Zev says"Maybe alter the focus a bit from hypertrophy in phases 1 and 3 to strength in phases 2 and 4? "I’m cool with that,anyone else think we should do it that way.
If everyone is cool with that?
I don’t have bumber plates at my gym,it is a pain in the ass to perform olympic lifts.I don’t think I’m out of the norm.I love olympicl ifts,but i don’t like the idea of including them in the program because i think alot of people don’t have accsesses to bumber plates,or can easily perform them,also there is a good degrree of techinical skill needed to perform the olys.The olympicl lifts done from the hang are not hard to learn,but I can’t do cleans and snatches from the floor with good enogh form.I don’t want to stop this lifts from appearing in the program,if most people are able to do them,but i have a feeling that my case is not out of the ordinary.
Ok, here is an example of a lower body day.
Week 1
Day 2 – Squat, Gastrocs, Abs – Lower body flexion
Rope Warm-Up
3x3 min rounds, 1 min break, 30 secs of unweighted GPP movements during breaks
K-bell or d-bell warm-up circuit
A1)Swings (15-25 reps)
A2)Clean (L) 5-10 reps
A3)Clean (R) 5-10 reps
A4)1 Arm Swing (L) (10-15 reps)
A5)1 Arm Swing (R) (10-15 reps)
Other exercises could include the squat pull, iron cross, burpee, snatch, push press, etc.
A1)Dynamic Effort Exercise – Jump squat, box squat, explosive up on toe squat (from Limping article), but the focus would preferably be on quad usage, so a narrow/medium stance will be used.
Bilateral Accessory work – put first in the workout due to heavy poundages
B1)Squat – front, back, overhead – several sets of low reps (4-6)
Unilateral Accessory Work
C1)Heavy, weighted unilateral work (like lunge or one legged leg press) (lowreps)
D1)Light, un or light weighted unilateral work (like one legged squats)
Abdominal Work
E1)Leg raise exercise (low reps)
Finisher
Something like Coach Davie’s recently described “Bear” would be optimal. I think this is complex 4 in his “Complex Training” article. Or a tough 8 min GPP section with jumping jacks, burpees, chinees, shuffle splits, star jumps or the like.
Sorry guys, the leg day post was missing calves and some of the numbering was off. Here it is again, but fixed. Also, I don’t know whay some of my dashes and apostrophes are turning into question marks, when I post.
Week 1
Day 2 – Squat, Gastrocs, Abs – Lower body flexion
Rope Warm-Up
3x3 min rounds, 1 min break, 30 secs of unweighted GPP movements during breaks
K-bell or d-bell warm-up circuit
A1)Swings (15-25 reps)
A2)Clean (L) 5-10 reps
A3)Clean (R) 5-10 reps
A4)1 Arm Swing (L) (10-15 reps)
A5)1 Arm Swing (R) (10-15 reps)
Other exercises could include the squat pull, iron cross, burpee, snatch, push press, etc.
B1)Dynamic Effort Exercise – Jump squat, box squat, explosive up on toe squat (from Limping article), but the focus would preferably be on quad usage, so a narrow/medium stance will be used.
Bilateral Accessory work – put first in the workout due to heavy poundages
C1)Squat – front, back, overhead – several sets of low reps (4-6)
D1)Calf press on leg press machine – low reps
Unilateral Accessory Work
E1)Heavy, weighted unilateral work (like lunge or one legged leg press) (lowreps)
F1)Light, un or light weighted unilateral work (like one legged squats)
Abdominal Work
G1)Leg raise exercise (low reps)
Finisher
Something like Coach Davie’s recently described “Bear” would be optimal. I think this is complex 4 in his “Complex Training” article. Or a tough 8 min GPP section with jumping jacks, burpees, chinees, shuffle splits, star jumps or the like.
