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Author Topic: Need to gain strength in several areas  (Read 1110 times)
7th__Samurai
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« on: March 27, 2007, 05:48:20 PM »

Basically, I have entered into a competition between my brother, father and myself where I stand to either lose a sum of money or gain a sum of money and I would very much like to achieve the latter. The deadline is July fourth and we will then compete

The competition consists of four events: bench, squat, push-ups and pull-ups. So I need to increase the amount I can do in each.

I am not entirely aware of my max in any of these but I’m most certain of around what they are. My bench max would be somewhere between 180-200, my (back) squat above 300, push ups I can do about 35-40 in a row and about 11 strict pull-ups in a row.

One of my classes in school is football weight lifting so I workout every weekday with the exception of Wednesdays where we don’t do any lifting. Mondays and Wednesdays there’s is a small practice for D-linemen, which I attend and it involves rather easy footwork drills, some driving of a sled and then at the most 10 easy 40-yard sprints. Occasionally I will workout again after school but it is not often, and if we get in trouble in weight lifting class it would involve a lot of running and sprints which tends to happen once every two weeks. We also tend to do a lot of pushups and other methods of football torture after our workout.  Saturdays and Sundays aren’t really activity filled unless I go and play football with some friends or engage in some other activities.

The football class workout consist of this:

Monday: core day:
1.   Back Squat  3x10
2.   Lunges (with a bar and weight)  3x10
3.   RDL  3x10
4.   Bench  3x10
5.   Incline bench  3x10
6.   Military press (push press without the small dip)  3x10
7.   Bent over row  3x10
8.   Curls  3x10
9.   Tricep extension  3x10
10.   Lat pulldown  3x10

1,2,3,4,5,7- I always complete, the others usually I don’t have time but occasionally I do, I do pull-ups instead of lat pull downs. Usually 10-8-5

Tuesday: Power day:
1.   Overhead squat  3x5
2.   Hang clean  3x5
3.   Power press (Push press behind the head)  3x5
4.   *Dead lift*  3x5
5.   Trunk twist
6.   Neck machine
7.   Dips
*The dead lift we do is not on a straight bar instead its on a hex-bar, think hexagon that you can stand in the middle of and it has handles to grasp it and two small metal tubes much like the end of conventional bars to place the weight on, on each side.

I generally complete everything; sometimes I do some  pull-ups


Wednesday: nothing

Thursday: same as Monday
Friday: same as Tuesday

So my question is what can I do more/less/different, incorporate, remove etc. In order to make gains in the areas mentioned above but really in everything in general. That being said during the school week, I have access to a 45-lb bar, metal plates, bumper plates, pull up bar, dip station, bench, and about 20 commercial workout machines which work a variety of muscles and a spotter, and at my house I have access to a home gym system which contains about 230 lbs of metal weight, dip station, pull up bar and a self spotting bar for bench, squat etc. which I have access to any day of the week.

AS for my competition my father can bench and squat like a beast still but for the pull ups and pushups he’s out of commission, but my brother is competition though, he weighs around 170, can bench more than me, and can do a good deal of push ups and pull-ups but he doesnt have acess to the equpiment and the wonderful and knoweledgeable community that i do Grin




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« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2007, 06:37:31 PM »

Wow...a couple of things. First, grease the groove on the pull-ups, performing small sets throughout the day to really work the movement pattern as often as possible. Try to get 50-75 pull-ups every day in small, non-taxing sets. That's a great way to gain more skill in the movement.

How long have you been on that 4 day split with the same rep-ranges? Have you been tracking your progress? If so, what's the rate of improvement, and has it slowed/stalled yet? If not, I would stick with it, because it's a pretty good selection of exercises....3 sets of 10 for so many movements on monday is a bit insane though...I would split the days into pushing/pulling to maximize the intensity that you can apply to each movement and would say a good choice of movements might be:

Monday:
Back Squat - Heavy 5x5
Overhead Press - Heavy 5x5
Pull-Up or weighted pull-up 4x6 (stopping short of failure): Superset with:
Push-Ups 4 sets near-max (stopping short of failure) switching from wide, normal, narrow, hands touching.

