Saturday, September 18, 2010

Do you just WANT to lift, or do you NEED to?

I have a friend that has managed to elicit a response from his body requiring him to go to the gym everyday whether he went out the night before or not. If he doesn't, he feels like people who don't go to the gym at all, groggy, sick, irritable, and just plain sluggish. I personally think this is incredible. How many people can say that they don't just WANT to exercise, they physically NEED to in order to feel great. Instead of needing coffee, caffine, energy drinks, and every other product out there designed to get you going, how about just lifting some weight or moving your body around for an hour a day.

Here's this week's workout. This is designed more for increasing strength over a period of 5 weeks and it has helped me out tremendously. This week I will post the lower body workout and next week will be the upper body. Good luck.

-Dynamic Warm Up

each week you move up 5% of your 1 Rep Max in order to increase your strength gains. This is my loose derrivation of the 5-3-1 workout created by Jim Wendler.
1A) Barbell Squats
- 5x5@ 85% 1RM week 1
- 4x4 @ 90% week 2
- 3x3 @ 95% week 3
- 2x2 @ 100% week 4
- 1x1 @ 104% week 5

2A) Deadlifts
- 5x5@ 85% 1RM week 1
- 4x4 @ 90% week 2
- 3x3 @ 95% week 3
- 2x2 @ 100% week 4
- 1x1 @ 104% week 5

3A) foam roll, stretch


As you can see, you apply all of the same percentages to each lift you're performing. I found it to give me significant increases in strength, power, and overall muscle definition. I performed the lifts once a week as it took that long to recover after the initial jump into the program and I wanted to be fresh for the next weeks weight increase. This can be continued for another round and taken up to 10 weeks but after that long, I strongly suggest a decompression week where the weights lifted are reduced to about 65% of your 1RM and you allow your muslces to recoup and prepare for your next bout. Good Luck.

No comments:

Post a Comment