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Strength Training 102

With professor Urban.

Welcome back class.  By this point you should have some experience under your belt and should have an alright “feel” for things in the weight room.  Yeah, “feel” isn’t exactly a scientific term, but for all intended purposes it probably the most important thing you have developed in the last six months of lifting. This is a slightly different way to construct a routine, and you are going to rely on that feel for quite a bit using this method.  You could potentially just jump right into this as a beginner, but because it relies on testing a new max on key lifts each week, you risk connective tissue damage.  So, the greater potential for injury is there for beginners, but if you ARE just starting out, and haven’t met that 6 month primer, you could just not max out every week, and instead stick to higher reps emphasizing form and control and maybe using a periodization scheme outlined in 101.

Now that is out of the way, let’s begin.  This type of routine, in my opinion, is more beneficial for athletes than that outlined in 101. The first reason is that it creates a full body workout every session by including a deadlift, squat and bench press variant every session (so in some sense it is based on a 3x3 routine). 

It’s also better geared towards athletics because this includes unilateral leg work (for those not in the know that means one leg at a time).  Many times in sports you rely specifically on the strength of one leg less than the other (running for example).  This is also particularly useful when you consider the balance and stabilization required to perform unilateral exercises.

The third reason it may be most suited to athletes (and strength training in general) is that it is constantly rotating exercises.  Ideally you might not repeat the exact same routine for months.  This allows you to identify lifts and movements that show substantial weakness in comparison to similar lifts.  Say you’re rotating through squat variants and you notice that front squats are ridiculously difficult for you in comparison to your normal squat.  This is a sign that your quads may be keeping your squat from progressing, and you may want to replace back squats with front squats as a key lift.

Actually working on the principles of this routine is easy.  All you need to do is pick three main exercises, and each session pick two new variants, top it off with an upper back exercise, and a core exercise and you are golden.  For the convenience of this article, I am going to use the big three (bench, deadlift, squat) as my main exercise.  Now each session you’re going to test a 3-5 rep max on one of the big three and then you do repetitions of a variant for the other two.  So for example Monday might look like this:

deadlift for a 3 rep max

close grip bench for about 4 x 5

and step ups for 4 x 4+4

weighted pullups for a pyramid of 4

Saxon side bends 4 x 10

So here’s a small list of exercises and variants I have compiled, it is not complete, but it’s a good place to start:

Lets look at what this might look like over three weeks.

The key here is progress.  Each time you do a lift you need to progress by either doing more reps or more weight.  When you don’t progress on a main lift for more than three weeks, should rotate that lift out in favor of a weaker lift.  For example, if I didn’t progress on bench at all, I would take it out and put something to emphasize my weak point in its place (dips or board press triceps, DB press for pecs, incline press for shoulders etc.).  The same notion of progress applies to the assistance lifts.

Keeping track of all these lifts can get tricky, so I’ve included a sample spreadsheet for that too!

So you record your lift (weight and reps) in each empty column.  The date is of little consequence since you’re going to be rotating exercises regularly and each time you repeat an exercise you are trying to progress.  This is just the first five columns of a spreadsheet I would use, in the real think I would have 11 columns so I wouldn’t have to keep printing out new spreadsheets every couple weeks.

So now you have a way of generating each session keeping things fresh, a way of determining your reps for main lifts, a notion for progress on everything, and a way to record it all.  One last note on frequency, you can use this routine 2-3 times a week.  I outlined 3 sessions a week, two sessions a week would be essentially a lower body max day (squat or deadlift and an upper body max day (bench press):

Day 1: deadlift max

Day 2: bench max

Day 1: Squat max

Day 2: bench max

Ok, you’re all set!  Get your ass in the gym!

Last Updated 12/23/04