collected from Lyle McD's site: bodyrecomposition forums
originally posted by BLADE. yes, "THE" Blade.
Thought I'd post a collection of posts by Glenn Pendlay on how he periodizes the 5x5 routine:
there are really so damn many ways to squat, even to squat with 5 sets of 5, or 6 sets of 4, or 4 sets of 6, or any similar thing, that there is not really any one program... im always hesitant to even write it out as a "program" becasue i dont really know what we will be doing in 4 weeks when we start such a thing... it kind of adapts as it goes.
but there seems to be some confusion as to the pyramid version or the non-pyramid version, so ill try to briefly explain the differences.
the EASIEST method we use for squats, and the one which rip used for beginners, is a simple pyramid program, the weights are pyramided BOTH monday and friday... and another leg exercise is used for wednesday, usually front squats for the young and athletically minded, sometimes leg press for the old and feeble.
say a person tests at 200lbs for 5 reps on their initial workout. well then monday they might do the following sets for 5 reps, 95, 125, 155, 185, 205. fairly equal jumps, ending with a 5lb personal record. if the last set is successfull, then on friday they will go for 210 on their last set, with adjustments on the other sets to keep the jumps about even as needed.
the average beginner can stay on this exact simple program for anywhere from 4 weeks to 4 months, as long as they continue to improve at least 5lbs a week, most can do this for quite a while.
when they stop improving, the first thing he does is to drop a couple of the "warmup" sets down to one or two reps, to decrease fatigue and allow a few more personal records on the top set... so that 200lb top set of 5 workout at this point would at this point have the 155lb set at maybe 3 reps, and the 185lb set at one or two reps, then try for 5 at 205.
this change usually lets people get new personal records for another 2-3 weeks, sometimes more.
at some point, of course, this doesnt work anymore. so now we change the monday workout to 5 sets of 5, still with heavy front squats or for some lighter back squats on wednesday, and the same pyramid on friday, trying for one top set of 5. the 5 sets on monday with the same weiight will be some amount less than the current personal record for one set of 5.
usually with this raise in volume, the weights are set somewhat lighter than they were, and people are given a few weeks to work back to their personal records, then try to go past them, invariably they will pass them, and invariably eventually they will stall again...
at this point we usually lower the volume of training, raise the intensity, in some form we will go with lower reps, lower amounts of sets, cut out a day of squatting, something to allow a raising of the numbers... again, the numbers will raise for a while, then stall again.
a this point, another raise in volume is needed, and at this point we will go to the program that most usually associate with the "5 by 5"... squatting 5 sets of 5 with the same weight 3 times a week, lighter on wednesday and heavier on mon and fri. you are all familiar with this i think, we raise the volume for 2-4 weeks, then slowly cut the volume aned intensity of most workouts, going for a big workout every 1-2 weeks, might be a single, a single set of 5, or even one big 5 sets of 5 workout. with people cycling down for a big contest at thsi point we might go for lower reps and try for the big singles.... with someone not at a place where a big peak is needed, its just cycling down to less sets but keeping the reps at 5, and trying to make a pr on a set of 5. this can be repeated several times over and over, but at some point you have to have a period of lower intensity training for a while in between cycles.
i will add that often, for the people with higher goals who want to really train hard, i will start right in with the 15 hard sets a week version, but with weights low enough that they can endure it, and when they get in condition and get used to the volume, will then go back and start at the normal place where rip starts right from the beginning. i find that people who have been athletically active, who have been training on other programs, etc, usually do well with an initial 4-8 weeks of high volume lower intensity training to get them mentally and physically used to this sort of training, get their form changed to a good squat, etc.
this post describes as much as a year of training for most people, with some that adapt well it is stretched to two years.... two years from when they start their initial "pyramid" workouts, or their initial month or so of conditioning with 15 moderate sets a week to when they get through their first real cycle with heavy weights and 15 sets a week cycled down to a peak.
i know this question was aimed at people who have used 5X5 and not me, but id still like to make a couple of comments... there are so many versions of the "5X5" training style, and they are so different. i use this type of training for the people i train all the way from beginners to really good lifters but the program changes over time for each person. generally it starts out in the first week of training with finding your max set of 5 and then very simply working up to one max set two times per week trying to add weight to that one set, with one ther workout in between that is most likely front squats. simple as this might be, it usually works for several months and i am convinced that it is about the fastest way for a total beginner to make progress. at some point this stops working and we go to a slightly different version, probably the one most well known, and also probably the one most usefull to a large number of people. 5 sets of 5 on monday with a set weight, then lighter squats on wednesday or front squats, then on friday working up to a max set of 5. there are some things we do here when it isnt possible to just add weight every week, but for a lot of lifters with minor variation this keeps the squat going up for another year or two. like everything else, it eventually stops working, and we start to add in some more long term variation like loading and unloading. we might do 5 sets of 5, pretty heavy, on all 3 squatting days for 3-4 weeks as a loading period, then back off the volume for 3-4 weeks by squatting for lower reps and only 2 days per week as an uloading period. we might add in speed work or dynamic effort work, using 5 sets of 5 on monday, fronts squats on wednesday, and dynamic effort work on friday. when a lifter is really near the top of their genetic potential, they cant do 5 sets of 5 consistently with heavy weight. for example, i dont think kyle gulledge could do this. hes squatted 700lbs with belt and knee wraps, so i estimate his raw squat as around 625-650lbs, probably pretty close since he did a chain squat raw last week with about 650lbs total weight, with a lot of that weight taking the form of hanging plates attached to the chains that came off the ground all at once right at the sticking point, a very hard way to do it. its normal for a lifter to be able to do 5 sets of 5 with around 82-87% of thier max squat. 85% for kyle would be 550lbs or something like that. i dont think thats something he could benefit from doing week in and week out. hes almost superhuman, but to recover from this weekly and still be able to train other lifts would take a cape and tights, almost superhuman wouldnt cut it. so for a guy like this, we wouldnt use it all the time, we would do 5 sets of 5 with lighter weights for 3-4 weeks, working up to one really heavy workout trying to break our record, then move on to a more westside style of training, with max effort work one day and dynamic effort work another day, much easier to recover from if you are pushing really heavy weight.
If your doing 5 sets on monday, lighter squats on wed, and one set on friday, or something like that, you would be trying to do your one set on friday with more weight than you used on monday.
its important that you approach it in a systematic way, start with weights that are easy to handle. just for example, if you are capable of doing say, 300lbs for a set of 5, you might start with 225lbs for 5 sets of 5 on monday, 200lbs for 3 sets of 5 on wednesday, and then 275 for one set of 5 on friday. you could then try to increase the monday and friday weights by 10lbs 3 weeks, and the wednesday weights by 5 lbs. that would give you a PR of 305 for 5 on week 4, and depending on the person, you might be able to get 310 or 315 for 5 on week 5. if friday of week 4 feels like you just might be able to get a PR the next week, you might try dropping the monday workout back to 225 monday of week 5, and letting yourself recover a little more preparing for week 5 friday.
there are lots of options for the next cycle... for instance, you could choose to push the monday workout hard and not push your single set of 5 quite so hard. a good goal here would be to do 5 sets of 5 on monday with your previous best single set of 5. you would then start your monday workout in week one with a weight that is say 40lbs below your best single set of 5... keep the wednesday workout similar to the first cycle, and on friday simply add 5 or 10lbs to mondays weight, roughly the same weight you will try for 5 sets the next monday. given steady 10lb increases, if you started with 270lbs on monday, you should have a good chance of doing 310 for 5 sets of 5 on monday of week 5.
options for the next cycle would be to change the number of reps... say to the same number of sets but 3 reps... or you could run another 4-5 week cycle similar to the first with lower numbers for the monday workout, say this time starting with 235lbs, but trying for 320-330lbs for a single set of 5 on week 4 or 5, or you could start with lower weight and make bigger jumps if you feel your getting tired around week 3 or 4 on the previous cycles. starting lower and making bigger jumps takes some of the fatigue factor away.
OR... two things we have done that work really well, have been to do a cycle with monday and wednesday the same, but take fridays workout and turn it into either 5 singles, or into a westside style DE day. If the friday workout is 5 singles, then you again have the choice of doing the 5 singles with a weight that is say 20lbs above mondays weight and trying to make a PR 5 sets of 5 mark at the end, or of keeping the 5 sets of 5 at a slightly lower weight than maximal, and pushing the singles up to a PR weight at the end. If you choose the second option, you can also try decreasing the number of singles each week by one, so that at week 5 you are going for a true max single. If you are doing this, increasing mondays workout by 10-15lbs for the first 3 weeks, then decreasing it by 10-15lbs a week for the last 2 weeks is a good option.
