hi, I have been thinking things over, and trying to make an offseason workout for rowing. The Off season runs from November to April. I have looked at many different types of training, (Push/Pull , Westside, Upper/Lower, Full Body) and I was thinking of a full body split 3 times a week. Westside looks O.k. , but in my sport, power comes mainly from 1.Legs, 2.Core, 3.Back … and in westside they focus more on pushing with the upper body, and in my case I pull. So I was thinking of using some of the rep and set idea from westside, in a full body split. How does this look.
Squat - 5 x 3-5 reps (strength)
Deadlift - 5 x 3-5 reps (strength)
Bench Pulls - 5 x 3-5reps (strength)
Leg Press - 3 x 6-10 reps (speed/power)
Bench Press - 3 x 6-10reps (speed/power)
Hyper Extensions 2 x 20 reps (Auxillery)
Incline Sit-ups 2 x 20 reps (Auxillery)
Bridging (plank) 3 x 30 seconds (Auxillery)
Scissor Kicks 3 x 30 seconds (Auxillery)
I figure I would do this 3 times a week, (M,W,F) or (T,Th,S). During the off season we would be doing endurance rowing 6 times a week.
So … how does this look?
NOTE : I was thinking of adding cleans, would they go in the low rep section?
hahaha dude unless youre a bench specialist, westside has a HUGE focus on the muscles you want. you could replace the bench press with another pulling movement (with arm flexion and whatnot) to be more rowing specific. but the squat and deadlift will help you out immensely.
Why 6-10 reps for “speed/power”? That makes no sense to me. Why not low reps (3 and under) and low intensity and focus on speed if it is truely “westside?”
Hmm, I was under the impression, that I could work on explosiveness and power at that rep range, guess I thought wrong.
I need this to be cleared up.
Would anyone mind fixing this up for me? ( ie organizing a day1-7 split with different excercises, and sets & reps … etc ) because i am in over my head here. I would greatly appreciate if anyone could do this for me,
An Auxilary (pressing, extra posterior chain work, etc.)
With 2-4 sets of 2-3 reps on each of these exercise. This would vary week to week or something like that so you don’t go stale. Intensity would be around 70-90% of your 1rm, varying with the loading/unloading process.
I would supplement some core and ab work with this at a slightly higher volume and lower intensity. Hypers, reverse hypers, hanging leg raises, etc etc can all be used.
could it still be three days a week? (Mon,Wed,Fri), and since deadlifting and squatting on the same day may be too intense … would it make sense to squat monday and friday, and deadlift wednesday?
You’re training Westside right? Sonce westside routines are fairly flexable, you could shape it more to fit your sport. I don’t know if you would like to do a max effort exercise or not(meaning working to a 1 rep max), its your descision.
Monday: Max effort squat/DL exercise, glute hamm raises or goodmornings, then finish off with reverse hypers…ABB work is very important!
Wednesday: Max effort bench… tricep work… back work… light shoulder/rotator cuff stuff
Friday: Dynamic Squats cycle through different percentages week after week. some assistance crap
Sunday: Dynamic bench again, cycle the percentages.
For your sport, Im not sure why you would like to develop max strength like in Westside. In my opinion you follow a three day split Monday: Squats Wednesday:Bench Friday:Deadlift (either the squat or deadlift day has no assistance other than abbs) Good luck!
This could be done 3 days a week. And I don’t see the point in rotating the exercises too much, especially when you are just starting to train seriously. I would pick deadlift or squat and stick with it pretty much the entire cycle. If an exercise is worth using once, shouldn’t it be worth using all the time? You can always switch after one cycle if you feel you have to. The only exercise I would possibly change is the auxilary, but again, pick something you feel needs worked on and stick with it.
Too much volume and intensity. I swear people are trying to make routines to see how much volume they can take. Not whether or not they can improve while doing it. On my lower body days I’m doing speed deadlifts, working up to a 5RM on the squat, hitting the 45 degree back raise for 4 sets of 6-10 and that’s it! Junk like calves, grip, and abs? I do it when I feel like it. I know the abs are the holy grail of sports for some people and that they need to be trained above all the other muscle groups. But get real. The abs are strengthened through general exercises like the squat and deadlift. Extra ab work is optional and you shouldn’t beat the living daylights out of yourself doing it with tons of weight. Leonid Taranenko never did ab work and that didn’t stop him from squatting 800 and hitting a C&J 2.5kg over the current world record.
keep it simple, endurance is covered in a very specific way via rowing. And since RFD doesnt seem to be a primary concern(althought it is one) I dont think Westside template would be optimal(muscle mass would hurt in this case). Focus on maximal strength via maximal lifting(althought I like my power training thread idea for this too, but it would change for a rower). As well keep it big body simple moves, get in work hard(low volume, long breaks, dont want hypertrophy to occus) then get out. Alternate high and low intensity, ie hit it very hard rowing with sprints, hit maximal weights, then next day go rythmically for endurance.
hmm, yeah guess i’m getting to caught up, thinking that too much intensity would do me good … wrong. So I’ll keep it simple, something like
Squat or Deadlift (could switch every 3-4 weeks)
Bent over Rows or Pull ups
Bench Press (I’ve been told its important for any program, something to do with CNS?)
Posterior chain movement
Then maybe a bit of core movements. The bulk of my training will be coming from rowing, so a strength training program obviously shouldn’t be at the top of my list.
Also what are your views on adding unimportant lifts, like barbell curls, tricep extensions, (beach muscles) … pointless or O.K , since no one would mind having huge guns. I guess it wouldn’t be a good idea though…
anyway, thanks again … this should be my last post in this thread, don’t wanna bother you anymore
ECL-rower I would suggest you contact us rowing and see iof you can get the program that Ethan Reeve put together when the rowers trained in Tenn. The program is all based on olympic lifts and the use of combos.