Hello! I have a long offseason this year round preparing for next season, do you have a program or template you would recommend that would be good either from here,thibarmy, or a book or paid program? I have looked at a few of yours and I honestly have gotten overwhelmed so any recommendations would be helpful. I play at a mid sized naia and am a point guard, I want to build some more muscle and improve my athleticism. Thank you for your time!
Well, all athlete based programs (look for the ones that mention the omni contraction system or methods) that sell on Thibarmy would be decent in general.
How motivated are you to really push your physical capacities for the next season? Are you a (semi) professional athlete with a decent budget or do you have any sponsors?
If you have the money and you want to reach your max potential as an athlete, I would seriously consider just going all out and get tailored coaching from CT himself.
His OCTS system, which is a system specifically built for athletes (but it can be customized for any purpose), is really awesome if your goal is to improve strength and explosiveness. There is also a complete phase spent on hypertrophy. How long the phase lasts, depends on your goals and needs. A tailored program with a seasoned coach will always work better, especially if you’re a serious athlete imo.
Having said that, any program that is well designed and goal specific will work. The extent of its effectiveness depends on your experience level, motivation and consistency though.
I was reading some articles on his octs and I came across his article jacked athlete 31 which looked pretty solid, as for something that’s a free article in your opinion would that one be atleast something good to put me in the right direction until I could pay for training?
Jacked 31 is definitely oriented towards athletic performance with a hypertrophy bonus as well.
Is it the right direction for you? That’s impossible for me to answer without knowing anything about you (your training background, experience, work schedule, personality, stress levels, nutritional approach, sleep hygiene etc.).
If you’re free of pain, movement impairments and/or injuries, have a decent amount of training experience (serious training for at least 1.5 years and experience with more advanced rep schemes and training methods) and understand how to manipulate nutrition to meet your goals, then yes I can, generally speaking, recommend this program.
But again, how well this program will suit you depends on many factors. Even though CT’s programs take away most of the doubt on how to effectively train, there are still other variables to consider like sleep hygiene, nutrition, stress levels, recovery capabilities etc.
If you understand how to execute the program and how to make small adjustments (when needed based on how you’re performing, recovering and feeling mentally/hormonally), I suggest you try it out. Just don’t push the enveloppe and stick to the recommendations of the program, it is designed to work that way.
Thanks for your help and opinion I greatly appreciate it, I think I’ll give jacked athlete a shot, I will read up on more octs stuff I find. One more question on that second day is there any suggestion to a swap for zercher squat in your opinion I’ve never done them and I’m not sure I’d be able to learn the form fast enough to be effective to make it work like it could.
Honestly, zercher squat technique is fairly easy. It’s also the main squat pattern on the isometric day in block 1 of jacked athlete 31. This is perfect to learn the technique because the long isometric holds won’t allow you to use as much weight and teach you to create tension throughout the entire movement. Isometric holds are great for motor learning and engraining good technique. Just watch a demo on a respectable youtube channel (T nation for example) and you’ll be fine.
If you are a long legged individual I would advise you to use a squat board, weightlifting shoes (if you own a pair) or 2.5/5 lbs weight plates to place under your heels. This will put you in a much better biomechanical position to safely perform and load the zercher squat as well as your front/back squat without your lower back getting in the way as the limiting factor.
If you must, you can replace the zercher by a goblet or a landmine squat but you won’t be able to use the same load as you would on a zercher squat. Front squatting twice would be OK but it will feel a lot harder because of the position of the barbell and the long iso hold combo.
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