So, new year new program. As the great Graham Lowe said, champions work on their very best features and their very worst. This suggests I need to:
- Keep squatting
- Stop being such a powerlifting water-buffalo
Over the coming three weeks I am going to be trying out Eric Brown’s RP-21 program: Lift Like a Monster, Look Like a Hero
My old Built for Battle log is here: Era Of Brutality: Built For Battle Speed/Explosive Option (Oh, And Ballet) And yes, the ballet posts will continue twice a week on this log. RP-21 sounds pretty tactical in itself but as this is an experiment, I am granting it a cold war X-plane designation and honouring Hunter Thompson in the title.
Day One follows…
Exercise Sets Reps
A Barbell Squat 7 3
B Romanian Deadlift 6 5
C Barbell Hip Thrust 6 5
D Dumbbell Walking Lunge 6 5
E Standing/Seated Calf Raise 6 5
Brown recommends 70% of 1RM as a target so I set 170kg for the squats, 110kg for the RDLs.
Both our racks were taken so I did the deadlifts first. It’s a while since I did them in any volume so this already felt like a challenge. Then I grabbed a 25kg DB and went off on the walking lunges. I…see why people do those now. OK, I now want to puke but I’m also starving. Now for the calf raises; this sounds like a lot but I routinely do sets of rises in parallel, 1st, 2nd, and 5th as a warmup in dance, so, sure, knock 'em in.
On with the show. Hip thrusts - I did these with the bar as I’ve never done the exercise before. Might load it up next time. Stand up…fuck me, my arse and legs are twitching and cramping and I feel dizzy. Interestingly I can feel it’s the musculature ballet teachers go on about that’s whining. This could be good?
Because I’m impatient and an idiot I now have to do seven sets of three reasonably heavy squats. The second set makes me feel like puking again. I crank through them. Done.
I can see how this might work…