Terminator to antny 16,I read in "The Periodization Bible
Part 1: The Old Testament ? Linear Periodization " by Dave Tate
"Another problem with the Western method of periodization is that many abilities aren’t maintained. The muscle mass that was built during the hypertrophy phase isn’t maintained throughout the full cycle. Same goes with the strength phase. "
I agree with Dave Tate, When you have many different types of phases,you lose the abilities you gained in one phase,when you move on to another phase because you are not training that ability.I think though that rotating between a phase that concentrates on hytrophy and strength is not a bad idea,i think this will work,as long as both qaulities are trained troughout the 12 weeks.I just don’t think we should lose focus,and therefore lose the effectiveness of the program.Any other opinions,on this,or experiances?
this is a fantastic idea man…it’ll really pump me up in the gym knowing that other guys are doing the same thing at the same time as me. i have to read the responses now so i can input info. later
Yes I would want to jack up the volume a lot. I was thinking along the lines of the four day split except twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. That may not even be enough though. Yes, how are we going to communicate? In this thread or email? I also agree diet is secondary… what about dietary preparation though? As in supplementation everyone could benefit from? I’d call out digestive enzymes and a multivitamen. This is all secondary but I am seriously thinking of getting a colon and liver clense right before I jump in. I want maximum nutrient absorbtion and clean blood when I start this.
ok im done reading. I am looking for a program mainly for bodybuilding and size gains. Man, this is gonna sound really gay but, i think for a while i’ll just train using compound shit and totally fuck myself up. Have a trash can by the squat rack for puke and go balls out commando weightlifting style. day 1, 2sets squat 20 reps 2 sets front squat 20 reps 1 set leg extensions 20 reps or until my legs feel like they are on fire and physically can not do another rep, im not talking, well, im burning hard enough i’ll stop pussy ass shit, im talkin holy fuckin shit i have never hurt this bad and im gonna absolutely die i think i’ll stop. see the difference? day 2 - 2 sets incline bench 10 reps, 2 sets flat bench 10 reps, 2 sets incline db, 2 sets flat db, 1 set incline fly, 1 set flat fly, 1 final fly stretch. day 3 back - 2 pullovers, 2 pullups and 2 that thing arnold does in pumping iron with the plates all on one side of an olympic bar and pullin it up and some nifty biceps exercises for the amusment of having a ridiculous pump. i do hamstrings next week cause i find that squatting and deadlifting in the same week is too much freakin work and my legs are offensively large as it is. didn’t used to be that way until i started doing the alternating week thing. throw in some calf raises and that pretty much sums up my training program as of right now. feel free to input upon it as im sure ur all fascinated by such a basic program hahahahah. oh yes i am bulking insanely btw.
If you used dumb bells then I could see doing the "Bear"as a finisher, but otherwise It should have its own day. It should be done when fresh as it requires coordination and then followed with some accessory work. I think that it is best done with bumper plates in the event that you need to bail. Since most people do not have access to bumpers and also want to avoid the O-lifts, I think it should be left out.
I cant find a description of “the bear” could someone point me in the right direction? And to terminator: thanks for explaining the phase thing to me, thats why the call us newbies haah.
Here’s my suggestion: a four week 5x5 period followed by a four week EDT period. Then, a “1-5 priniciple” styled period followed again by EDT (using different excercises). This is just my suggestion, it seems like this would work strength and size fairly well. I’ve personally run 5x5 up against EDT for some great results.
You will find the “bear” here:
www. renegadetraining.com/
Scroll down, and you will see a descprition and photos. Give it a shot.
If size is everyones goal I’m afraid we’re all gonna have to go back to how the big guys train ie 4 X a week Legs / Chest’n’Back / Shoulders’n’Arms. Start the 12 week cycle on 15s no failure and add weight to every exercise every w/out until we end up in the 6-8 rep range goin to failure and beyond. I do all my oly lifts at the start of shoulders.
I thought 15 sets total per w/out works well, as for exercises pick the ones that you can really get focused on at that particular stage in your training…they all work for a while then we need to come out of the comfort zone.