If you use the westside DE day as fridays workout, you again have several options. you can use 6 weeks as your cycle length, and do 2 of the 3 week waves that louie likes on friday, incorporating a higher weight single into each workout at the end of fridays DE work, and trying for a new max single on friday, OR you can keep the DE work fairly light, and push mondays training hard and try for a new max 5 sets of 5, or 5 sets of 3, or whatever scheme you are doing on monday.
whatever you choose eventually, you should do it the way i initially described it for the first cycle, and probably should follow with my second recomendation for the second cycle. if you have never done this style of training before, keeping the weight relatively low on monday and concentrating on a higher single set of 5 on week 4 or 5 will help you get used to it without the strain of all out training with 5 sets of 5 when you are not really ready for it. after a 4 or 5 week introduction, you will be ready to really push the harder monday workout, and should be able to really make gains by doing so. going straight back to the first cycle for your third time thru is usually the best option from what i have found. after really pushing the monday 5 sets for a month, you should be ready to make a much bigger single set of 5, and backing off of mondays weights a little and pushing the single set on friday will help you realize your new potential for a big single set. from here its anyones guess, but you should by this time be familiar enough with how your body is responding, how tired you are getting, etc, to know what to go to for your next cycle.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The Ultimate Training Split and Ultimate Split FAQ
The Ultimate Training Split
One of the most frequent questions I get asked is the topic of training splits. When putting together non-personalized routine samples that can be applicable to most people I have some basic beliefs and principles I follow:
1. I believe in the athletic world we're on the verge of something similar to what happened in the bodybuilding world some 15-20 years ago with the popularization of Stuart McRobert and Hardgainer training. If you're not familiar with hardgainer training, it evolved in natural bodybuilding as a philosophy that most people simply did not have the ability to make muscle gains following the popular routines promoted in the muscle magazines due to an inability to recover from such high volumes of work.
2. Even today in the sport of bodybuilding there is an abundance of information that is unsuitable for the majority of natural lifters, but 15 or 20 years ago it was much, MUCH worse. There was no internet and the information given in the popular books and periodicals never stated that the information contained within would only work for those with one in a million genetics using massive amounts of steroids. The majority of the general public is under the assumption that those with the biggest muscles must know the most about how to build an awesome physique. However, the fact is the popular training methods that have created most of the world class physiques don't work for the average trainee.
Today natural bodybuilders are much more educated - we have the internet and acquiring solid information is not a difficult task. Yet back 15 or 20 years ago most bodybuilders didn't have a chance.
3. As an example, like a lot of people when I first got involved with lifting I trained primarily to improve my appearance. At the time all the magazines promoted the theme that if you were serious about bodybuilding you should train each muscle group twice a week for 20 to 25 sets for a total of 6 training days each week with only one day off. This was back in 1991. At the time the one bodypart per day with high volume was just coming into vogue. This is currently similar to what most pro bodybuilders follow, but at the time it was considered a lower volume split ideal for natural trainers and those with less than optimal recovery ability. To give you an idea a typical split might look something like this:
mon: chest - 20 to 30 sets
Tues: hamstrings - 20 sets
Wed: shoulders - 20 sets
Thurs: Quads- 20 sets
Fri: back 20 sets
Sat: arms 20 sets
Sun: off
Now, keep in mind, in 1991 that was considered a LOW VOLUME bodybuilding routine!
Obviously most people won't be able to progress on that set-up. The volume is simply too high.
4. Finally a man by the name of Stuart McRobert started writing about "Hardgainer" training. I first read about Stuart McRobert in IronMan magazine. Stuart wrote routines that catered to natural athletes with less than optimal genetics. The basic maxims of hardgainer training are:
1. Train less frequently and with less volume
A typical hardgainer routine might have 2 to 3 workouts per week for a total of 6 to 8 hard sets per workout.
2. Focus on making strength gains in big compound movements.
The mindset of a hardgainer is to get up to a 300 pound bench press 400 pound squat and 500 pound deadlift.
3. Focus on full recovery between sessions
A hardgainer should not train until they can go in the gym and make progress.
A sample 2 day per week hardgainer routine might look like this:
Day one:
Squat- 2 x 5, 1 x 20
Stiff-legged Deadlift 1 x 15
Pull-up or Pull-down 2 x 6-8
Barbell Curl 2 x 6-8
Day Two: (3-4 days later)
Bench Press or Incline Press- 2 x 6-8
Dip- 1 x 15
Military Press- 2 x 6-8
Abs- 2 x 15
Repeat workout one 3-4 days later.
A 3 day per week hardgainer routine might look like this:
Day One - Mon
Dips or Bench Press 2 x 6-8
Incline Press 2 x 10-12
Military Press 2 x 6-8
Tricep extensions 2 x 10-12
Day Two - Wednesday
Squats 2 x 10
Deadlifts 1 x 10
Leg curl - 2 x 10
Day Three - Friday
Pull-Up 3 sets to failure
Barbell Row 2 x 8
EZ-Bar Curl 1 x 10
Abs 3 x 10
Quite low volume isn't it? However, there are few people who can't make consistent strength gains on that routine.
5. Although some now argue that the hardgainer philosophy went a little extreme with extremely low volume and excessive recovery recommendations (and I agree), most natural bodybuilders to this day will make better gains focusing on strength gains with a more moderate volume setup than any routine that they pull out of a standard bodybuilding magazine.
Let's say you took a natural bodybuilder and built him up to the following lifts:
Incline Bench Press: 400 x 10
Squat: 405 x 20
Stiff Leg dead: 375 x 20
Pullup: BW + 75 x 10 reps
Dips: BW + 100 x 10 reps
Curl: 135 x 20 reps
Do you think the bodybuilder that could achieve those lifts would have built a significant amount of size? Heck yeah! Now what if those were the ONLY lifts that he did and he simply focused on each of them in a progressive fashion? Well, that is what powerlifters do and there are no shortage of muscular powerlifters out there. But the average bodybuilder will get lost in the details (the pump and volume), and shortchange himself in the long run.
The point is, in the bodybuilding world there are those with the genetics to be pro bodybuilders and then there is everybody else. (Hardgainers). Those with less than optimal genetics will not get great gains training on routines that work well for the elite people and do better focusing on basics.
So How Does This Relate To Sports Training?
7. Along the same lines of what I just covered, I believe that in the athletic world there is a wide range of recovery ability between different people and the average trainee does not recover that well using volumes that work just fine for typical high level athletes. Basically, there are Division I and Pro athlete type genetics and then there is everybody else. Those D-1 or pro athletes are essentially the "pro bodybuilders" of the performance world. Based on my experiences and observations over the past several years, I believe many more people screw up by adding things to their program and overcomplicating things than they do by keeping things simple and focusing on a few basic factors. We get so caught up in the "how's" and the millions of various pertubations of putting things together that we forget to focus on the "what's".
An athlete has to worry about conditioning, skill work, mobility, nutrition, strength, reactivity, movement work and a ton of other things. By the time you have all that factored in you have a lot of room for over-complication and little room for recovery. If you don't recover you will not progress. There are some people out there who really love to capitalize on the cutting edge seeking mentality of the public and they can make sitting on the pot as complicated as the Pythagorean Theorem. When in doubt I tell people to go to a powerlifting meet and turn off the computer. The Primal atmosphere will remind you what it takes to make progress.
8. Average athletes that try to emulate what works for genetic wonders or doped up athletes will be met with less than satisfactory results until they've been training a long while and have built up their recovery ability. It's better to undertrain a little than it is to overtrain at all. If you overtrain progress will be ZERO, NADA, ZILCH. If you undertrain your gains may not come at lightning speed but at least they will come consistently.
8a. This is not just true for beginner and intermediate athletes either. To give you an example, over the past couple of years I've had the opportunity to work with or advise quite a few college level track and field athletes. All of them were either from high level university track programs or were advanced in their knowledge and following popular well thought out templates. Even though there were a few individual differences, they all seemed to have the same basic problems. All of them showed me what they were doing and I aproached each in the same general manner - I made a few minor adjustments but for the most part I just cut down on their volume and gave them a few basic goals to shoot for. Not a single one failed to note impressive improvements.
9. Here are a few basic principles I believe most people could benefit from with regard to regulating training volume:
A: I believe 3 hard training days per week is optimal for most people.
B: I believe most people should have a day off after every hard training session.
(Neither of these tenets means that a person should do absolutely nothing on off days, it just means that anymore than 3 tough hard workouts per week is pushing it for a lot of people.)
C: I believe full body workouts will over-tax the recovery ability of most athletes except very raw beginners who aren't yet able to train at a high level of intensiveness.
D: The more recovery days you have between intensive weight training sessions, the more "extraneous" sport-specific and conditioning work you can tolerate. A recipe for disaster for most athletes is to come in the weight room and train lower body hard on mon, wed, and fri and do conditioning or sport specific work on tues, thurs, and saturday.
E: Many athletes get good results training upper body on monday, lower body on wednesday, and upper body on friday. However, the upper body muscles don't really get optimal recovery since they are trained each week on both Monday and Friday. That leaves only 2 days between intensive training sessions.
F: We can spend days talking about absolute strength, reactive strength, explosive strength, rate of force development, agility, flexibility, and ever other advanced scientific performance topic under the sun, but 90% of improvements in all that can be summed up with the following:
1. Lift weights to get stronger
2. Do plyos to jump higher
3. Run sprints to run faster
4. Stretch consistently to get flexible
If your weights are getting heavier, your jumps are getting higher, your sprints are getting faster, and you're moving and feeling well, you're on the right track.
