With regard to you thoughts about the workout, I cant remeber exactly, but in the ABBH program, you start relatively light dont you? 60% of 1RM, but you continually add weight dont you? 5lbs a week/session? give it a couple of weeks and your doing 70% of your 1RM for 10, few weeks later 80% of your 1RM for 10 etc.
I went from doing a home made FB (6 compounds) to doing 5x5 (4 compounds at about 80%1RM) and felt the same for the first 2 weeks, 3 weeks later i wanted to die!
Hey! A fellow Scot!! Ga’an yersel Big Yin!
Good luck with this latest stage of your training. I’ll be following your thread closely
[quote]mikex101 wrote:
With regard to you thoughts about the workout, I cant remeber exactly, but in the ABBH program, you start relatively light dont you? 60% of 1RM, but you continually add weight dont you? 5lbs a week/session? give it a couple of weeks and your doing 70% of your 1RM for 10, few weeks later 80% of your 1RM for 10 etc.
I went from doing a home made FB (6 compounds) to doing 5x5 (4 compounds at about 80%1RM) and felt the same for the first 2 weeks, 3 weeks later i wanted to die!
[/quote]
Yeah, essentially, you have two types of rep scheme:
A 5 x 10 rep scheme that you start with at 60% of 1RM and then everytime after you add on 5%.
And an 80% of 1RM rep scheme that you start doing 10 x 3, then 10 x 4 then 10 x 5.
[quote]BigDug wrote:
Hey! A fellow Scot!! Ga’an yersel Big Yin!
Good luck with this latest stage of your training. I’ll be following your thread closely[/quote]
It’s all part of the Scottish Plan For World Domination!
Hope you enjoy the thread.
[quote]
Yeah, essentially, you have two types of rep scheme:
A 5 x 10 rep scheme that you start with at 60% of 1RM and then everytime after you add on 5%.
And an 80% of 1RM rep scheme that you start doing 10 x 3, then 10 x 4 then 10 x 5.[/quote]
Canny, well i’ll be checking in.
Day 7:
Day 7 is basically deadlift day. Got 10 x 3 on deadlift, seated calf raise and ab wheel.
Not entirely sure how to work out exactly what weight I should be using for the ab wheel. Don’t have an ab wheel anyway, so its going to be barbell rollouts.
Back and arms are still pretty stiff from the chins and dips the other day, hopefully a good sign.
Bit of bother getting some of the exercises done today, mainly due to equipment restrictions in the gym. Did as follows:
Deadlift: 10 x 3 x 145 kgs, 60 secs rest.
Seated Calf Raises: Had to mess about setting up something with my knees under the pad on a leg curl machine. Then loaded 140 kgs of plates onto the padding and did my calf raises. Such a pain in the ass to set up that I went for 5 x 10 rather than 10 x 3.
Ab Wheel: No ab wheel so just used an olympic bar. Did 10 x 3 x 190kg.
All seems fine, rest day tomorrow then things start to ramp up with 10 x 4 on the bench, going to be tough I reckon.
Day 8:
A rest day today. Not a bad thing actually, my body feels a little stiff and sore, so it will be good to prepare it for the uplift in work load tomorrow, when I return to the bench press and bent over row but with the greater volume. I must confess, I am quite looking forward to the challenge.
Had a meeting with my Physio last night and she is very happy with how the ACL rehab is coming along, although my left leg is still considerably smaller than my right. We have decided to add a little more unilateral volume into my routine. Rather than change the Waterbury workout, I will merely add some left leg movements into the days I am doing leg work.
I am thinking along the lines of a couple of sets of single leg squats and deadlifts on only my left leg on the days that I am doing other leg exercises, at least until some balance is restored.
Decided to tackle cardio work in a separate post as my situation is slightly complicated.
For the last couple of months I have been doing low impact, steady state cardio, with a view to building up the movement round the knee joint. This has principally involved sessions on the bike and cross trainer. Not ideal, but a great excuse to check out the lycra clad gym bunnies that hang out there.
Prior to my knee problems, I had difficulty with my ankle on the same leg, and a few weeks before my injury had a cortisone injection into the joint. It worked well, but at nearly 6 months ago, coupled with the increase in cardio workload recently, the injection seems to have worn off. It is particularly problematic doing standing calf raises.
With this is mind, I am seeing a podiatrist next week to see if it is something that can be sorted in that manner.
Rather than rush into impact cardio like regular jogging, we have decide to hold of till that is resolved, but we have made the decision that I am now ready for HIIT training on the bike and cross trainer.
I shall start to build in more of this on my rest days. Should start to help the general fitness and perhaps shift some of the residues of persistant fat round my stomach!
Day 9:
Just a fairly quick post today as I need to dash to Edinburgh to watch my rugby club compete in the semi-final of the cup. Fingers crossed for a win!
Bench and B.O.R. today. Wasn’t sure how it would go as I was to up the reps from 10 x 3 to 10 x 4 at the same weight.
I feel like I haven’t done much chest work since the 10 x 3’s the other day, only really the dip sets and I knew I had struggled with the last couple of reps on the last couple of sets doing the 3’s.
Well, it was not so bad today, slightly longer rest periods as I supersetted with the rows like you are supposed to, all in all, things went well.
Bench Press: 10 x 4 x 117.5 kgs
supersetted with
B.O.R.: 10 x 4 x 82.5 kgs.
Reckon I could’ve gone a few kgs heavier on the B.O.R., perhaps need to review that when I shift to the 10 x 5 sets in a week or so time.
Day 10: Rest Day
Going to do some light cardio today possibly. Team played pretty well yesterday and progressed to the cup final. Great result.
Bizarrely, they will play my former club in the final. Really gutted to be missing that with the injury, will be a big day.
