Strength training Routines

[Was_once_fat_dave]

Has anyone got any suggestions for a decent strength routine, has to be based over 3 days per week, don't worry I'm not being lazy, I wil be doing my own looking into to it, just wanting suggestions that others have used and found effective.

[Martin Brown]

Why not try the 3x3 Korte routine - training squat bench and deadlift 3 times a week?

http://www.deepsquatter.com/strength/archives/korte.htm


M

[ATZ]

Quote

Why not try the 3x3 Korte routine - training squat bench and deadlift 3 times a week?

http://www.deepsquatter.com/strength/archives/korte.htm


M

No doubt it'd be good for PL'ing in terms of peaking for an upcoming comp, but that routine seems very unbalanced and I personally would burn out pretty quickly on it, not mention it would wreck your posture without sufficient exercises to balance all the benching out.

[ADER]

A bit of therory - layman style ...

To get strong you have to lift heavy - So that means doing heavy weights and low reps. BUT bear in mind you can't lift heavy week after week, or you'll get knackered very quickly so you need to have light sessions too.

Re the lifting heavy - the rationale is that you have various types of fast twitch muscle fibres ranging form those that are small and verging on short twitch to the big suckers that are very strong but have limited ebdurance.

What happens when you do an exercise is the smaller ones get recruited first - they have more endurance so kick in first - As you lift heavier the bigger ones come into play - To get strong you need to recruit those big suckers - So you have to lift heavy - Think in terem of getting up to 80% of a 1RM (one rep maximum) at least and preferably you need to do some exrcises at 90% plus if strength is your sole objective!

NOTE - As you exhaust teh smaller fibres, the big ones have to kick in - So lighter weights with high reps can get you there too - But squatting 20Kg for 20 reps will only ever recruit the small fibres - Why - beacuse they can cope with that weight and have high endurance capability - they recover quickly and so teh big fibres never come into play - So you've got to go heavy enouygh that you exhaust the smaller fibres and/or go beyond their capability and force the big guys to come inot play - hence 5 reps or less - If you're working with a weight where 5 is difficult the big guys are forced to act - Especially by the 5th set!

That's why you see these routines, such as the deepsquatter routine advocating heavy weights for 3 reps or less.

I don't know how much training you've done before and exactly what your aims are, but if I were you I'd be thinking of these principle:

1 - First phase do 5 x 5 at reasonable heavy - say around 70% / 75% for a few weeks - get used to doing some heavy stuff - If you are already there then skip this phase

2 - Phase 2 think about moving to 3 x 3 at heavier - 80% plus - Again maybe a few weeks - Then do a light week - But again if you've been there and done that and need to move on go straight to phase 3

3 - Phase 3 - consider going up to singles at really heavy weights gradually increasing for a few week - One thing I like to do is work up to 3 singles at 90% plus, then drop the weight and do 2 sets of 2 reps - eg on squat I might go up top 180Kg for 3 sinlgles and then do 160 for 2 sets of 2

Again, after a few weeks of adding a bit every week have a light week to recover

Phase 3 is the tough bit - As you're going heavy safety is an issue so make sure you've got spotters or are in a squat rack with safety bars.

Other things to consider:

1 - It's hard to go heavy too often on deadlifts - So rather than keep going heavy on them, think in terms of assistance exercises- Rack pulls, glute raises, good mornings etc - But on these going for singles may not make sense 3 x 3 or even 5 x5 may be better

2- After a few weeks of phase 3 type work - It may, in additin ot having a light week, be worth dropping back to phase 1 again

3 - It takes time to build strength - Don't expect miracles.

If you need more PL ideas look at James Copping log - he does 4 days a week using the Westside routine.

Alos have a look at this - top left - http://www.exrx.net/WeightTraining/P...gPrograms.html

Again you can see the basic idea of gradually decreasing reps and increasing weights to gain strength - You;lve got to recruit those big muscle fibres!

Good luck

[keoghan]

The program I'm doing has worked pretty well for me. It's balanced, focussing on conditioning/neuro function, hypertophy, strength then maximal strength in 6 week blocks.

Book of Muscle (BOM)

I can't comment on any others yet I'm afraid, I've completed the Beginner & about 9 weeks of Intermediate left in this book. The I think I'll try Stronglifts 5x5 for 6 months or so (see how it goes) and possibly follow with the Advanced BOM.

The only thing is the workouts last between 40mins and 80mins depending what exactly you're doing!

K

[Martin Brown]

Quote

No doubt it'd be good for PL'ing in terms of peaking for an upcoming comp, but that routine seems very unbalanced and I personally would burn out pretty quickly on it, not mention it would wreck your posture without sufficient exercises to balance all the benching out.

Have you ever tried a high volume routine like Korte's? How do you know you would burn out quickly on it?

M

[ATZ]

Because I know how well I respond to training stimulus, squatting and deadlifting that often per week would do me in, even with carefully managed tonnages. However thats not to say someone else might not thrive on it, all I'm saying is that routine is not for me.

Would you not agree its quite imbalanced without taking into account specific trainees posture etc?

[lex]

I'm trying the 3 day Westside for Skinny B*stards routine at the moment, quite liking it. Details can be found here: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...kinny_*******s (sorry the forum stars out b*astards so you need to edit the link)

I've also tried the stronglifts 5x5 which works well if you're a beginner and don't do much apart from train. It didn't really work well for me personally when I started rugby training again.

If I was to do a 5x5 routine again I'd try the Madcow advanced one as the squatting variation seems quite good: http://www.geocities.com/elitemadcow...odized_5x5.htm

I've done the intermediate version before as well which is good for beginners, and leads on well to the advanced program which has a bit more volume and would be my choice of 5x5 routine.

Hope that helps.

[Was_once_fat_dave]

Cheers guys, a few interessting things there for me to mull over,

have come across that bill starr routine a few times before, has allways looked interesting.

Couple more weeks before I make any desicion though, so by all means keep them coming.

[dope540]

brooks kubriks dinosaur training sound any good to you?

have a search for dinosaur training, me and gunna discussed stuff on functional strength training.