What if we took and athlete and in 3 years we did the following:
Squat: 135 max to 450 pound max
Deadlift: 155 max to 500 pound max
Vertical Jump: 20 inch vert to 35 inch vert
20 yard dash: 3.15 seconds to 2.55 seconds
Box Jump: 2 feet to 5 feet
Bench Press: 95 pounds to 350 pounds
Pull-up: 0 to 20
Would anyone complain about those numbers? Probably not. But what if THOSE WERE THE ONLY LIFTS AND MOVEMENTS WE DID AND WE SIMPLY TOOK THE MINDSET OF BUILDING THEM UP IN A PROGRESSIVE FASHION?? That way each workout we would have a direct gauge as to our ability to lift more weight, jump higher, and run faster. Now, that might get a bit boring, but the point is it would work well for many because they have clear cut objectives each and every workout.
10. The above points led me to the development of what I call my Ultimate Split. The ultimate split is a 3 day per week cyclical scheme that can work great for just about anyone. The reason I call it "The Ultimate Split" is for the following reasons:
A: It allows one to focus on the main objectives
B: It eliminates (in my mind) the main reasons people fail
C: It is very easy to implement
D: It is easy to teach and recall
D: It is easy to adjust
F: It can be easily modified to fit any advanced philosphy (dual factor, concentrated loading, etc.)
If I could sum up the ultimate split in a few points I'd say:
1. Set up 2 upper body workouts and 2 lower body workouts.
2. Train every monday, wednesday and Friday and rotate through the 4 workouts.
3. Take a mindset of making strength gains in something each time you repeat a particular workout. If you are training effectively within your ability to recuperate you should be seeing progress in the form of strength or performance increases from workout to workout or week to week. These don't have to be big increases.
4. Do some movement, plyo, or speed work prior to each workout and choose movmeents that can easily be monitiored for performance increases. Examples include jumps for max height, timed sprints, timed shuttles, box jumps etc.
5. Treat your movement, plyo, and speed work just like you treat your lifting - don't do it just to do it, do it to make progress each time you repeat a workout.
Here is an example of how to organize weight training workouts that most athletes can use to push their strength numbers way up:
Foundational Split
Set up 2 upper body workouts and 2 lower body workouts and alternate between them on an every other day basis with weekends off.
Workout 1: is Chest, Chin-ups, and arms in that order
Workout 2: is Squats, hamstrings, calves and forearms in that order
Workout 3: is Shoulders, Rows, chest, and arms in that order
Workout 4: is Deadlifts, squats, calves, and forearms in that order
Monday (workout 1)
Bench Press or Board press variation 4 x 3-5
Wide Grip chin 4 x 6
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press 3 x 8
Barbell or Dumbbell Curl 3 x 8
Skull Crushers 3 x 10
Wednesday (workout 2)
Squat or box squat 4 x 5
Glute/Ham Raises or pullthroughs 3 x 10
Ab work 3 x 10
forearms 2 x 20-30
Friday (workout 3)
Incline bench press or Shoulder Press 4 x 5
Rows 4 x 8
Tricep pushdowns 2 x 10
Preacher curl 2 x 10
Ab work 3 x 10
Monday (workout 4)
Deadlift or rack deadlift 4 x 5
Single leg squat variation 2 x 10
Calf Raises 3 x 15
Forearms 2 x 20
Wednesday (Repeat workout 1)
Friday (Repeat workout 2)
Sets should be terminated at the point right before form starts to break down. Rotate the lifts about every 4-8 weeks or whenever a lift stalls. You can use different exercises if you like.
Here are some examples of exercise choices
Workout #1
Chest: Bench press or dumbell press, incline press, DB incline press, decline DB press
Chinups: Wide, medium, or close grip overhand, neutral (palms facing), or under-hand
Shoulders: Side lateral, front lateral, incline lateral
Biceps: Curl variation
Triceps: Dips, pushdowns, triceps extensions. overhead extensions
Workout #2
Squats: Back squat, box squat, front squat
Single leg deadlifts: Bent leg variation, straight leg variation
Hamstrings: Glute Ham, Reverse hyper, leg curl
Workout #3
Shoulders: Military press, Neutral grip DB press
Rows: T-bar row, cable row, single arm row
Chest: Crossover or flye variation
Arms: Dips, extensions, pushdowns, curl variant
Workout #4
Deadlifts: Deadlifts, Wide-grip deadlifts, Rack pull
Single leg squat: Bulgarian split squat, single leg pistol squat
Hamstrings: Glute ham, leg curl, reverse hyper
Choose one exercise for each body-part or movement. Stick with whatever exercise you choose for at least 3 workouts.
Sets and Reps
There are a multitude of ways to regulate the sets and reps and many that I use. Here is an easy way to do it and what I call the "money-set" method. This is a lot like the max-effort method. The basic tenet of the money set method is each time you repat a particular workout you work up to at least ONE SET where you lift either more weight or do more reps then you did for your best set the last time you did the workout. Generally speaking, you'll do between 2-5 sets per exercise adding weight each set and working up to at least one maximum effort for a given number of reps. For example, say my last workout on incline dumbell press looked like this and my target rep range was 8:
pushups x 15
feet elevated pushups x 10
50 pound dumbells x 8
60 pound dumbells x 8
70 pound dumbells x 9 * money set
70 pound dumbells x 8 (tried to beat 9 but couldn't)
So, you can see I did 4 pretty hard sets but only one was a real money set. Next time i do that exercise I gotta beat 9 reps with 70 lbs.
As soon as you can do 3 more reps than your target rep range increase the load by 2-5%. So, if I did 200 pounds for 6 reps on squat the last workout and 200 pounds for 8 reps this time, the next workout I'd increase the load by 5-10 pounds and once again do as many reps as possible building back up to 8 reps.
Another method I use is the sub-maximal volume method. With this method you do all sets with the same weight starting with a weight that will not be quite an all out effort. Each workout you reduce the reps and increase the weight by about 5%.
So it will look something like this:
workout 1: 4 sets x 6 reps with 100 lbs.
workout 2: 4 sets x 5 reps with 105 lbs.
workout 3: 4 sets x 4 reps with 110 lbs
workout 4: 4 sets x 6 reps with 105 lbs (use at least as much weight as you used during the 2nd workout)
For most people I prefer the working up to a daily max method but either progressive resistance method will work fine. The idea is you're consistently adding weight to the bar.
The repetition range you choose for various exercises is basically up to you but here are some guidelines:
Rep Ranges
1-3 reps deadlifts
4-6 reps bench press variations, squats
6-8 reps single leg squats and deadlifts, glute hams, leg curls
8-12 reps curls and triceps
12-15 reps reverse hypers, laterals, crossovers, flyes
Keep a Log Book
Ultra Important! This is the most important part of the program. Each time you do a workout write how many reps you did the last workout and how many reps you did this workout and try to beat it each time.
What about making the routine into an athetically oriented routine?
Ahhh...now we're talking about getting into the good stuff that really makes the Ultimate Split work so well. To do that all you'd need to do is add some movement and plyo work. Here is how you might do that:
1. Do it either prior to or after your upper body workouts
2. Do it at a separate time of day
3. Do it on days after your upper body workouts
4. Do it prior to your lower body workouts
I generally recommend you do it prior to your workouts. What are some examples of movement and plyometric work? Good question.
Movement efficiency exercises:
1. single leg box jumps (sets of 3-5)
2. single leg lateral hops (sets of 5-10 seconds)
3. low squat hops (sets of 5-10 seconds)
4. Drop jumps (sets of 3-5)
5. Lateral barrier jumps (sets of 5-10 seconds)
Plyometric and speed work:
1. running jumps for height
2. standing jump for height
3. on-box jumps
4. broad jumps
5. sprints (choose distances from 10-40 yards)
6. shuttle drills
7. single leg triple jump
8. resisted sprints
9. Depth jumps for height
Pick one movement efficiency exercise and 1 plyometric and speed exercise each workout and hit the speed/plyo movements hard JUST LIKE YOU DO YOUR WEIGHT ROOM WORK and try to beat your performance each time. Very Important! Treat the speed and plyo work just like you would the weights and try to improve on your performance and make progress each and every workout.
The movement efficiency stuff will be easy and is more of a warm-up but on the plyo and speed work stop the workout as soon as it's obvious you're not going to improve on your best effort of the day. The might take only a few sets or it might take 50. But as long as you're improving keep at it. As for exercise choice, you can either stick with a given movement each workout for a given length of time or you can rotate through them at your convenience. You're generally going to have better results if you stick with a given movement for at least 3-6 consecutive workouts. Use a stopwatch, tape measure, or some other tool and really try to get after it.
Alright, so let's take a complete trial run through the entire program complete with exercises, sets, and reps for all movement, plyo, and weight work. On the weight room work, work up to at least one hard set for the rep range listed.
