IFBB Pro Justin Shier finally started a YouTube channel and graced us with a complete back workout. Shier earned his pro card just five weeks ago so we're excited to see how this man built the stature that helped him secure the heavyweight class title in his last NPC show. He says now it's go time so let's get it in!
WHO IS JUSTIN SHIER?
Justin Shier, on February 1, 2022, started a Youtube channel with his first video showing off a killer back workout. Shier beat the odds after surviving a terrible car accident where he almost lost his life. Once a BMX rider, Shier has made the impressive transition to bodybuilding where he has a bright future ahead of him. In Oregon, he is an entrepreneur and owner of Duo Gym & Forward Inc. Justin is also a sponsored athlete of Hosstile Supplements. Justin placed first in the heavyweight category at the 2021 NPC National championship securing his card as an IFBB Pro.
JUSTIN SHIER'S BACK WORKOUT
The video starts off with Justin in his own gym describing the last five weeks after winning his pro card. His workouts have been pretty mellow, slowly ramping his food up and trying to find his baseline post-show.
Today's menu for his workout is some back and a bit of hamstring work. To help motivate Justin for his workout, he watches a video of Jay Cutler on the TV while drinking his pre-workout shake.
WARMUP
His warmup consists includes some supersets of pulldowns and cable face pulls to help pump some blood into the lats and to get a good stretch. He makes sure to use lightweight, uses a high tempo and keeps the breaks low between sets to maximize his warmup time.
MACHINE PULLOVERS
The first actual working sets of the day were some pullovers on the Nautilus pullover machine. This is a big stretch movement, and Justin likes to see a big full stretch with a pause and then drives to a full contraction. The goal is to work up to one all-out top set. This means that you work up to the final set with 12-15 reps, fail, take 15 breaths as your break, and repeat until the sets are done.
Justin recommends tracking your lifts so you can quantify your progress in and out of the gym. He personally just puts his lifts into the notepad on his phone, but you can use apps like "Fit Notes" to track your progress.
PULLUPS
Next up for the Justin and his training partner are some pullups; Justin says he is fat (as a joke), so he has to do them assisted. The actual reason that he does them on an assisted pull-up machine is that he wants to be able to hold a full contraction at the top (and control the eccentric), which he can't do while doing regular pull-ups.
Assisted pull-up machines are a great way to maintain control and get more out of the movement. The boys complete three sets here till failure, starting with the least amount of assistance and adding more to each set. Justin then proved to the audience that he could do some strict pull-ups.
CABLE PULLDOWNS
The third exercise consists of cable pulldowns off a slightly inclined bench, which is a very lat biased movement. Justin uses a prime bar to be able to adjust the width and D-handles to be able to have articulating handles, which allows you to have joint alignment to drive the elbows hard into the hips. This setup isolates the lats and keeps the movement short. The boys do a couple of warmup sets building up the weight into their two working sets. Top set of 12 reps and then repeat the same weight for two small drops (dropsets).
SMITH MACHINE BENT OVER ROWS
Justin keeps the momentum high for the fourth exercise by going directly into some smith machine bent-over rows, working up to one all-out set to failure. To warm up for the all-out set, he performs doubles while building the weight up. This way, he can feel the weight and not waste any energy.
DUMBBELL SEAL ROWS
The fifth exercise in Justin's workout is some dumbbell seal rows on a high flat bench. If you don't have a high bench, you can take a standard bench and place plates underneath the legs until you hit the desired height. You should be able to lay on the bench with the dumbbells in the air when your arms are fully extended.
Drive the elbows out at the top of each rep and follow that up with letting the weights open your back up at the bottom. Same as the last exercise, work up to one all-out set to failure by doing doubles as you increase the weight.
STIFF-LEGGED DEADLIFTS
Unlike some of the other IFBB competitors we've written about, Justin doesn't like finishing his back day with some barbell stiff-legged deadlifts, but for this workout, he does. He focuses on a slow negative and explode with the weight back up. After a couple of warmup sets, they finished the day with two working sets, one top set and then a back-off set by reducing the weight by 15%.
Justin wraps up the video by telling the audience what he is working on right now. Right now, he is establishing modest set points to progress from so he can focus on his execution during his off-season.
Sample JUSTIN SHIER Back Workout
We put together a back workout based on the workout you saw Justin Shier complete in the video above. This one is sure to get that back pumped up!
- Warmup: Superset Lat Pulldowns x Cable Face Pulls: 3 sets x 12 reps (per exercise)
- Cable Pullovers (Nautilius machine): 3 sets x 12-15 reps (15 breath break between sets)
- Assisted Pullups (machine or banded): 3 sets x failure
- Cable Pulldowns: 3 sets x10 reps (weight increase each set, 2 sets x 12 reps, last set two drops)
- Smith Machine Bent-over Rows: 3 sets x 2 reps (weight increase each set, 1 set x failure)
- Dumbbell Seal Rows: 3 sets x 12 reps
- Barbell Stiff-legged Deadlifts: 3 sets x 10 reps (weight increase each set, 2 sets x 10, last set reduce weight by roughly 15%)
CLOSING THOUGHTS
This was a great start to Justin's YouTube in what we believe will be a valuable training resource as time goes on. We're looking forward to the next time Shier walks the stage as we can only imagine he will bring his best stuff!
What did you think of Justin's first video?
Andrew Lenau
Author