# horizontal-vertical/push-pull



## Scarface30 (May 13, 2007)

this is a newbie question but when dertermining the direction of the movement for the exercises, is it all relative to the position you are in during the exercise, or is it relative to the direction of motion you would do when standing straight up? the reason I ask is because I was looking at the stickies and I noticed in CowPimps designing a full body routine it says that the bench press is a horizontal push, you are pushing but its vertical


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## P-funk (May 13, 2007)

it is realative to the movement around the joint.

In the bench press, the shoulder joint is moving in a horizontal plane.  In an overhead press, the shoulder joint is moving in a vertical plane.


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## Witchblade (May 13, 2007)

Think of it as if you're standing upright and doing the exercises in a no-gravity room.


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## Scarface30 (May 13, 2007)

cool thanks. as of right now I am doing just a regular push/pull/legs but is there anymore benefit from separating it further into vertical and horizontal?


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## vortrit (May 13, 2007)

For example on back exerciese a vertical movment would increase back width where a horizontal movement will increase back thickness, for example.

I think I got that one right...


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## Gazhole (May 13, 2007)

Scarface30 said:


> cool thanks. as of right now I am doing just a regular push/pull/legs but is there anymore benefit from separating it further into vertical and horizontal?



Its just another element of balance. Having all horizontal pressing and no vertical pressing isnt very functional, is it? If you separate them you can give both planes of motion equal attention.


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## Scarface30 (May 14, 2007)

alright, thanks for clearing that up. it also seems that you can concentrate more on one part sort of, because with my push/pull/legs on my pull day my biceps were dead before the end, which didn't allow me to lift as heavy as I normally do for some exercises, because I'd have to hit both back thickness and width on the same day. here, its like one day you can concentrate on vertical pulling and hit the lats and midback, and on a different day horizontal pulling and hit back thickness and not worry about doing it all in one day. and of course you'd also have vert. push and hor. push in there too.


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## Phineas (Oct 22, 2009)

Let's say reverse dumbbell flies...horizontal push or vertical push?


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## Built (Oct 22, 2009)

That would be a horizontal pull. More of a physio-type of movement, no?


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## Gazhole (Oct 24, 2009)

Horizontal pull, definitely.


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## Phineas (Oct 25, 2009)

Today was my second day back after deloading and I'm now training with the upper vertical/horizontal push/pull program structure (I started splitting "legs" into push/pull days about a month ago). I have to say, I absolutely love it! With all these compound movements I'm doing, I've never felt such intensity in a workout. I'm so happy to finally be out the body part splits. I found they worked well, but I always HATED training arms like that. I find arm isolation exercises to be boring. Curls are nothing against a chin-up.

But, I'm not gonna lie...it's still fun to watch the 15-year-olds in their jeans run straight to the dumbbell racks and curl as many dumbbells as possible, lol.

I'm so sick of hearing those guys discuss the "21" program..whatever it's called. My apologies to anyone who's used it or uses it...for all I know it could work. It just frustrates me because you know they're doing it only because it's a gimmic...and, then they don't have to take the time to read and actually understand how the body works and then create their own programs. They just love internet pre-made programs.

Wow, rant...my bad.


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