Creation of an Explosive Mofo - My Training Journal :)

[ChinkNasty]

hey man, good to see you get back into the swing of things. What kind of adjustments are you going to make to avoid overtraining again?

 

[coolcolj]

hey man, good to see you get back into the swing of things. What kind of adjustments are you going to make to avoid overtraining again?

I thought I already mentioned it above?
Anyway you just back off the loads and volume, the stronger you get the more frequently you do it. Just gotta read the signs more.
Won't be a problem right away as I'm pretty weak compared to before, but once I regain my strength, I will go hard for 2 weeks, back off the 3rd week - 50% less volume, 60% less load. Eventually as I continue to get stronger, I will backoff every 2nd week. After that things are going to be more complicated with - medium, light and a heavy weeks in that order, as far as loads/intensity/volume goes

Less gut busting workouts...I sometimes train too hard!

Plus I'm not going be training as long as I used to, way less volume per session, but more frequency. Instead of bombing myself each session and waiting a while to recover, I bomb myself less, but train more often, so I don't make too much inroad into my system so I have problem sleeping, feeling drained and such. Especially now that I am dieting as well
Trying to keep the main part of the workout, not including the warmup, to under 1.5 hours. 1 hour would be better.

----

Well I can tell the change in training setup is already having an effect, 2nd night of over 9 hours sleep. I'm still getting up early due to my bodyclock, but I fall back to sleep after that.
I can lie in bed for a long time before, but I could never actually fall back into deep sleep. Once I have problem getting back to sleep is when I know I'm overreaching...
Hammies still sore, and lower back a bit. Boxsquats today might feel iffy...

weighed 92.6kg 203.7lbs straight out of bed in underwear

Bodyweight going back up again, regaining msucle mass I think, since my waist is actually creeping down. Or could be just food weight, I'm eating more carbs at night now.

 

[coolcolj]

or the Kelly Baggett setup - which is similar to how I used to train except I never learnt to back off at the right time.....

That will work but err on the side of making sure you recover well in between each session. Twice in the same week might be pushing it and will be pushing it for a lot of people I'd set up 2 upper body days and 2 lower body days and rotate through them training every other day with the weekends off.

Day 1 (Mon): upper body bench press, lateral, pullup, bicep, tricep

Day 3 (Wed): lower body squats, ghr, forearms, abs

day 5 (Fri): upper body military press, row, flye, bicep, tricep

day 8 (Mon): lower body split squats, ghr, forearms, abs

day 10 (Wed): repeat day 1

day 12 (Fri): repeat day 3

etc.

Prior to each workout (or at a separate time of day) do a warm-up and one quality performance oriented mag movement to first sign of drop-off. Choices include: broad jumps, vertical jumps, running single leg vertical jumps, sprints, depth jumps, shuttle drill, single leg triple jumps or anything else where you can get a good measure of both performance and improvement. You can either rotate through several of them or use the same one each workout. It doesn't matter. What is important is that you use full recoveries and try to improve each time.

On your strength movements try to increase each workout in either weight or reps. Keep a logbook and write everything down. Each workout you need to know what you did last time and then write down what you did this time.

Go ahead and ride this until you start to stagnate on an exercise. At that time take a week and combine the workouts together into 2 full body workout. Just train twice the entire week with 2 easy sets of 5 reps per bodypart. Once you've done that backoff week, you can either come back and get back on the same plan, or you can modify the plan into more of an explosive oriented set-up. To do that all you'd do is pull out the squats and split squats and replace them with jump squats or olympic lifts. Keep everything else the same.

How's that for a system of training?

Get used to seeing it cuz it's the official JackM split.

What I outlined is basically 2 lower body days every 8 days so it is basically twice per week. Two workouts per week vs 2 every 8 days?? Only one day difference. It simply works better on a 3 day per week training split to set it up that what. I've found the majority of normal non freakish type people get better results with the 3 day per week training split simply because they recover better. With regards to strenght the rate at which you gain won't be dramatically differnt if you train with a little less frequency than what might be perfect for you, but if you over-do the frequency your progress will go nowhere. So it's better to err a bit on the conservative side.

Having said that you could set up something like this and rotate through the workouts the same way:

Mon: upper body
Tues: lower body
Wed: off
Thurs: upper body
Fri: off
Sat: lower body
Sun: off

That will work, but a good percentage of people will end up over-reached on that type of split.

On the 3 day split, there's also room for you in there to engage in other activities besides training and it's not gonna screw you up to such an extent....wanna play basketball, voleyball, etc? Most people do. but if they're already pushing their recovery from their training all that extra activity will do is push them into the zone where they're not making gains due to under-recovery.

 

[ChinkNasty]

thanks man, I think once you get to an advanced stage, knowing when to deload and back off is one of hte hardest things to do especially when you are progressing nicely and feeling strong as hell

 

[coolcolj]

yeah that's why I'm eventually going to force it on myself wether I feel like I need it or not

 

[al420]

Thought I would stop by and let you know I hung up my gym shoes...traded them for some wooden soled addidas.

I started training at the local Oly gym today, so no more BS'ing around for me. Your journal helped me make the decision.

 

[coolcolj]

Thought I would stop by and let you know I hung up my gym shoes...traded them for some wooden soled addidas.

