I’m seriously confused about setting up my weights sessions, I hope someone can help me sort this out. :help:
My training at the moment - upper body weights only, my hamstring/glute is busted and i expect it to take at least 3 months to heal. I want to compete in sprints & throws at first then go on to do decathlon.
Example of workouts at the moment - split upper body broadly into pushing/pulling muscles, e.g Mon- pushes, Wed-pulls, Fri-pushes and so on every other day, low intensity cycling on the off days.
example of a pushes workout, (medium volume).
4 sets Bench 4 reps
3 sets Db Pullovers 4 reps
3 sets flyes 5-6 reps
dips sometimes as auxilliary
Aspects I am not sure about:
1: volume over time/cycling of volume. I am thinking of taking a rest week every 4th week, not sure if I should do any weights on this week or do low volume keeping intensity high. Also no idea about how i should wave/change volume withn (meso)cycles- vary each workout or each week?
2: how hard to push it. I don’t go to failure, but normally go close to it in some of the sets. Reading comments like some of David W’s, i am thinking that I might still be pushing it too much, and that it is better to do too little and then adjust rather than risk overtraining by constantly going hard. Should i vary how often i ‘push it’ hard with the weights, even periodise it as part of a cycle?
3: variation of intensity/exercises. I don’t know whether to vary intensity/reps (which is what i currently vary, between 3 and 5 reps), exercises, or use more variations within each workout. Could i get away with sticking to 2-3 reps then rely on exercises/volume for variation? - David W suggested using only 2-3reps in one of his threads and I like the sound of the advantages of doing so.
I have Speed trap, CFTS, and Weightlifting encyclopedia if anyone wants to direct me to useful material in them which will help me. Please direct me to other threads if any of the areas have been covered well enough.
My injury is quite odd, because i cannot think of the cause. I had to take 8 weeks off training completely, because of illness and exams. After the exams when i came home i developed a sharp pain thought the outer hamstring/glute when i sat down, or got in/out of bed. The only thing i think is a possibility is that i did about 350 miles driving in two days, but i’ve done long drives before without trouble. It also hurts when doing an abdominal crunch (probably because of the stretch of some part of the posterior chain). Also strange is the fact i can do a straight leg hamstring stretch - e.g bend over to touch my toes without any pain.
Anyway back to the training…
After some thought and selective reading I am thinking of setting up cycles in the following manner;
8 days in ‘training week’
pushing sessions on days 1,5
pulling sessions on days 3,7
no weights on days 2,4,6,8
4 training weeks in each (meso)cycle
week 1 - medium - medium volume, at most 16 reps in main exercise
week 2 - heavy - large volume, 21 reps main exercises
week 3 - medium as week 1
week 4 - rest week - low volume, 10 reps main exercises
I’ve decided not to go too near to failure. I’m still not sure about the third issue I put on the original post - I realise approaches to varying reps/exercises themselves vary among the various people on the forum, but can anyone help me with this so I can try something out for a while with some commitment?
as far as volume… you got the right idea about the fourth week (unloading). Decreasing you volume and keeping your intensity high is one way to do it or you may want to slightly drop your intensity…
since you are not competing i feel that you may benifit more by going to failure alot of the time… if you were competeing however this may not be a good idea because you are taxing your CNS. in your case (since your not competing) going to failure will not lead to overtraining as long as you are loading and unloading properly allowing regeneration so supercompensation can occur.
As far as variation for intensity/reps. I think what you are refering to is is it better to do 6x3 or 3x5. and if that was your question i’d say 6x3 because that equals 18 reps and opposed to 15 reps that you would get from doing 5x3.
hope I answered some of your questions…
Without the variety of all those other elements in your multi-event training (sprinting, jumping, throwing & complex weight excercises) the issue of plateauing and the need for variety in the gym becomes far more pertinent.
I disagree with Quickashell on the need to go to failure. The recommendations of David W. and others in that thread still apply. I would, though, increase the volume of lifing to compensate for the loss of other training stimulus.
Gf could lifting to failure not be incorporated into the program on the third week as added stimulus, prior to the unloading week to promote supercompensation?
Originally posted by JimboUKdec
3: variation of intensity/exercises. I don’t know whether to vary intensity/reps (which is what i currently vary, between 3 and 5 reps), exercises, or use more variations within each workout. Could i get away with sticking to 2-3 reps then rely on exercises/volume for variation? - David W suggested using only 2-3reps in one of his threads and I like the sound of the advantages of doing so.
I generally keep my reps in the 2 - 3 range, sometimes going up to 5. So this is a valid approach. I would get my variation mostly in volume because you pretty much want to do the ‘big’ exercises year-round. This would include squats and benches, but you can certainly throw in deadlifts, incline presses and other variations. I like to alternate back and forth within a training week. So on one day I will do snatch, squat and bench then the next lifting day I will do cleans, deadlifts and db bench (or something like that.)
Originally posted by JimboUKdec
4 training weeks in each (meso)cycle
week 1 - medium - medium volume, at most 16 reps in main exercise
week 2 - heavy - large volume, 21 reps main exercises
week 3 - medium as week 1
week 4 - rest week - low volume, 10 reps main exercises
Why are you reducing the volume right before you rest week? I would progressively increase volume through week three, then drop it for week four. Check out the chart below:
I thought i remembered this mesocycle pattern being recommended over others in ‘the weightlifting encyclopedia’. I remembered wrong - I’ve just looked them up and none are recommended over others because athletes will respond differently to the patterns, and have different best patterns of volume.
I’ll try something similar to that diagram from CFTS.
Could i get away with sticking to 2-3 reps then rely on exercises/volume for variation? - David W suggested using only 2-3reps in one of his threads and I like the sound of the advantages of doing so.