Day 11:
Weights for the 5 x 10 sets are up from 60% TO 65%. Exercises as follows:
Front Squat: 5 x 10 x 67.5 kgs
Reverse Crunch: Wasn’t sure how to add 5% to a body weight exercise, so did 5 x 12 instead of 5 x 10.
Standing Calf Raise: 5 x 10 x 87.5kgs
All in all, a fairly decent session, squats are always good, made real effort to try to work harder with my left leg when squatting to try and improive some of the imbalance caused by the operation. Might start to add in a set or two of single legs squats just on the left side to balance things up a bit.
Day 12: Rest Day
Not much to report on rest day.
I saw the podiatrist earlier on today and apparently I have over pronated feet or something. They tip in towards each other anyway. Seems like a good excuse to make me buy three new pairs of trainers and a set of orthotics for my rugby boots.
Still, the orthotics should arrive in a couple of weeks and then I can start to get some running done on my rest days. I reckon a few weeks of basic cardio fitness then I’ll move on to doing perhaps 400m sprints, as noted in Thib’s book.
I may, in fact, try using all of his football programme runs and drills to see how that benefits me in rugby, agility,strength and speed can’t hurt right?
Just rememebred something else to add, and please feel free to add comment.
Firstly, I know people advocate the use of bare feet or flat shoes for squatting.
The podiatrist thinks it would be wise for me to squat in my trainers once they are modified as it will help with my knee flexion and positioning while squatting.
Wondered if anyone had any comment on that, anyone had similar issues? I will, of course, try it. It would seem sensible to at least try what a qualified medical professional is suggesting.
Day 13:
Was a fairly tough workout today, dips and chins, mainly due to my large body weight!!
Worked out that to get the increase in weight used, I needed to do my dips with a 10 kg plate, although later in the workout I could only manage body weight, this would be supersetted with chins.
I decided, rather than up the weight and do close grip pulldowns like I did last week, I would start the set doing chins, and once I failed, would complete the 10 reps with close grip pulldowns.
Again these exercises are supersetted with 60 secs rest between sets.
Dips: 5 x 10 x Body weight (125kg) + 10kg
Chins: Body Weight dropping to 85 kgs close grip pull down.
Dips: Set 1: 10 x 135 kgs
Set 2: 10 x 135 kgs
Set 3: 10 x 135 kgs
Set 4: 8 x 135 kfs, 2 x 125 kgs
Set 5: 10 x 125 kgs
Chins: Set 1: 4 x 125 kgs, 6 x 85 kgs
Set 2: 4 x 125 kgs, 6 x 85 kgs
Set 3: 3 x 125 kgs, 7 x 85 kgs
Set 4: 1 x 125 kgs, 9 x 85 kgs
Set 5: 10 x 85 kgs
Day 14: Rest Day
Not much to report today. Been out onsite all day and had an early start, so looking forward to some quality rest. Big deadlift day tomorrow so getting quite excited!
Day 15:
Good days session today. I enjoy deadlifting so always look forward to it.
Bit of a hassle as usual getting set up for the other exercises so instead of supersetting all three, I straight setted each exercise. Good as my gym is, they don’t have enough plates to have a 145 kg deadlift, 145 kg seated calf raise and a 190 kg ab rollout all set up at once. Not sure the other gym users would be happy with me hogging all the kit anyway.
So here’s what I did:
Deadlift: 10 x 4 x 145 kgs
Seated Calf Raise: 5 x 12 x 145 kgs
Ab Rollout: 10 x 4 x 190 kgs
Again, the seated calf raises were pretty tricky to rig up, so didn’t do a large number of smaller sets, went for the larger sets again instead.
Day 18:
Haven’t posted for a couple of days as things have been a bit hectic.
I was supposed to have Saturday as a rest day, Bench Press and Bent over Row on SUnday and then have today off, but due to not being able to get a training partner and therefore not guaranteeing a decent spotter, I had Saturday and Sunday as rest days and then did my exercises today. Means I have a day less rest before I do my dips etc, but not great problem with that I hope.
Anyway, exercises today were as follows:
Bench Press: 10 x 5 x 117.5 kgs.
supersetted with B.O.R.: 10 x 5 x 82.5 kgs.
30 secs rest between sets.
Bent over Row was fine, managed that without too much bother, but the bench was tough. Managed the first 6 or 7 sets fine, but really started struggling. First three reps on sets 8 - 10 went up fine, but seemed to hit a fatigue wall after that. Got it done though with as little spotter assistance as possible, only really needed help on the last rep of the last two sets.
Interesting to note that as I got tired, I seemed to get very wobbly and unstable too. I really tried to keep my shoulder blades locked together and tight to give me a good base, but struggled to maintain that. Also felt that I couldn’t get my feet properly planted either.
All in all a good session though. Glad to have it out of the way and I can start to worry about the dips and chin sets in a few days time!
A brief note on the supplement side too.
I was running out of Biotest BCAA’s, and didn’t really need anything else, so didn’t feel it was worth putting an overseas order in. I had to get more creatine from Animal anyway, so have bought their Nitro pack as well to try. It’s basically a BCAA boost that I’ll take before and after workout. Also bought a tub of BCAA powder.
I take on board the comments made earlier about the quantity of BCAA I was taking, and noticed reading the Thib training article that he is taking a massive amount.
Decided to take this on board and really push up the amount that I am taking. Probably shalln’t get up to the amount he’s taking, but now taking orders of magnitude more that I was previously.
I’ll let you all know if I feel it makes a significant difference.
190kgs in the rollouts?? I never did with a barbell but i’m sure its a lot… Have you tried weighting yourself with a pair of ankle weights around the hips? It works for planks so it should work for rollouts too.