Stecman

After reading through Beyond Brawn and The Insider's Tell-All Handbook on Weight-Training Technique by Stuart McRobert, I've decided to make quite a few changes to my weight training program. I was working on The Men's Health Book of Muscle, but decided to switch it.

Heres some of the things I changed:

1. Working out less times a week - now 2 instead of 3
2. Doing less lifts
3. Focusing on four lifts - Squat, Deadlift, Bench Press, and Overhead Press
4. Cutting out a lot of single-joint exercises. Leg Extension, Tricep kickback, etc. Replacing with multijoint lifts.

And here's why I changed it:



1. Prevent overtraining. I found with my other workouts I was doing too much and not letting my body recuperate.

2. Perfect my form. By focusing on less lifts I will be able to better master the form of the lifts. This will hopefully help keep me free from injury to continue training over the course of my lifetime

3. Build strength and size. By increasing the poundage slowly over the weeks (I even got half and one pound magnets) I will be able to consistantly build strength with good form. Before, any added jump in poundage (at a minumum of 5 pounds) would mean less reps or compromised form.

4. By cutting out a lot of single-joint exercises, I plan to strengthen my core muslces now and work on the details later.

And here's my new workout schedule:

Lifting Day 1

Warmup
Squat Warmup - 1x5(50%) 1x5(80%)
Squat - 1 x 20
Deadlift Warmup - 1x5(40%) 1x5(60%) 1x5(75%) 1x3(90%)
Deadlift - 3 x 8
Shrug Warmup - 1x5(75%) 1x3(90%)
Shrug 2 x 8
Back Extension - 2 x 20
Crunch Situp - 2 x 20
Side Bends 2 x 20
And on alternating weeks-
Week 1 and 3 - Radar Chest Pull and Pullover 2x15
Week 2 and 4 - Grip work and Neck Work
Cooldown

Lifting Day 2

Warmup
Bench Press Warmup - 1x5(40%) 1x5(60%) 1x5(75%) 1x3(90%)
Bench - 3 x 8
Overhead Press Warmup - 1x5(50%) 1x5(80%) 1x3(90%)
Overhead Press - 3 x 8
Dip Warmup - 1x5(75%) 1x3(90%)
Dip - 3 x 8
Pull Down - 3x10
Barbell Curl - 3x10
Reverse Crunches - 2x20
And on alternating weeks-
Week 1 and 3 - L-Fly 3x10 and Wrist rollers (2 frount, 2 reverse)
Week 2 and 4 - Cable Row 2x15 and Finger Extension.
Cooldown

What you think?

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Progress Page - Currently 11.5% bf, 160lbs

johnsbod

Hmmm, interesting. I'll be interested to here how this works for you. I have a couple thoughts for you on that program though. IMO it is not necessary to do warmups on shrugs after you have already done deadlifts. Same on dips after both bench and overhead press. All in all you have way more warmup sets than I use, but go by how you feel. After doing bench you probably only need 1 warmup set on overhead press. Also, if you are going to stick with one chest exercise (at least that's what it looks like I think) I wouldn't have that exercise be flat barbell bench press. If you want to use barbell I'd do at least a slight incline to put a little more emphasis on your upper chest. Otherwise, your upper chest will be lagging. Just my $.02. Good luck with the program.

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DarkFalcon

That's pretty different. Not something I'd use myself but it should definately develope your core strength. Seems more suited to powerlifting then bodybuilding but if your bulking this might give you some nice mass. I'm assuming this will be in your log so I'll watch your progress.

Stecman

Oooo ya, i was wondering about those warmup sets. I'll get rid of a few of them - but I want to have a lot on there especially at the start because I'm working on impeccible form.

And the way I do dips does a pretty good workout for my lower chest - I'm going to try this for a few weeks and I may need to throw an incline bench in there. That way I will be able to see what I can replace it with. Thanks for your advice.

Ya, thats what I woulda said before reading 'Beyond Brawn'... The book really details why to do it this way.

Basically, you have hard gainers and easy gainers. The easy gainers (the ones who put on muscle easily) are the ones writing the books about the single joint programs built to refine muscle, and the hard gainers(me) are the ones doing them. His theory is thats why tons of us are spinning our wheels on gaining muscle and might.

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Progress Page - Currently 11.5% bf, 160lbs

Dan

Do it and give it all you got, that is the only way to find out if it will work for you.

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BobThePotato

2 times a week seems a little to.. well little IMO, but u cant knock it till uve tried it. It will be interesting to see your progress.

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Trick D

keep a log and tell us how it goes.

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aqua-beowulf

I've recently become a big believer in the low volume training. Before that, I was training five or six days a week, 12 to 16 sets per bodypart. One day I just got to thinking, "Am I really getting the most out of the time I'm investing?" I mean, I was training like a professional athlete, like it was my job, yet I didn't feel like the gains coincided with my effort. So I had a major change in training philosophy. I decided to work out three times a week, doing no more than 8-10 sets per workout, 4-10 rep range, emphasizing a 4-5 second negative, and finishing each session in under 35 minutes. Very radical for a guy who used to advocate 90 minute sessions. My brother Cantide thought I'd lost my mind. But for me it is paying off. I'm up 14 pounds in the past 5 weeks, and these are not newbie gains, as I've been at this for quite some time. For me it's working, so right now I'm just concentrating on a high intense, focused session while training, and then getting adequate rest and recuperation the other 4 days of the week.