A guy who just finished his college soccer career just asked me to write up a workout for him. Obviously, he has worked out in the past, but he now would like to add some muscle to his frame. What workout would you guys reccomend. I was thinking TBT by Waterbury would be a good start.
Who gives a jack about if he’s a soccer player or not?
Just LIFT.
Actually, I’d say it is plausible to base two areas on his former soccer playing. If he was a good soccer player, have him do very little cardio, as his endurance should be very good and pretty easy to maintain. He may get winded a bit faster if he stops all his cardio, but if he jogs twice a week it is reasonable to still expect good endurance.
As for the other part, if you’re already talking about Waterbury, he recommends very low reps with very high weights for hypertrophy in athletes. The reason is that the slowtwitch fibers are usually predominantly used, and you need to really hit the fasttwitch fibers hard to cause growth. Take it for what it’s worth, it worked for me.
As for the rest, he should lift heavy, eat lots, and he’ll grow.
I started strength training a year ago rehabbing from a soccer injury. My weakness in the powerlifting 3 still is the benchpress. I suspect upper body strength is average and lower body strength is pretty good in any decent former soccer player.
My deadlift/squat numbers still go up faster than my bench numbers. There simply is better muscle infrastructure already present. So, after a learning period to get a basic idea of proper technique in the squat/deadlift/lunge do lower rep work in the lower body and use all rep ranges with higher volume in the upper body to even things out. You may chose doing 2 full body and 1 upper body only training a week for half a year.