Workout 1- Monday
dynamic warm-up
Lateral Barrier Jumps - 3 x 10 seconds
20 yard sprints- repeat until times drop-off
Upper body warm-up: Pushups, band external rotation
Dumbell Bench press- sets of 5 (work up to 5 rep max)
Weighted Pullups - sets of 8 (work up to 8 rep max)
Side incline laterals- sets of 15
Preacher curl- sets of 10
Close grip decline bench press - sets of 8
Tuesday: off
Workout 2- Wednesday
dynamic warm-up
single leg lateral hops - 4 x 10 seconds per leg
Plyo/Speed work
Standing broad jumps- stop when distances drop-off
Squats- sets of 6
Single leg bent leg deadlift- As many reps as possible (if more than 10 add weight)
Glute ham raise- sets of 8
wrist curl- sets of 50 reps
Reverse wrist curl - sets of 50 reps
Pulldown Abs- sets of 20 reps
Thursday- off
Workout 3- Friday
Dynamic warm-up
Movement efficiency
low squat hops - 3 x 10 seconds
Plyo/Speed
40 yard sprints- stop when times drop off
Upper body warm-up pushups, band external rotations
Military Press- sets of 6
T-bar row- sets of 8
Flat cable crossover- sets of 15
Incline DB curl- sets of 8
Decline triceps extension- sets of 8
Sat and Sun: off
Mon- Workout 4
Dynamic warm-up
Movement efficiency
single leg box jumps- 3 x 3 front, medial and lateral
Plyo/Speed
single leg triple jump (take 3 consecutive hops on one leg - work towards getting the distance up to 3 x the distance of your regular broad jump)
Deadlift- sets of 3-5 reps
Bulgarian split squat- sets of 8 reps
Reverse hyperextension- sets of 15 reps
Wrist curl- sets of 50 reps
Reverse wrist curl - sets of 50 reps
weighed swiss ball abs- sets of 20 reps
Modifying The Routine Into More of An Explosive Set-up
Now what if we were training an athlete that already had a great base of strengthh in place and only needed to work on getting more explosive?
That would be very simple. You would leave the movement and plyo stuff exactly like it is now. All you'd need to do is, depending on the extent of your deficiencies, either modify one or both of the lower body weight training workouts to more speed oriented movements so they look like this:
Workout 2- Wednesday
dynamic warm-up
single leg lateral hops - 2 x 10 seconds per leg
Plyo/Speed work
Standing broad jumps- stop when distances drop-off
Jump Squats with pause x 30% x 5 reps
Rythmic 1/4 Jump Squats x 15% x 10 reps
Single leg bent leg deadlift- As many reps as possible (if more than 10 add weight)
wrist curl- sets of 50 reps
Reverse wrist curl - sets of 50 reps
Pulldown Abs- sets of 20 reps
Mon- Workout 4
Dynamic warm-up
Movement efficiency
single leg box jumps- 3 x 3 front, medial and lateral
Plyo/Speed
single leg triple jump (take 3 consecutive hops on one leg - work towards getting the distance up to 3 x the distance of your regular broad jump)
Snatch Grip high pull x 3 reps
Jump Squat x 20% x 10 reps (repeat sets until performance starts to drop-off)
Wrist curl- sets of 50 reps
Reverse wrist curl - sets of 50 reps
weighed swiss ball abs- sets of 20 reps
I will be putting up another article with an Ultimate Split FAQ where I'll talk about concentrated loading, back-off weeks and other various troubleshooting questions.
-KellyUltimate Split FAQ
How much weight should I try to increase workout to workout?
One important thing is ensuring that you do not try to add weight to the bar faster than your body is actually building strength. Adding weight to the bar by loosening your form and speeding up your rep speed does nothing but stoke your ego and set you up for injury. Use proper form and remember that small increases are sustainable. That might mean you increase one-half to two pounds on the smaller movements like triceps or curls and one to five pounds for the big movements like squats and deadlifts. Assuming one bench presses one day a week and is able to add but one pound to the bar each workout that still amasses a 50 pound increase in bench press in a year. Having said that, progress will not always be linear and there will probably be times when you have to cut back the poundage to let the body recuperate.
How do I know when it's time to cut back on the intensity and how do I do that?
You will eventually get to a point when repetition or weight increases are no longer possible. When you've gone 2 consecutive workouts without any improvements it's generally a good time to cut back. What I recommend here is you take a few days off then spend a week or 2 using reduced volume, intensity, or frequency. You can still train on the same schedule but lighten up on the weights so they're no heavier than 80% of your maximum effort. You also might experiment with new exercises. These deload weeks (or 2 weeks) should be inserted every 3-8 weeks for most people.
My upper body workouts seem like they are taking too long.
Move your back and bicep exercises to lower body day and consider moving the abs and forearms to upper body day.
So instead of:
Monday (workout 1)
Bench Press or Board press variation 4 x 3-5
Wide Grip chin 4 x 6
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press 3 x 8
Barbell or Dumbbell Curl 3 x 8
Skull Crushers 3 x 10
Wednesday (workout 2)
Squat or box squat 4 x 5
Glute/Ham Raises or pullthroughs 3 x 10
Ab work 3 x 10
forearms 2 x 20-30
You would have this:
Wide Grip chin 4 x 6
Barbell or Dumbbell Curl 3 x 8
Squat or box squat 4 x 5
Glute/Ham Raises or pullthroughs 3 x 10
I need to focus a little more on size. How can I do that?
Two options:
A: After your heaviest set for a given exerise do a "back-off" set where you do one more higher rep set of 15-20 reps per bodypart.
B: Insert a rest-pause pump style set. Immediately after your heaviest set for a given exercise set the weight down, rest 20 seconds, and knock out as many reps as possible. Set the weight down again, rest 20 seconds, and again knock out as many reps as possible. Do this for a total of 2 to 4 times. If you can't get at least 5 reps reduce the weight. This works particularly well on stubborn bodyparts if you superset a compound movement with an isolation movement. For example, for chest you might do a compound pressing movement like dumbell presses as your heavy movement. Immediately after your last set perform a flye variation in rest pause style.
Since I have more than a week between lifts I feel stale and the lift feels unfamiliar to me when I do them. What can I do about this?
Some people are motor morons. They need more exposure to a movement or they forget how to do it. If this is the case I would add in a couple of sets of that lift on days where the focus is on other lifts. For example, if you had a squat day and a deadlift day for your 2 lower body workouts and you were struggling on the squat you could then add in a couple of sets of squats on your deadlift day too. If you had a Dumbell bench press on one upper body day and a military press on your 2nd upper body day and you wanted to focus more on your dumbell bench you could add in a couple of sets of that after your military presses on day 2.
Do these extra lifts at about 80-90%% of max effort. So, if you did sets of 200 pounds for 5 reps on your main squat workout, you'd come back and knock out a couple of sets of 5 with 180 pounds in the 2nd workout.
What about conditioning or cardio work - When would I do that?
Do it on days that you're not training or lifting.
Is there a way I can implement concentrated type loading into this template?
Yes, there are several ways:
1. For strength work: If there is a particular lift that you'd like to drive up quickly, you can train it as often as 3 days per week at the beginning of the weights portion of each workout.
For example, if you wanted to focus on bench press here's how a concentrated phase might look:
Mon: Bench press - 4 sets of 3 at 85%
Wed: Bench press - 5 sets of 2 at 90-95%
Fri: Bench press - 5 sts of 2 at 80% (light)
You'd do this at the beginning of each weight training workout and basically keep the rest of the workouts the same with the exception of a slightly reduced volume of pressing movements. After 4-6 weeks on this phase, you'd eliminate the extra pressing and that would provide an automatic intensification phase.
2. For speed and plyo work: On the "performance" movement done at the beginning of each workout, simply stick to the same movement each workout. For example, if you really wanted to focus on sprinting speed you'd do some type of timed sprint at the beginning of each workout. You might do 20's on Monday, 60's on Wednesday, and 40's on Friday. Or if you really wanted to focus on your jumps you might do depth jumps on all 3 days. Follow that for 2-4 weeks than cut back the volume or switch to something else.
3. For general work capacity: Follow the regular template and insert conditioning work on Tues, Thurs, and Saturday. Keep it in for 4-6 weeks then cut it back to one day per week. When you cut it back you should see an increase in performance as your work capacity will be greater and you'll be better recovered without the extra conditioning.
Workout Templates For Various Athletes
Workout Templates For Various Athletes
General Guidelines and Principles:
1. The body does not know whether you're doing a higher-faster-sports, westside, HIT, swiss ball, kettlebell, or any other system. It only knows stimulation and recovery. Most training schemes do provide some stimulation and no routine is perfect.
1a. Exercises and routines are just "tools" to improve performance. No tool is more important then whether or not the tool gets the job done. If your car breaks down, it doesn't matter if you use a rock, a crescent wrench, bailing wire, or an entire set of snap on tools to fix it, the important thing is that it gets fixed. Raising performance is the same way.
