The bigger boys made me do it!

[JonnyJames]

Ok. Seeing as Vinny and Narc seem determined to make me compete, and I've never been one to go against the flow, I open myself up to (hopefully friendly and constructive) criticism of my current training regimine. It's what I've been doing since about July last year, in which time I have almost doubled my max squat, added about 30kg to my max DL and became able to *finally* bench more than bodyweight.

This was constructed after reading pretty much everything about powerlifting that I could get my hands on, either online or in actual, real-life books, modified by what I read, again online or in books, about how you should train if you're a 'skinny bastard.'

So the template has been thus:

Mon - Lower body - power. Squat and/or DL speed work. 4-6 sets 1-3 reps. Posterior chain/quad dom exercise as appropriate 3 sets. Extra posterior chain exercise 3 sets. UL exercise 3 sets. Heavy core work 2-3 sets.
Tue - Upper body - strength. Heavy bench work, supplementary 'push' exercise, 2 different 'pull' exercises, 2 different shoulder health exercises.
Wed - Off.
Thur - Lower body - strength. Heavy squat or DL. Supplementary work in the same patttern as Monday, just with different exercises.
Fri - Upper body - power. Speed bench presses or push presses.
Supplementary 'push' exercise, 2x 'pull' exercises, shoulder health exercise, grip training.
Sat - Conditioning. Metabolic pairings followed by ESW
Sun - Off

Volume is pretty low - no more than 6-9 sets per movement pattern/muscle group and intensity is high.
Training methods used so far: Basic sets, work-pause, clusters, extended sets, feeder sets. Probably some others I can't currently remember.

So.... how does it look? Any glaring errors or ommissions?

Thanks in advance,

Jon

[666]

Looks pretty much like a Westside-style split, so when you say competing I presume you mean powerlifting. When you say heavy, do you mean a max or 5x3 or what? With maxing each week the thinking is generally to rotate the lift every 1-3 weeks and also for your supplementary lifts to not be too hard work and generally quite light and high volume; that what you were thinking? That's quite a lot of work too - make sure you get your eats in.

Oh, don't forget da gunzez!

[JonnyJames]

Yeah, powerlifting. I should have made that clearer. :)
And the heavy lifts could be any one of a number of things - ME, singles, 5x3, 6x2... I mix it up.
Yeah, it is quite a lot of work but I tend to concentrate on one lift a month - squats this month, 5 x 3 as it happens - and go a bit easier on the others.

Pull ups and heavy rows tend to take care of the gunz, I find :D

Oh, and I have a de-loading week/take a week off the 4th week in every month. Which is why I can do so much work the other 3 weeks, I think.

[Narc]

You're basically going down the self same route I took; read everything you can get your hands on, try from what you've extrapolated to make your training a perfect science and endlessly contemplate whether you should gain another 5lbs or cut for 2-3 weeks. Empirical evidence suggests that a little further down the road and you will be fat as a house, unable to tie your shoelaces without suffering extreme hypertension and reluctantly turning up at the gym two or three times a week to do one or two sets of whatever before going home 2 hours later and a stone lighter in sweat. S'all good.

[chi]

You're basically going down the self same route I took; read everything you can get your hands on, try from what you've extrapolated to make your training a perfect science and endlessly contemplate whether you should gain another 5lbs or cut for 2-3 weeks. Empirical evidence suggests that a little further down the road and you will be fat as a house, unable to tie your shoelaces without suffering extreme hypertension and reluctantly turning up at the gym two or three times a week to do one or two sets of whatever before going home 2 hours later and a stone lighter in sweat. S'all good.
To summarise, try Crossfit instead.:042:

[Narc]

Hah! Touche.

[JonnyJames]

T. J. I. C.

How was/is Barcelona?

[Narc]

Tim Jewitt is cool?

Barcelona was good. Hot, expensive, lots of nice tits.

[JonnyJames]

Tim Jewitt is cool?

Close... but not quite.

My obsessive-compulsive personality won't allow me to freestyle the way you and Vinny do. I've tried it, it just doesn't fit with me. Something I can plan works best. I'm not trying to make it perfect, I just want something I can live with, stick to, and will let me slowly-but-surely add more weight to the bar.

That 'must hit the weight class' fit was idiocy, I'll admit.

[Narc]

Hehe, I'm only jesting. Routine is good, everything is there, would be a bit too much work for me, but probably not ~50 lbs ago.

[JonnyJames]

Hehe, I'm only jesting. Routine is good, everything is there, would be a bit too much work for me, but probably not ~50 lbs ago.

Yay, affirmation!

Yeah it does feel like quite a lot of work sometimes. But I've got much better at saying '**** it.' and just going home. And the deloading weeks help a great deal.

Alright, cool. I'll keep plugging away. And when it stops working, I'll try another tack.

Nice Spanish tits, you say?

[Narc]

How often are you de-loading?

Spanish? No. Vinny is from Honiton.

[JonnyJames]

How often are you de-loading?

Spanish? No. Vinny is from Honiton.

The last week in every training month is either taken completely off, or training is cut down to 1 upper body, 1 lower body day.