I started training at the local Oly gym today, so no more BS'ing around for me. Your journal helped me make the decision.

thanks and cool stuff - but I hardly train like an olylifter though

 

[coolcolj]

Tuesday 13th March - Cycle 4 Get Lower Body Strong+Get Lean - Week 4 - Day 2 - Upper 1, Light Lower - Microcycle 1

I sorta did 2 separate circuit rotations in the workout. I finished off the main upper body work with the warmup sets for squats, and then did another circuit with the box squats, reverse lunge, situp, toe curls, and external rotations. Pretty short workout, got it in an hour which was the target.

Hammies were a bit tender, but after warming up they were fine. Still undecided on the box squats, they are light, but maybe too much work with the reverse lunges which are to stay. See if my posterior chain can recover ok by Thursday. I'll keep em in for now, but the loads aren't going to go up much and very slowly at that. Posterior chain feels smoked now!

Body weight at gym - 206.5lbs
Workout time - 1 hour
Workout rating - 7/10

General warm up -

15sec ISO holds - quarter squat, on toes, on heels (toes pulled up), hip back wide stance squat at parallel, on side of feet (for ankles), narrow full squat at bottom on toes

1) standing side leg raise x 10 each side
2) dynamic stretches and swings
3) Prone Scorpion - x 12 each leg alternating
4) Braced Scorpion under - x 10 each leg alternating
5) high glute mobility drill x 10 each side
6) hurdle over and unders x5 each direction and leg
7) Behind-the-Neck Band Pull-Aparts - green band held 3/4 length x 10
+ band dislocates with green band held full length x 10. For 2 sets
8) SLDL mobility walks
9) scapular pushup against bench - BW x 5
10) Reach, Roll and Lift - stretches in the same position and 3 quick reps, 3 sec hold x 3 each side, alternating

Rotating Sets between each exercise

Resting 1-2 mins on warm ups and 3 mins between each exercise on work sets


Chest Supported T-Bar Rows - medium overhand grip

warm ups - Paused + hold at top - Bar x 5, +25lbs x 5, +45x5, +70x5

elbows out, chin tucked, paused + hold at top
1) Bar + 90lbs x 5


Dip Shrugs

warm ups - regular 10sec Hold + 3 reps, BW x5

controlled with hold at top
1) BW x 10
2) BW x 10


----

Box Squats - Wide Stance - high bar - Sneakers - no belt

warmups - did one set of front squats, racked rest 30secs, full squat, racked and rest 30secs then a set of box squats

Front Squats - Bar x 5, 95lbs x 5, 135lbs x 3
Full Squats - BW x 5, 95lbs x 3, 135lbs x 3, 185lbs x 3
Box Squats - BW x 10, 95lbs x 10

11 inch box + folded towel - pause and release - no rocking
1) 135lbs x 10
2) 135lbs x 10

During the warmups, I did the front squats and back squats, thinking that I might be able to go quite heavy on em and beat my last workout numbers, not a chance, 185lbs on full squats felt quite hard
Played it smart and stuck with the plan for light box squats. Nice pump in my hammies. I did pause a bit today, but will touch and go next time.

Reverse Lunge - vertical shins, medium wide stance, rear leg kept on the straighter side - 2 sec pause at bottom - sneakers - alternating legs - BW x 3 each side,

1) 95lbs x 4 each side
2) 95lbs x 4 each side

way easier compared to last week with the same load! Strength is coming back

Toe curls on lying leg curl machine - 1 Plate x 6, 2 plates paused top and bottom x 6

Lat Machine situp - BW x 12 (progressively lower each rep with hold at bottom)
hold at middle and bottom on each rep - 25lbs x 6

Elbow on Knee single arm External Rotation

2kgx10, 15lbs x 8 - felt very strong and it's been a while since I did these. ROM has increased a lot, I can go quite a bit below parallel now without pain, especially on my left side.

-----------------------

Cooldown - stretches

sideways situp - BW x 8 each with pause at bottom

reverse hypers - BW x 15

upper and lower body stretches

 

[coolcolj]

Crap sleep, took a while to sleep, and I woke up early. Lower back was killing me last night, boxsquats tweaked it yesterday....
A little sapped, but don't feel drained though. Whole body feels achey, left hammie feels gimpy.

I always thought squatting onto a box was a stupid idea, and now I'm convinced of that! My lower back always feels iffy when doing em, and my form is pretty good and controlled. If I squat in the same style to target the posterior chain, why even bother with the box, squat as low as you can go in the same wide stance hips back form and go ass to the floor IMO.
No more boxsquats for life...

weighed 93.2kg 205lbs straight out of bed in underwear
Regaining muscle mass it seems, I'm still on the diet.

 

[coolcolj]

some Ironmind oly training vids!

Arranda massive frontsquat and clean deadlift, plus a squat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzaHJWwUmxQ

Bulgarian training hall - Vanev 210 kg for five singles in one workout
Boevski (69 kg) back squat 250kg, and front squat Vanev (77 kg) 245 kg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQLVMxtB5d8

clean and jerks plus
sevinic(85kg) front squatting 280 kg
Aranda (77kg) back squatting 290 kg for a double......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5QLojYkVeY

2001 Polish training hall - Szymon Kolecki and Georgi Asanidze (bearded guy, current 85kg olympic gold medalist in 85kg class). yes they bench and do all kinds of stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU79bhwE0TQ