1b. Most people probably tend to use too many "tools" per training session. Improvement in mobility means you move more freely and easily, improvement in speed work means you run faster in a straight line, improvement in agility means you get better at moving while changing direction, improvement in plyo work means you tend to get better at jumping, while improvement in strength means you get better at developinig tension typically demonstrated by an ability to lift heavier loads. It doesn't necessarily take a boatload of tools to improve those qualities. The ability for the human organism to adapt to stimulation existed prior to the invention of all the high-tech training tools we have today. Stimulation for caveman consisted of dealing with everyday life (chasing prey, running away from predators, lifting rocks to build a hut etc.) You could take a knowledgeable athlete today and put him on a deserted island, and, if he knew what he were doing and had enough food, he could stimulate performance improvements without a single tool modern day tool to work with.
1c. The ultimate goal should be to get your knowledge of "stimulation" and "recovery" down so well that you can program your body like a computer and know what happens in advance. (Example: Adjust this, adjust that, insert this, delete that, and here's what's gonna happen.)
1d. Most people do too much overanalyzing of various training minutia and not enough actual training. In in doubt, pick 3 or 4 things and get really good at them.
1e. If combining strength training, speed, agility, plyo, etc. into one workout, always do the faster stuff first. (ex. dynamic mobility followed by speed followed by plyo followed by weights)
1f. If workouts are separated into AM and PM sessions you have some leeway as to what you do first (strength and/or speed)
2. Volume of plyo, speed, and agility work should always be regulated based upon performance. As soon as performance or speed starts to decline on a main movement (assuming you're taking full rest intervals, which you should), stop the workout. (It's as simple as that).
2a. Unless you're a sprinter, you should rarely ever run distances greater than ~ 50+ yards for speed work.
2b. A set of plyo, speed, or agility work should rarely exceed 10 seconds in duration.
2c. The choice of drills chosen for plyo and agility work is not that important in the grand scheme of things. Plyo consists of unilateral and bilateral (1 and 2 leg) hops, jumps and bounds (they all do the same thing). Agility consists of moving forwards, sideways and backward and changing direction. A simple jump for height is one of the best plyo maneuvers there is. Basic change of direction drills will get the job done for agility. If you play any sort've sport as frequently as two times per week, chances are your needs for specific plyo and agility training are ZERO. Save the plyo and agility work for the offseason and preseason.
2d. With that being said, you know that speed work should consist of sprints for 0 to 50 yards, plyo work consists of hops, jumps, and bounds for less then 10 seconds, while agility work consists of moving forward, sideways, and backward with changes of direction for less then 10 seconds per set. You also know that a workout for any of those qualities should be terminated when performance declines due to fatigue. So how difficult is it really to design and implement a plyo, speed, and agility workout? Not very.
3. Monitoring volume strictly by "performance" on strength work is not such an issue, as muscle growth stimulation is often a goal and does require a certain level of fatigue, which means the load that you can lift at the end of a session may not be the same as the load you lift at the beginning of a strength session, (which is not true when targeting speed, agility and plyo improvements). Two to five sets per strength movement is the norm.
3a. An upper body strength workout would generally consist of some type of upper body push (bench press variation), some type of pull (row or pullup), along with perhaps some supplemental shoulder and "beach" (aka arm) work.
3b. A lower body strength workout would generally consist of some type of squat or deadlift (squat, deadlift, lunge, split squat), along with some type of assistance movement for the glutes and hams.
3c. For strength and power, sets of 3-5 reps are optimal. For hypertrophy, sets of 5-12 are typically optimal.
3d. For strength development heavy loads of 85%-100% for sets of 1-5 reps are optimal. For power development lighter loads of 10-60% are optimal.
3e. As a general recommendation, each strength training workout you do may consist of one core strength or power movement for sets of 1-5 reps along with 1 or 2 assistance movements for 5-12 reps, and maybe an ab movement for 2-4 sets of 10-20 reps.
3f. The need for upper body "power" work using loads of 10-60% is virtually nonexistent for any athletes other then powerlifters. With regards to upper body work, an athlete should be lifting heavy focusing on getting stronger and/or bigger.
3g. Until an athlete has a base of lower body strenght in place (1.5 to 2 x bw squat and deadlift), specific lighter lower body "power" work in the weight room using loads of 10-60% is also largely useless. These people should concentrate on core movements with progressively heavier bar weights with an emphasis on getting stronger and/or bigger.
3h. Most people will make excellent gains with two upper body workouts per week and either 1 or 2 lower body workouts per week. Beginners seem to progress fastest with 3 of each per week.
3i. Ab work might consist of weighted crunches, standing pulldown abs, kneeling pulldown abs, decline leg raises, hanging leg raises, cable wood chops, russian twists, dumbell and cable side bends, side bends lying sidways in back extension device.
4. Generally speaking, it's benefical for intermediate and advanced athletes to take a day of rest in between high intensive training elements. High intensive training elements include the aforementioned speed, plyo, agility, and strength work. For younger athletes (<16>
4a. With regard to strength work, it's usually beneficial to take an "unloading" week ever 3 to 6 weeks. There are many ways of implementing this. probably the simplest is to cut your volume in half and decrease the load keeping things very easy. I generally prescribe something like 3 sets of 3 reps at 80% for strength work during an unloading week.
4b. Providing you can benefit from specific "power" work, it can often be advantageous to alternate 2-4 weeks of heavy strength oriented training (heavy squats and deadlifts for 3-5 reps) with 2-4 weeks of explosive oriented training (speed box squats with 50-60%, jump squats etc.)
5. Skill work and conditioning can be done on alternate days.
6. It can often be advantageous to transition from a 4-8 week phase of higher volume and/or greater training frequency into a phase of lower/volume and/or frequency.
7. If you're training consistently yet not making consistent progress or you're regressing, chances are 10 to 1 you're doing too much. If in doubt reduce volume and simplify your programming.
Basic workout templates
Raw Beginner
Work towards basic strength goals such as: pullup, dip, 50 bodyweight squats, one perfect single leg squat, 25 full v-sits, 1 minute isometric front and side bridge hold
Training should consist of:
mobility, movement efficiency, and strength
For strength purposes 3 times per week get in the gym and focus on exercises such as:
bodyweight squats, lunge, single leg squats onto a box, stepups, supine row, partner assisted or gravitron pullups, partner assisted or gravitron dips, wall sits, plank, glute bridges, overhead broomstick squats etc.plus light form work on box squat and deadlift.
Just pick 4-8 bodyweight type movements for 2-4 sets each, use the bodyweight and go after it. It's difficult to overtrain when using bodyweight as resistance.
Hit mobility, speed, agility, etc. prior to lifting or on opposite days.
Mobility might consist of:
deep walking lunge, alternate pull heel to butt walk, leg swings front to back, leg swings side to side, deep sumo squats, cross under lunge, bird dog, arm circles
Plyo/Speed/Agility might consist of
Skips, karioka, lateral hops, agility: (ex: 5 yard backpedal into 5 yard lateral shuffle into 20 yard sprint), and sprints over distances from 10 to 100 yards.
Standard Beginner Template
This template will also work just fine for intermediate or advanced trainees. The format for mobility, speed, and plyo work would be the same as the raw beginner, but now core lifts make up the strength program on what might be a 2 to 3 times per week basis. A sample strength workout is as follows.
Session A:
Clean or Snatch
Deadlift
Bench press
Ab movement
Session B:
Squat
Incline Press
Weighted Chin
Ab movement
*Alternate between session A & B.
Perform 2-5 sets of 2-5 reps, never to failure, using a step-type loading approach. Increase the weight for 3 consecutive workouts then decrease it for one and build back up.
Example:
session 1 100 x 2 x 3 (3 sets of 2 reps) session 2 105 x 2 x 3 session 3 110 x 2 x 2
session 1 105 x 2 x 3 session 2 110 x 2 x 3 session 3 115 x 2 x 2
session 1 110 x 2 x 3 session 2 115 x 2 x 3 session 3 120 x 2 x 2
Another option based on the same basic theme:
3 whole body workouts per week based on 5 sets of 5 reps:
mobility and movement work done prior to lifting.
Mon- Squat 5 x 5, Pullup 5 x 5, Bench 5 x 5, Glute Ham 4 x 6 (sets of 5 are done with a weight you could do 7-8 times)
Wed- Deadlift 5 x 3, Lunge 2 x 8, Row 3 x 6, DB Bench 3 x 5
Fri- Squat 5 x 5, Pullup 5 x 5, Bench 5 x 5, glute ham/leg curl 4 x 6 (sets of 5 done working up to max 5 reps)
After 4-6 weeks this phase would be alternated with phase E or F below.
More Templates
Option A:
Mon and Thurs- mobility, straight ahead speed, upper body strength
Tues and Fri or Tues and Sat- mobility, plyo, agility, lower body strength
Sample week
Mon- mobility warmup, form running (high knees, skips, various quickfeet drills etc.), 10 yard sprints x 10, 20 yard sprints x 6-8,
Weights - heavy push (some type of bench) working upto 3rm, Heavy row or pullup same as bench, shoulder raise of some sort (front or side), beach work, crunching type ab movement (loaded swiss ball or kneeling crunch etc.)