Tuesday:
Deadlift Medium 3x5
Overhead Squat- Medium 3x5
Pull-Up: Medium 4x9 (stopping short of failure)
Push-Up Elevated Feet: 4xmedium unweighted set

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday:
Back Squat - Light 3x10
Overhead Press - Light 3x10
Pull-Up 4x easy superset with:
Dips - Light, 3x10

Friday:
Power Clean: Heavy 5x3
Overhead Squat: Heavy 4x5
Weighted Pull-Up: Heavy 5x5
Speed Push-Ups (press the concentric portion as quickly as possible) 5x5

That's just off the top of my head, but rotating the loading like that can have some great effects, and simplifying the number of movements allows better training overall. If the pull-ups end up being too much, cut out some of the volume days or rotate one week high volume, one week high-weight.

Also of paramount importance would be diet and recovery. Protein, veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, healthy oils at every meal, lots of food for recovery, fish oil, and lots of sleep will help a LOT with improvements in fitness and will help you bounce back and work hard every workout.

I know there is probably more, but I'll wait to get a bit of feedback on your overall progress first.



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Steven Low
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« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2007, 10:33:26 PM »

Yes, as Jesse said GTG those pullups. Specifically the training methodology is about every hour or two do a set of submaximal pullups for about 70-80% of max reps. So about ~8 or so times throughout the day if you can do 11 pullups you want to do 7-9 pullups. The pushups can be done by the same method, and actually this will help you out a lot with those. Pullups and pushups can be made to be such easy exercises that they are mainly just about building up your endurance for them.

Your exercises are definitely good like Jesse says.. but that sure is a hell of a lot of volume. I think it is way too much in fact. You should, and will, get better results from cutting down the volume. Hmm as for schedule Jesse put forth a light/heavy scheme utilizing push/pull. I personally like full body days, but that's a bit harder to manage with a m,t,r,f schedule of lifting but it can be done. Tomorrow or a few days later (I'm really busy..) I'll try to put something together for ya in case you don't like Jesse's suggestions, haha. Tongue

Jeese: Sled runs look particular painful with the heavy squats on Monday. Smiley
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7th__Samurai
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« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2007, 08:14:42 PM »

I have a horrible memory, umm originally for the core exercises we were on the 3x10 and then I want to say about 3& 1/2— 4 months ago the coach changed it to 3x5 and about a month and ½ ago he switched it back to 3x10, power has always been the same just 3x5.

As for the core day workouts and how large it is, I rarely complete most of it, its all dependent on my group size, as opposed to the regular three in a group we have five because originally it was me another kid and the kicker but the kicker has absolutely no upper body strength and cannot spot us so we incorporated a 2 person group and we are now five. If some one is absent I generally get through more of the work out and end up with time to do the lunges and the bent over row but on average with the five-person group I only complete the back squat, bench, incline, RDL’s and pull-ups. The coach added the incline bench maybe two weeks ago and after that it is almost impossible to do the military press so we leave it for last and rarely complete it.

I unfortunately have not been tracking my progress but I have not seen any stalling with improvement on the exercises with the exception of bench where my progress seems to have slowed and almost stopped for the last two weeks and my hang cleans as well have stalled.

Diet wise I’m not so good, I don’t eat any junk food except occasionally but I really don’t ever have breakfast because I tend to wake up late a lot so I rush to get ready and go to school, for lunch I have school lunch which is probably not the healthiest, its usually either a burger, some kind of chicken tenders or pizza because its the shortest line (school’s way overcrowded which equals waiting forever to get lunch Cry) then after I get home I usually have a snack in the form of some kind of leftover like meat or fruit or something usually grapes or pineapple chunks or almonds or something, then for dinner its usually some kind of meat like chicken, beef etc. and fruits or rice. Veggies are not really my favorite so I rarely have them.

I am working on getting fish oil capsules but I hear you have to take like 6-8 to get the recommended amount.
Sleep wise I usually get maybe 5-6 on weekdays and something like 11-13 on the weekends.

As for the sled runs after the heavy squatting, yes it sucks enormously, it feels like your leg muscles on fire and it stays that way for like a minute or two after the drill, we also do this drill they call skiing where there’s a step over bag under you and you jump across it left to right but your feet are not together instead you land with the outside foot and tap the inside on and then switch and it goes on for only like 1min 30 but it feels like eternity and the burn is insane.
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Steven Low
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« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2007, 01:24:17 AM »

Yeah, you should keep a log.. potentially in the training log section. Honestly, it will help out a lot to track your progress and see if you need work or are plateauing in certain places.

Uhm, go with the routine Jesse put out for now if you want and see how that works out. If it's too hard/easy for you we can mod it to fit your needs better.
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