Ah yes. Don Alessi talked about these some years ago, right? Didn’t he call them lower trap raises? I gotcha! What about super-setting Y-ups right before heavy shrugs?
Ok, so now, I’m doing 6 days a week, with Monday as my day “off”, but only because I’ll be doing MMA training for 1-2 hrs.
Mon: MMA / Hawaiian Kenpo
Tue: Push / Pull workout
Wed: Work up to heavy triples on squats, then Hungarian Oak plan
Thu: EDT Arms workout 1
Fri: Same as Tue
Sat: Same as Wed
Sun: EDT Arms workout 2
That seems daunting, but what the heck. I’ll post new pics in another 10 days or so.
[quote]a_munoz wrote:
If I fight in May, it will be at 185, but if I pack on some mass, I’ll be at a leaner & stronger 185 next time I cut. I tend to cut weight a lot faster than I put it on.
.[/quote]
from a martial arts fighter, do not try and put more mass on. Try and gain strengh and only focus on core execises that will assist you in your sport. A mass program while trying to reduce wieght, would be completely counterproductive…in general, given that you have to go down in weight, going on a mass program would be counter to all science.
I am only trying to give my advice; do not know why you think you have to put on mass to gain strengh; as people who train specifically for strengh are stronger but are less massive where as people who train for mass are less strong but more massive— what your trying to achieve is a contradiction…especially when your trying to apply this to a specific sport —
Specific things to think about in regard to tweaks to your program:
Make sure your warmups are warmups and not workouts as you give a lot of drills and such and am unsure if this occurs before or after your technical training–
This is critical — make sure your technical training is first during the day; only saying that if you did a lifting workout or one of your drills “prior” to technical training this would be counter productive. In other words, your technical training such as kicks, punch combinations, etc, should be your primary workout; and afterword, the lifting and drills should be done. Only reason i say this is it seems you are emphasizing a lot lifting in your program vs. skill training — skill training is your number one priority .
ds77, you are dead on! It makes no sense to cut weight and lift for mass at the same time, but that’s not what I’m trying to do.
For the time being, I am emphasizing lifting, because I don’t have a definite fight scheduled. For the next few weeks, my skills and drills will only be on Monday, with sparring on Saturday. I am not going to lift on Mondays. I spar at 9:00 AM on Saturday, so any lifting will have to be late in the evening.
I’m actually not trying to cut weight right now. I’m trying to gain. I had previously cut to 185, and am trying to ~15 lbs.
When I get back up to 197 or so, and still around 10-12% BF, I’ll cut back the lifting to two whole body sessions a week, and throttle up the MMA training.
When I am 6 weeks or so from a fight, I only lift once a week, and combine sets of 3-4 reps with plyos.
I ran 3 miles yesterday, and my legs seemed to have greater endurance as a result of these timed squats. My stride is still a little off because of a pulled groin.
Thanks! I’ve conquered the nervousness / fear of the timed squats. Now its time to face the EDT arm program. I guess because I feel my arms such a glaring weakness, it makes it hard to try something so demanding. But I’ll be doing it tomorrow. Right now I’m off to Hawaiian Kenpo / MMA class.
I’m up to 52 reps in the 4 minute squat session with 135. That’s after reaching 295 for 2 sets of 3.
I’ll post my EDT arm workout results tomorrow after my workout.
I did the EDT arms workout on Monday night. It honestly didn’t leave me as sore as I thought. Tue was MMA class, and last night was chect and back. My numbers on bench and rows are all moving the right way, but my pullups are starting to lag. I guess its the added weight I’m carrying in my legs, as well as the increase in total volume on my chest and back days.
I’m not focused on time sets for upper body. It didn’t seem to leave quite the impact needed for hypertrophy.
Tonight I’ll be doing squats for 4:20. Hopefully I can get to 305 for triples first!!!
I have upped my weight a bit early on the EDT arm program. I have found that the number of reps is heavily influenced by my speed between exercises and set-up. So, I increased my weight early to see if my reps would drop off dramatically. They did not. Maybe that would help for you. Give it a couple of weeks first, though.
I also found that after about seven minutes I was able to increase the number of reps per mini set while maintaining good form. So I go from 5 reps to 3 reps back to 5 or 6 reps. I have thought about adding some time to my session to take some additional advantage of this.
Charles Stanley, who developed EDT, states clearly that the idea behind EDT is meant to be played with.
My idea: try heavier weight over less time. Really get away from some of the endurance your arms probably already have. Maybe an 8 or 6 rep max over ten minutes, starting at 4 reps.
I’ll try increasing the weights to ~6-8 rep max, and keep the mini-sets to 5 reps. Also, since I workout in my garage, I couldn’t do palms-up push-downs. I substituted reverse grip french press, but found my grip was the limiting factor, not my triceps. Maybe just regular grip french press.
Today is legs, then on to EDT arm workout 2 tomorrow.