Tues- mobility warmup, forward and lateral single leg on box jumps x 2 sets each leg lateral and forward, lateral barrier jump 4 sets x 8 reps, some type of agility drill requiring lateral movement for somewhere around 4-8 reps.
weights:
Lower body: Some type of squat or deadlift movement typcially alternate 2-4 weeks of a heavy compound movement like squats or deadlifts for 3-5 reps with 2-4 weeks of a lighter speed movement like speed box squats or jump squats for 4-6 sets of 3-8 reps. Follow that up with maybe some type of unilateral movement generally bulgarian split squats during a heavy phase and steups during a lighter phase along with some type of posterior chain assistance such as glute hams, reverse hypers, pull throughs or whatever for 3-4 sets of 6-10 reps, some type of ab movement.
Wednesday- Off
thursday- Repeat the basic scheme from monday's workout but perhaps do 3-4 sets of 8-10 reps on the pressing and row.
Friday or Sat- Repeat the basic theme from Tuesday's workout, but drop the weights in the heavy compound movement or make a unilateral variation (lunge or split squat) the "core" movement. If in a power phase just repeat the entire workout.
Option B:
Just do 2 full body workouts per week with speed/plyo on alternate days. Each workout attempt to drive the weights up.
Example:
Mon:
Speed/Plyo (10's and 20's for 4-8 reps each)
Tues:
Squat 3-5 x 5
Bench 3-5 x 5
Pullup 3-5 x 5
post. chain- 2-3 x 6-10
ab - pulldown abs- 2-3 x 15-20
Try to drive the weight up each workout.
Wed: off/conditioning
Thurs: Speed/Plyo (20's and 40's for 4-6 reps each or stop at first sign of performance dropoff)
Friday: Weights
Sat: Off/conditioning
Sun: Off
Repeat same basic weight training workout. As soon as you can no longer increase the weights take a week and just do 3 x 3 at 80% of your 3 rep max for each workout and come back the next week and hit it hard. An example of a more detailed lifting progression with this format can be found here
Option C:
Mon- UB Pull and LB posterior chain (chinups, deadlifts)
Wed-UB- Bench, Row, Beach
Fri- UB/LB- overhead press, pullup, front squat
Option D:
Heavy/Light
Basically a repeat of option A - keep the exercises the same but make the second workout 10-20% lighter
Option E:
(this is one of my favorites to alternate with a higher frequency scheme)
Mon- mobility, speed, plyo, or agility and heavy upper body workout
Tues- Off (conditioning optional)
Wed- mobility, speed, plyo, or agility and heavy lower body workout
Thurs- off (skill and conditioning optional)
friday or sat - mobility, speed, plyo, or agility and hypertrophy oriented upper body workout (sets of 5-12)
sun- off
mon- start over
Option F-
This is another one of my favorites.
Alternating every other day setup
Mon- mobility/speed/UB (ex: warmup- 20 yard sprints (stop when time declines), Bench press variation 4 x 3, row variation 4 x 3, external rotation movement, optional beach work, ab movement)
Wed- mobility/plyo/agility LB (ex: warmup, depth jumps -(stop when height declines), shuttle drill 3-6 reps not all out, box squat - 4-6 x 3, glute ham - 4 x 5-8, Abs.)
Fri - mobility/speed/UB (ex: warmup, 40 yard sprints (stop when time declines), DB press varation - 3-4 x 8-12 reps, pullup or row variation, 3-4 x 8-12, ext. rotation movement 2 x 12-15, beach work, abs)
Sun- plyo/agility LB (ex: warmup - depth jumps 4 x 3, shuttle drill (stop when time declines), light box or jump squat - 4-6 x 3-5, glute ham, 4 x 5-8, abs)
Tues- Start over with Mon.
Option G
Another variant of option A above, but instead of doing movement work both on upper and lower body days, combine it all together and do it on lower body days, prior to your lower body lifting.
An example of how to use that schedule alternating strength and power work can be found here
Option H
Bulk up and get strong - This is for the intermediate to advanced level guy or gal who needs strength and size pronto. This template plus a no holds barred attitude at the dinner table and the mindset of doing whatever it takes to get that scale weight up will get the job done. Movement work is optional. The template is:
Mon: Lower body (quad dominant)
Tues: Upper Body (chest dominant)
Thurs: Lower body (hip and hamstring dominant)
Fri or Sat: Upper Body (shoulder dominant)
A precise example of this template can be found here: Designer AthletesSquats and Speed Development?
Squats and Speed Development?
Q: What's the deal with squats. Lately I've been hearing a lot of people say that squats are bad for speed development yet they have helped me so much.
Alright here's the deal. There's a difference between a beginner and advanced trainee. There's a difference between taking your squat from 150 to 300 lbs and taking your squat from 300 lbs to 600 lbs.
The quickest way for a beginner to intermediate level athlete to improve their overall lower body level explosiveness is to improve their relative strength in the squat and science is clear on this.
The average person simply isn't able to bend their knees and apply much force and if you're weak it doesn't matter how quickly you apply force because what you're trying to do is equivalent to trying to blast a space shuttle into orbit or blast a muscle car down the track with a 5 horsepower motor.
Don't Get Cute Until You Need To
You can use all kinds of fancy gadgets, make all kinds of modifications, and spend lots of money on special fuels and the like, but you ain't gonna win any races if you're trying to race with a lawnmower engine! Therefore, the quickest way for most people to boost up their attributes is, you guessed it, increase their ability to bend their knees and apply force!
Now, once you've got your strength levels up to moderate levels, which means at least a 1.5 times bodyweight squat, you can worry about getting fancy modifying your motor to work more efficiently. But until then it's a waste of time.
Don't Go Overboard
Conversely, the person running drag races with a 500 horsepower motor who thinks he can improve by putting a 600 horsepower motor in his car is woefully misinformed. He'd be better off modifying how his motor functions so that he can get more out of it.
Motorcycle Racing and Sports Training - The Parallels
This whole topic reminds me of when I used to race motocross. There were 6 main competitive classes. These were 50 cc, 60 cc, 80 cc, 125 cc, 250 cc, and 500 cc. The "CC" refers to cubic centimeters, or size of the motor. A 500 cc motor is twice as large as a 250 cc and so forth. Each class only races against other riders in that same class.
Get a Bigger Engine and You Get Faster
Now, in motocross classes, the lap times will improve linearly as one goes from 50 cc all the way to 250. The same is not true, however, when one makes the jump from the 250 class to the 500 class. In fact, the opposite is often true. The 250 class riders often turn in better lap times then the 500s. Well, since the 500 cc motor is twice is big as the 250 cc motor how is this possible? Good question. The 500 does have a bigger motor but it's also heavier and bulkier and more difficult to control. The 250 motor tends to be more efficient and runs at higher RPM so the 250 is where it's at in competitive motocross.
The same is true of strength with respect to speed development. Doubling your squat is like taking the motor on your motorcycle from 125 to 250 CC. You can expect to blow away the weaker 125 cc punks. However, taking your squat from say, 350 lbs, all the way to 600 lbs, is like going from 250 cc to 500 cc. Many of you are gonna develop a bigger motor with those additional squatting poundages but you might not be able to translate it into performance improvements. Once you hit 250 cc your ability to apply force by bending your knees should be sufficient so your time may be better spent getting more out of your motor and focusing on muscle group specific strength and speed development.
Muscle Group Specific Strength
So what do I mean by muscle group specific strength and development? Here's what I mean. The function of the human body will largely follow it's form. Charlie Francis used to describe it with the phrase "what looks right flyes right." In other words, a trained eye can look at the way a person is built and tell with amazing accuracy how they will move before ever seeing them move. Occassionally you find someone like KC Chiefs offensive tackle Willie Roaf who seems to defy all logic, but for the most part, "how" a person moves can be determined by simply looking at the way they're put together and their muscular development.
Extensor Dominant Movement = Blazing Speed
OK, now the expression of speed favors a certain type of movement and that is movement that is dominated by the hip extensors, the glutes and hamstrings. In order for movement to be dominated by the hip extensors those muscle groups should be developed to an optimal form that allows the function to naturally follow. Now, the problem is that as strength is developed muscle mass is also developed and as a person begins to advance they reach a point where they can change function because of changes in their form. How the "form" responds to training depends on the individual build of a person. Some people have a lot of natural muscle cells in the posterior chain and few in the quadriceps. Some are the exact opposite.
The muscular balance and build doesn't make a whole lot of difference with respect to vertical jump development but for speed development it does. A person with overly developed quadriceps and lack of hamstring and glute development will tend to be a heel to toe runner and have trouble gliding, planting, and getting off on the balls of their feet. Top speed will suffer on account of this. Even if the posterior chain is developed, in someone that has massive quadricep development, they will still struggle with ideal movement patterns because their body will try to do things that favor the stronger muscle groups.
Scrawny Butts= No Speed + No Explosiveness
Ok, now initially squats are the ultimate cureall for lower body strength and development regardless of the individual. The biggest weakness among young athletes is lack of glute development.
Squats allow one the biggest bang for the buck when strengthening and adding size to the glutes, quadriceps, and hams all in one shot in that order and that's why they are so effective initially.
