Lat soreness without hitting them?!?!?!

TooPowerful4u · May 28, 2004

I dont understand this. I strayed SLIGHTLY from my DC training split for the first time in 5 weeks this week. Monday i had work 5am-9pm, so i only had half hr (my lunch break) to work out. I hit chest, shoulders, triceps. Wouldnt you know it, next day, the sorest bodypart by FAR was my lats. WTF? I didnt even touch them. I did incline barbell, seated machine military, and close grip bench.

Then... i decided to do shoulders yesterday with some buddies, so today i would only have chest, triceps, and back. Guess what happened again today. Lats sore as a bitch. 10x more sore than my shoulders from yesterday. Can ANYBODY explain this?

I used to BOMB my lats in my old split and they would NEVER get sore. Bent barbell rows, heavy deadlifts, low cable rows, heavy pulldowns, u name it. All of a sudden im skippin back all together or its just not back day, and heavy inclines or shoulder presses are causing them to get sore as a bitch. Im so confused. Please explain this to me.

mike man · May 29, 2004

Hmm...

That is strange, but I do believe when you do pressing movements like that, your lats come into play for the extra power. I'm pretty sure West Side BB trains you to really utilze your lats for power pressing movements.

lynx · May 29, 2004

This happens to me sometimes too when I do incline presses or military presses. If you think about it your back acts like a stablizer (like mike man stated) when doing these exercises. You have a pretty good arch and your militaries look like a pulldown (or chin-up) in reverse.

brachialis · May 30, 2004

analogis

Indeed your lats are analogis to your pecs... If I haven't trained in awhile after taking a break....my lats will be sore the day after training pecs especially if I've done presses of any kind.

As has been nicely put, you have to tense your lats when lowering the weight on the return... Think about it...as you press your contracting your pecs, as you return you control the weight with your pecs and lats it's like negatives for your lats...