs working with this approach to benching please contact a coroner but first off include me in your will. What kinda circle-jerk phrase is that meant to be . . . first off.
Not much comment is needed about incline bench presses, except that if you keep your knees slightly bent during the set (standing inclines?) you'll find it easier to compensate for the tendency to bridge with the weight because your lower back will be flatter against the bench - which makes bridging harder. If you have trouble with cheating when doing inclines, insist on bridging, bouncing and bumping up the weight pay one of the neighbor kids a couple bucks to kick you nice and solid in the liver if you do the seated version. Standing incline child-monitoring calls for a sharp boot in the nuts. Call the little guy your training partner and don't even try to explain it once the wee feller's folks eventually find out.
One of the commonest mistakes beginners and many intermediate bodybuilders make when working (or attempting to work) their lateral delts is to do side dumbbell raises with their upper bodies vertical. There's too much tendency to turn the palms outward (instead of keeping them facing down), which causes the shoulder girdler to tilt back, throwing the stress onto the stronger, better-developed front deltoids.
To recap the basic kinds and purposes of angle training?
1) Tilting the whole body, or part of it, to specialize on, or bring up to par, certain sections of a muscle group or to avoid working other muscles, for aesthetic reasons; to prevent injury to a relatively weak auxiliary muscle; stricter style; balance; comfort.
2) Tilting an unexercised body part adjacent to the exercises muscle group so it will be worked more intensely due to disengaging an auxiliary muscle; for stricter style.
3) Holding an exercise bar with other than a regular grip to work the muscle group more intensely or comfortably, or both.
4) Width of placement, and placing the feet at various angles so certain, more aesthetic sections of the frontal thigh can be shaped.
Enjoy Your Lifting!
April 28, 2026. 212 pages