Eventually, however, as some people meet and surpasses the general strength standards, they begin to accumulate large amounts of muscle mass on the thighs and, depending on their natural structure, the development of their quadriceps can begin to overshadow the development of the hamstrings which is where the problem with squats comes into play. It is these individuals who will then need to change focus.
World class Belgian sprinter Kim Gavaert demonstrates the lower body development that even a "skinniesh" female sprinter possesses.
Here is a nice example of an athlete with massive, yet quad dominant thighs, working on his lower body balance. The first 2 pics were taken 6 months ago on the same day. The last one was after several months of more speed specific training focus. Notice how the quadriceps dwarf everything else in the first 2 pics and in the final pic everything is more even. Even at 5'10 and 215+ lbs this athlete can fly around with the best of them.
Here are some examples of posterior chain development and balance.
Now, if you're one of the people who has adequate leg development and strength in place yet needs to change your the balance how do you do that? Well, for speed development you get away from focusing on exercises where you "bend your knees" and focus on exercises where you extend your hips. So, get away from squatting and focus on extending, where the focus is high RPM strength, which I truly believe a person can never have enough of. That means everything on the backside of your body becomes more important. Deadlift variations, glute hams, reverse hypers and leg curls become your main strength movements and jumps, bounds, and sprints become more important for your development.
So overall follow the athletic development cycle.
1. Get light on your feet (practice your sport specific skills and footwork)
2. Along with #1 increase your ability to move through a full ROM while being light on your feet. (Improve your ability to bend your knees and apply force - That Means Squats!)
3. Improve the ability to extend your hips so that what happens after you've bent your knees will improve.
That's all there is to it!
-KellyHow To Benefit From Planned Overtraining
How To Benefit From Planned Overtraining
One of the biggest debates among coaches and trainers that always arises every few years is the topic of recovery. Some say you need to be beating yourself up week in and week out and always increasing your work capacity by simply doing more, more, and more work over time. Others in the HIT (high intensity) camp emphasize recovery with a mantra that says, "less is always more". So who's right? Are you gonna get better results by constantly training yourself into the ground or will that approach leave you chronically overtrained? Is that overtraining maybe a good thing? Or will you get better results by sitting on your butt 5 days out of every 7 and attacking your workouts with ferocity when you do?? Or will that approach leave you undertrained and so inactive that you pile on enough fat to make Warren Sapp look like a GQ model??
Well first lets define some terminology. What most of us call overtraining is really over-reaching. Overtraining is more like a disease then a temporary state. For 95% of us, "over-reaching" is what we're really referring to when we say overtraining.
Over-reaching-is pushing yourself into a mild state of fatigue with your training. Regression in performance sometimes does occur during an over-reaching period, yet performance rebounds back very quickly, usually above and beyond it's previous level, with a short period of rest or lowered volume (within days). It can be good or bad depending on how you use it.
Overtraining- occurs when you chronically over-reach for months or years on end. This leads to performance regression that can take months to recover from and is associated with multiple and sometimes permanent endocrine disruptions. Although there are some athletes who are chronically overtrained and don't realize it (distance runners, bodybuilders, and some basketball players come to mind), most athletes don't ever reach a true overtrained state.
Another important term is Under reaching.
Under-reaching- occurs when you intentionally "take it easy". This is like taking your foot off the gas in your training intentionally. It also can be good or bad depending on how you do it.
Now let's start with a few key claims I'm going to make. First, let me state that from my observations, the reason many people train hard and consistently and don't make the gains they feel they should, is because they spend too much time over-reaching and not enough time under-reaching. Notice I said "consistent hard trainees" there. That statement doesn't apply unless you train both hard and consistent.
Next, let me state that if you have to choose, you're almost always better off under-reaching then over-reaching unless you really know what you're doing. With those comments you would probably think that over-reaching is a bad, bad, BAD thing. Well, in truth it's quite the opposite. Over-reaching by design can be a very good thing. Notice that I said "unless you know what you're doing". That's what I intend to help you do in this article.
Recovery and Supercompensation
Recovery can be defined as - regaining what was lost - however, for the athlete this is not enough as it returns them only to where they started. Adaptation can be defined as the process of long-term adjustment to a specific stimulus. This process of adaptation can include adjustment in a number of factors such as the athlete's physiology, psychology and mechanics. These alterations can ultimately lead to improved performance - which is a more satisfying goal. We train to get fitness. We want to jump higher, run faster, get stronger, run longer etc. In order to get fit we must stimulate some fatigue so that our body adapts. We must push ourselves beyond our limits some of the time - which is fatigue. Let's call a training cycle a 30-60 day "period" of training. All good periodized training answers this question: What is the optimal amount of fatigue to induce over the course of the next training cycle in order to optimize the fitness that results from it?
Example
In other words, if I want to run faster and jump higher 30 days from now, how tired should I make myself this week and next week so that when I test myself in 30 days, I'll run faster and jump higher? All things being equal, if I do no training (assuming I'm not in an over-reached state) then I likely will not improve at all, and in fact may slip back. On the other hand, if I work out daily and intensely and continue adding volume, I'm also likely to slip back.
So there must be an optimal blend of both fatiguing myself or over reaching (in order to improve) and resting myself or under reaching, so that I can see the gains from the over reaching I've done. Under reach too much and you won't get the results you want because you haven't forced your body to adapt; over reach too much and you won't get results because your body is shot.
The rest of this article is about how to solve this puzzle and determine how to intelligently over reach at the beginning of a training cycle, under reach at the end of a cycle, in order to boost the overall results of each training cycle.
Walk or Run But Don't Do Both
The basic point I want to make in this article is that you should either be training a little harder then what feels comfortable or a little less then you think you should. This is an implementation of the 2-factor theory model of stress and adaptation. Let's talk a little bit about the 2-factor theory.
The 2 factors represent the relationship between fatigue and fitness. One factor is fitness the other factor is fatigue.
2-factor theory-A stress adaptation model that bases a training plan around the long term relationships between stress and fatigue.
When you train you accumulate both fatigue and fitness. That observation itself should be worthy of a nobel prize. However, what many people don't realize is that the fatigue that accumulates over the course of a training cyle itself "masks" the fitness gains that you make. However, fitness persists about 3 x longer then fatigue. This means that when all traces of fatigue are gone from a bout of exercise or a cycle of training, the fitness gained will persist for 3 x as long as the fatigue. That's why most people make gains when they take a few days off from time to time. What I want to do is show you how to make this process predictable.
Before we get into how to implement the 2-factor theory you first need to understand the one factor theory.
The one factor theory- Is the basic stress adaptation model that is usually taught in high school, bodybuilding, and is the grand de jour model used to explain high intensity training. With this theory you look at physical ability as one short term factor. You load, recover, load, recover - always recovering fully before loading again.
The problem with this approach is you are left with the problem of timing workouts to correspond to the supercompensation wave. Anything sooner or later will lead to a bad workout. Another problem is there is only so much systemic stress that can be thrown on the body in one workout. If you prolong the length of the stress (loading and fatigue) period in the above chart by days or weeks, instead of a single workout, you increase the overall stress. Therefore, providing you do allow recovery to take place after prolonged loading, you increase the height of the supercompensation curve as well.
More on the 2-Factor Theory
You will often here training according to the 2 factor theory called many different things. You'll hear it called concentrated loading, load/unload, step-type loading or any number of other things. It's nothing fancy and most of you are probably already using it to an extent.
Comparing the One-Factor Approach to the 2-Factor Approach
Let's start off by comparing a "one-factor" training approach to a "2-factor" approach. We have 2 four week training schemes. One we'll call "A" and will be the one factor approach. The other we'll call "B" and is the 2-factor approach. Here's what they look like.
A: Here we train according to the traditional supercompensation curve. We train then fully recover, train then fully recover etc. Let's say we train once every 4-5 days and recover completely between workouts for 4-weeks.
B: Here we train hard for the first 3 weeks three times per week so that we never ever are completely recovered from any workouts. Then, on the 4th week we train only once or twice the entire week at a low intensity and low volume. During the 4th week we're allowing fatigue to dissipate so that we can display the fitness we've gained from the previous 3 week's of training. During this low intensity/low frequency week, the physiological indicators we've stimulate the previous 3 weeks "rebound" back up and above where they were before.
Ok. Now if you were to compare those 2 schemes we would find that version B will actually bring about greater gains particularly for intermediate and advanced athletes - That is providing the athletes are in a well rested state prior to initiating the 4 week block of training. Homeostasis is disrupted and prolonged during the 3 week loading period. Although we won't see a whole lot of progress during this 3 week phase itself, when we pull back on the volume during the reduced loading period the functional indicators will then rebound back above baseline. The ultimate "rebound", or performance increase, in scheme B will be greater then the summation of smaller rebounds from scheme A.
So what we're doing is building up fatigue and fitness by over-reaching slightly and then pulling back on the fatigue by under-reaching. Nothing really complicated about it.
Most Athletes Are Already Implementing the 2-Factor Theory and Could Benefit by "Under-Reaching" For a While
Ok. Now the important thing to note is that most athletes are already over-reaching slightly even though they don't realize it! They never allow recovery to take place and some haven't been fully recovered in years. Basketball players are among the worst here. They are never recovered daily, they never allow recovery to fully take place, and thus they don't make gains due to chronic over-reaching. Therefore, I almost always start athletes off with more recovery so that they can allow all the fatigue they've been acumulating during their previous months or years of training to dissipate.
