What exactly do the traps and bicepts do for a person in terms of sports..

i've never really worked bicepts because i never saw the cause to in football it seemed pointless

and traps...what do those even do haha

biceps flex the elbow meaning it "raises it up" like a curl does

upper traps elevate the shoulder girdle / scapula

both aren't really needed for sports unless there is an imbalance...thier opposite muscles are more important (tri's and mid/low traps) as bi's and traps are used in a lot of everyday activities where tri's and mid/low traps are not

mid/low traps? im assuming thats getting more into upper back area?

how come when to work chest more you put your hands wider on benchpress but that just makes me work my arms even more?

Benchpressing has an effect on Triceps.

Any Chest or Back exercise with the word Press, in it will stimulate Triceps in some way, also any Back exercise with the word Row in it, will stimulate Biceps to some degree as well

Close grip Bench Press works more of the Tricep. The wider the grip the less impact, but a very wide grip doesn't stop the Tricep activation happening.

mid traps are at shoulder blade level and low traps below them

if your tri's are stronger than your pecs than you'll feel it more in there regardless of the grip used

so when i go back to benching tomorrow i should do it regardless of where i feel it?

the point of the big exercises (deads, squats etc) is to get stronger so as long as wt is added to the bar each session keep going but if your chest falls to far behind then we may need to change something

woahh woah wait im supposed to add weight EACH session?
i usually go up in weight like every month and a half or so

yes every session, if you can't than it's time to change exercises but only increase the smallest loading you can

I only add about 5/10 lbs every 2 months, I dont have enough weights to do it every session, though I'm planning on buying some more soon (after my exams next week).

this is how it works:

muscle respond to stress (training)...stress comes in the form of muscle damage...like bones, if you do everything right (eat, recovery etc) and at the right times than the muscle should build back up bigger and stronger than before...it builds back stronger because it is expectin g more stress than last time so if you lifted 25kgs last session, it has rebuilt itself to be able to handle more the next time...if you don't lift more than you haven't stressed the muscle enough for anything to happen...do this too many times and the body says "i didn't need this extra muscle i built so i'll get rid of it", and does so...this is not what you want and you won't even maintain muscle lifting below it's new stress level either

so raining wise you it should look like this:

session 1 - aim is 4 x 6 with 50kgs and you get 6 reps on all sets
sessiosn 2 - because you got all 24 reps you'll need to increase the wt so do so to 52.5kgs...again you get all 24 reps so a another wt increase for next session
session 3 - you increase to 55kgs...set 1 you get 6, set 2 you get 6, set 3 you get 5 and set 4 you get 4reps respectively...

this is where you want to get to because now each session will be adding new stress to the muscle as you've reached a threshold of strength

session 4 - your aim here is not to increase wt as you didn't reach your 24 rep goal so you now must increase the amount of reps you get...your minimum reps per set should look like this...set 1 - 6, set 2 - 6, set 3 - 6, set 4 - 4 which is one extra rep than last time...rememeber this is the minimum anmount of work you have to do but if you can get all 24 reps than do so

session 5 - you gat all 24 reps last session so increase to 57.5 and go again

this is how it should be done but i'm sure 90% of people doing wts don't do it which is why most aren't happy with there progress, and the reason why? well they don't actually progress as they do the same wt over and over

also this is the reason why a trainin g diary is ESSENTIAL so you know what you must do each and every session

i dont have the weights to increase in small increments like that, i will eventually but not now

also
are kg's smaller than lbs? so like a you increase VERY little since its kg's not lb's

conversion doesn't matter, just increase the smallest wt you can...the bigger you can only increase, the more likley you are to have to work up to the rep total but increase at least rep each session...easy as that

Dalton85 wrote:i dont have the weights to increase in small increments like that, i will eventually but not now

also
are kg's smaller than lbs? so like a you increase VERY little since its kg's not lb's

Dalton you little monster, write this down:
1kg=2.2 lbs
so a kg is HEAVIER than a pound, by a little more than double.

i wrote it down

haha so i should actually be increasing by more lbs than kg's