Gray
antny16 this is just my point of veiw there are many opinions on the subject of phases and cycles,and the issue can be more in depth then my opinion,read many different points of veiw,and draw from experiance and decide for yourself
Damn, this is getting complicated! First things first, I think we need to agree on a split and the length of our phases. Do we want 3 4-week phases or 4 3-week phases or 6 2-week phases? My suggestion is 4 3-week phases, as 3-week phases seem to work the best for me. Jason suggests (if I’m surmising correctly) a split of Horizontal Push/Pull + tris, Quads, Vertical Push/Pull + bis, hams. I could go along with that, but I was thinking shoulders + arms, quads, chest + back, hams. My reasoning is that working shoulders as a whole rather than their vertical push function on one day and various raises on other days feels more natural to me. Jason, I was thinking that we should save max effort and dynamic effort days for later in the program, say phases 3 and 4, and start out with more bodybuilding type stuff. I like the idea of having a special finisher for each day; I’ve not played around much with finishers. As far as stretching and warmup go, I don’t feel the need to do all that much general warmup and stretching on UB days. I do a lot of warming up and stretching on LB days, and your plan for that looks pretty solid. I might even tone it down a bit. Antny16: I agree with Terminator that O lifts probably shouldn’t be a focus in a routine like this and also that the tripartite periodization model you suggested might not be the best way to go (for the Dave Tate reasons already posted). RS: with all the extra volume you want to do, are you sure you should be getting in on this on the ground floor? Sounds like what you’ll be doing will differ pretty radically from the rest of us. Dawg on the Porch: Don’t think your suggested routine is what most of us are going for. Nephorm: I agree that your proposed program would probably work, but where’s the fun in it? The point of this is to try new shit. 
Gray: I don’t think that you’ll get a lot of buy-in for your proposed split or method of progression, but I could be wrong.
Here’s what I was messing around with earlier today for day 1 of phase 1: Monday: Shoulders: the 3-2-1 program of raises outlined recently in T-Mag followed by 1 set each standing dumbell presses and Behind the neck presses Biceps: a 3-2-1 pattern again of reverse curls, hammer curls, and regular curls all done with dumbells followed by 1-2 set of incline DB curls with a wrist curl at the bottom of the movement. Triceps: a 3-2-1 pattern again of overhead french press, lying french press, and decline french press all done with dumbells followed by 1-2 sets of CG bench. I’ve got a few exercises that I want to do throughout the 12-week cycle, though with varying set and rep schemes: squats, CG bench, deads, and chins. The idea of keeping these as cornerstones sorta comes from Staley’s CPT routine. Enough for now. Thoughts?
I totally hear you. I can go with that split or we can use both splits depending on what stage. I’m up for a 3 week cycle of a variety of movements, but keeping some core moves in the mix. Maybe we can split this thing up a bit. The program that I started to post is a year round program with built in variety. Maybe we could do something similar for a bit, but I’m up for quite a bit of change and sometimes doing another person’s workout is pretty darn fun.
But I agree, this is getting a bit complicated.
K.I.S.S. No need for the foundation of any training schedule to be magical and mystical. Specialization needs are few and far between.
Jason, will you please post the rest of the workouts you created for that phase? It occurred to me that it might make for a nice strength-oriented second phase right after the hypertrophy-oriented phase 1 that I began posting. I’m thinking Monday max effort could be a bench variation, Tuesday Dynamic effort could be whatever for the legs (I’d probably make it Power cleans since I’m trying to get into those), Thursday dynamic effort could be push press, and Friday max effort could be deads. Tuesday could still be quad-dominant if we (or at least I) put a bunch of quad work after the power cleans. I’ll post the rest of the phase 1 I came up with as soon as I’m done.
No problem! But I won’t be able to get to it until tomorrow. Work is nuts right now as I’ll be off site (and away from my work computer where I like to take the occasional forum break), so I’ll have to post it all from home. To tell you the truth, unless anyone else wants to see the other 6 workouts - you could just email me - get it from my body comp article - and I won’t have to add all the html tags.
I should also mention that the program I’m creating is designed for a 4 a week split, but my days have been so hectic that I’m going to get 3 lifting workouts in a week (4 if I have time) and rotate through the 8 different workouts (4 pairs with only minor variation) over the course of 2.5 weeks instead of 2 weeks.
I’m not cycleing yet so this would do well for me at the moment. Yes I’d like to do this but I’m going to modify it a bit for myself if I include a cycle shortly. It looks like that might be postponed though so I won’t be doing much more than a 4 day split for now. I’m interested in finishers that target large muscle groups. I’m a mad scientist so I’d like to see what people know about tweaking the bodies own hormonal release through training techniques in order to maximize growth on this program.