It's also important to realize that recovery doesn't have to be "complete" between training sessions in order for one to experience gains. People are rarely ever 100% completely recovered but still make gains. Athletes in most sports are always experiencing some level of constant fatigue. What you want to do is maximize those gains which you can do by intentionally manipulating the relationship between fatigue and fitness.
Intentionally Creating a Regression in Performance
The magnitude of the incomplete recovery you create during a loading period will vary. In fact, the practice of "shock" concentrated loading is practiced by many countries for different sports. In a traditional concentrated loading phase, the goal IS simply to beat the body into an over-reaching state where the actual goal of the training is a DECREASE in performance. Loading of any primary emphasis may be used (strength work, speed works, jumps etc.)
The lower that performance falls during the loading period (within acceptable limits of 10-15% or so), the greater that performance rises during the unloading period. I don't recommend intentionally loading to the point that performance falls off noticeably due to injury risk, but you can still incorporate and benefit a less intense version of the same process.
How You Can Apply and Benefit From Planned Over-Reaching
The basic tenet is that instead of always looking at each workout as a seperate "fatiguing" session, followed by a seperate "recovery" session of a day or two of rest, begin thinking in terms of weeks. In other words, you have one, two or three weeks which are "fatiguing." Think of this time period the same way some people think of one workout. you accumulate fatigue the whole time, you never "completely" recover. You might make gains but you're never really completely recovered. Then you have another one or 2 weeks in which you train with reduced frequency, volume, or intensity and allow recovery to take place. I favor keeping intensity fairly high, cutting volume by at least half, and slightly lowering frequency. in any event the overall training stress is lower.
The main benefit of the higher volume phase isn't the gains you make on it, but the gains you make when you switch to a lower volume phase.
Accumulation and Intensification
You can also alternate between cycles of incomplete vs complete recovery which is often called accumulation/intensification. Version A I described above (training with full recovery), will work wonderfully when transitioning from a period of increased loading. In other words, accumulate fatigue and train frequently for a while and then transition into a period of time where you train with full recovery between sessions for a while. Say you train 3 x per week for 3-4 weeks and then once every 4 days for 4 weeks. Your gains will be out of this world during the 2nd phase because you heighten your ability to adapt in the first phase. That works very well.
Examples
There are numerous ways we can incorporate a loading/unloading scheme. At it's most basic level a loading period of 2 or more consecutive workouts will be followed by an unloading period of one or more days. An example of this is a simple "block loading" scheme often practiced by endurance athletes that can also be used successfully by others. In fact this is a scheme used in many university team sports. Here we might train hard with weights, sprints, plyos, etc. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and do conditioning on Tuesday and Thursday. We then rest completely on saturday and sunday. By Friday the athlete will be worn down and performance very well may have regressed over the course of the week. Yet by having 2 consecutive days off (Saturday and Sunday), we allow a lot of that fatigue to dissipate. Thus, the body supercompensates and the athlete goes into Monday with enhanced ability - for a few weeks anyway.
Generally speaking, anymore then 3-4 weeks consecutive loading will fail to bring about gains unless a one week unloading period is inserted. The body will tolerate 3 such 3/1 blocks of loading/unloading before a longer recovery period is necessary. This means that we'd do 3 consecutive 3/1 cycles before taking 2-3 weeks of training at a lower intensity.
Should I Seek Out Performance Regression?
The intensity of the loading period will vary as well. During loading periods it's ok for some regression to take place but no more then 10%. That means if your vertical jump is 30 inches you can train yourself to a 3 inch decrease and when you recover fully it'll rebound back up above 30. The same thing goes for your strength etc. Remember, the greater the decrease in function the greater the rebound above baseline during the unloading period. There is one caveat here however. The more regression that takes place the longer your unloading period will need to be. If you train to the point of big time (10%) regression, you will need a 2 week rather then 1 week unloading period.
Specific examples:
Here's an example of an accumulation/intensification cycle for the squat. This is the old 5 x 5 routine first written by Bill Starr and popularized by Glenn Pendlay. Here we train the squat 3 x per week for 4 weeks then twice a week for 4 weeks.
Volume Phase 4 weeks - Deloading Period 1 week - Intensity Phase 4 weeks. Sets and reps for the intensity phase is in parentheses.
M:
Squat 5x5 (3x3)
Bench 1x5 (1x3)
Row 1x5 (1x3)
W:
Squat 5x5 with 15-20% less than Monday (drop this lift)
Deadlift 5x5 (3x3)
Military 5x5 (3x3)
Pullups 5x5 (3x3)
F:
Squat 1x5 (1x3)
Bench 5x5 (3x3)
Row 5x5 (3x3)
Volume Phase - Weeks 1-4:
Use 5 sets of 5 reps with the same working weight for all sets. Increase the weight week to week and try to set records in weeks 3 and 4. For exercises you do twice a week you have a separate day which you perform a single set of 5 reps with the goal of setting records on the 3rd and 4th week for your best set of 5. Don't start the weights too high. Lower the weight if need be but get the sets and reps in - except where you are setting records.
Deloading Week - Week 5:
On week 4 drop the Wednesday squat workout, begin using the Intensity set/rep scheme (in parentheses), and keep the weight the same as your last week in the Volume Phase.
Intensity Phase - Week 6-9:
Everything is the same principal except that you use 3x3 and 1x3 setting records on week 8 and 9. No Wednesday squatting. The important aspect of this phase is the weight increases. If you are so burned out that you need an extra day here and there that's okay. If you can't do all the work that's okay too. Just keep increasing the weight week to week.
Example of Volume Phase Transitioning Into Intensification Phase for a Football Player
Here is a setup I used recently for an athlete preparing for several football tryouts and combines. His lower body strength levels were more then adequately in place but he was coming off a mass gain phase and needed quite a bit of specific on the field speed work, wanted to drop some fat, and needed to increase his upper body strength.
Phase I- high volume/high frequency
This phase consisted of 2 consecutive 3 weeks load/ 1 week unload schemes. The loading portion looked something like this:
Mon- AM: starts, short sprints, agility drills, position specific drills - ~500 yards total. PM: Weights- 3 x 3 at 80% squat, RDL.
Tues- Conditioning- 100 yds x 15 with 30 second rest intervals
Wed- AM:Plyo- speed drills- 4-6 sets depth jumps/ 1 position specific agility drill/ 4 sets straight leg sprints/ 4 sets 60 yard buildups- PM: Maximum Strength Upper Body Training mainly on the bench press
Thurs- Conditioning- 100 yds x 15 with 30 second rests
Friday- AM: start technique, maximum speed sprints and flying 20's, agility drills, position specific drills- 500 yards total. PM: Strength Training - Clean- 3 x 3 85%/Squat 3 x 3 85%/ Glute Ham- 3 x 3
Saturday- AM- Agility technique, buildups, Upper Body strength enduance focusing on the bench press
Sunday- Off
He'd follow that for 3 weeks and then unload for 1 week. The unloading period consisted of 1/2 the volume of on field work on Monday and Friday and elimination of plyo, speed, agility work on Wednesday.
After about 6 weeks of training, it was obvious to me he had got about all he was gonna get from this scheme. He seemed a little burned out and he complained of sore joints. I knew that this just meant he was slightly over-reached and his perfomance would rebound up big time once we tapered into a lower volume phase. He's always been able to transfer functional ability into technical ability. From experience we knew that as his vertical jump goes so does everything else and as his shoulder press and incline press goes so does his bench press. We ended up dramatically lowering the overall lower body volume. On upper body we got him away from the bench press for a while and worked on his weak points. The routine ended up looking like this:
Phase II - Low Volume Intensification
Session 1- LB
Depth Jump, standing triple, one leg hops unto box, - 4-6 sets each x 3-5 reps
Session 1- UB
incline DB Press, Row, Heavy Tricep, Rear delt - 4-6 sets of 5-8 reps each
Session 2 LB
on the track with 60 yd build ups to 90%, 50 yd bounding, lateral hurdle hops, squat runs x 10 seconds. 4-6 sets each
Session 2 UB
Push Press or Push jerk, Pull-up, Bicep, Tricep- 4-6 sets of 3-8 reps each.
Setup
Session 1 LB
off
Session 1 UB
off
Session 2 LB
off
Session 2 UB
Therefore, he was getting 4 days rest between bodypart workouts and 8 days between like sessions. This allows him near full recovery and he was able to set records nearly every workout for a month long period which coincided perfectly with the timing of his workouts and tryouts. EMS was also used on his legs to maintain his strength. It's important to note that the gains from this phase weren't just made from this phase itself, but they were made and set-up in the previous phase as well.
Conclusion
Those are a couple of examples how to set things up. Hopefully you can begin implementing some of these ideas into your training. Stay tuned for a future article on the same topic in which I'll cover how to stimulate that same adaptation by simply engaging in cyclical eating patterns.
-Kelly
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