T Nation

A Few WS4SB Questions

Beginners
#1

OK so first of am doing this at home I have a oly barbell a rack and a bench so I cant do some exercises.
goal build muscle and strengh.

This is what I have decided to do

Max Effort Upper Body (Monday)
A. MAX-EFFORT LIFT â?? Work up to a max set of 3-5 reps.
barbell bench press
B. SUPPLEMENTAL LIFT â?? Perform 4 sets of 10 reps.
Incline bench press
C. HORIZONTAL ROW â?? Perform 4 sets of 12 reps.
Bent-over barbell rows

D. REAR DELT/UPPER BACK â?? Perform 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps.
???

E. WEIGHTED ABDOMINAL EXERCISE â?? 3-4 sets of 8-15 reps.
Barbell Russian twists

LOWER BODY â?? (Wednesday)
A. MAX-EFFORT LIFT â?? Work up to a max set of 5 reps.
Front squats

B. UNILATERAL MOVEMENT â?? Perform 4 sets of 8-15 reps
Single leg squats, back leg elevated
C. HAMSTRING / POSTERIOR CHAIN MOVEMENT â?? Perform 4 sets of 6-10 reps.
stiff deadlifts

D. GRIP TRAINING â?? Perform 3 sets of timed sets.
Wrist roller

REPETITION UPPER BODY â?? (Friday)
A. REPETITION LIFT â?? Work up to 3 sets of max reps, rest 60 seconds between sets.

Barbell bench press

B. SUPPLEMENTAL LIFT (triceps) â?? Perform 4 sets of 5-10 reps.
Skull crushers straight bar

C. VERTICAL PULLING â?? Perform 4 sets of 8 reps
Pull-ups
D. MEDIAL DELT or TRAP EXERCISE â?? Perform 3 sets of 10-15 reps.
Bradford presses
E. ELBOW FLEXION EXERCISE â?? Perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps.
Regular barbell curls

F. ABDOMINAL CIRCUIT TRAINING

questions
1.what should I do for the REAR DELT/UPPER BACK? The program on this site doesnt have anything I can do with a barbell.

2.Do I need to be doing that much benching ?

3.can you do deadlifts and squats each week ?

4.I read you can add another lowerbody day can this be like the upper body reppition day ?

Thanks for any comments

#2

I am following the updated one on his site here is the link.

http://www.defrancostraining.com/articles.html

It has two upper body and lower body days and a greater selection of exercises. I am squatting and deadlifting each week on separate days and both are steadily increasing.

#3

for rear delt/upper back, if you could get some bands, you could do band face pulls and also incorporate band good mornings for one of the hip extension exercises at some point. i’m sure you could get some for relatively cheap, and you get two exercises out of it.

#4

I think I have some bands about so I will try that.

#5

[quote]redstar144 wrote:
I am following the updated one on his site here is the link.

http://www.defrancostraining.com/articles.html

It has two upper body and lower body days and a greater selection of exercises. I am squatting and deadlifting each week on separate days and both are steadily increasing.[/quote]

Can I skip the jumping ?

#6

[quote]drgonzo wrote:

[quote]redstar144 wrote:
I am following the updated one on his site here is the link.

http://www.defrancostraining.com/articles.html

It has two upper body and lower body days and a greater selection of exercises. I am squatting and deadlifting each week on separate days and both are steadily increasing.[/quote]

Can I skip the jumping ?

[/quote]

You mean on the dynamic day? I am squatting instead that day and doing deadlifts on the ME leg day.

#7

Yeh on the dynamic day.

can you post your workout for me pls ?Also what sort of gains have you been gettin off this ?
AM hopeing to do this for 12 weeks and get 5lbs of muscle.

get-it-done what bands should I get the green or blue ones ?dont think I have my ones any more.

#8

Here is a link to my training log:

#9

Am just going to stick with the one leg day for now.

2 more things tho

1.I want to add weight bridges in to see if it can help with me knee pain should I add these at the end of the leg day ?

2.What exercise should you swap up every few weeks ?just the max rep and reppition days?

#10

what type of band should I get ?

#11

[quote]drgonzo wrote:
Am just going to stick with the one leg day for now.

2 more things tho

1.I want to add weight bridges in to see if it can help with me knee pain should I add these at the end of the leg day ?

2.What exercise should you swap up every few weeks ?just the max rep and reppition days?[/quote]

I am too much of a beginner myself to answer your questions properly. Personally I am not going to switch any exercises till I am about 8 weeks in.

#12

Workout today dont know what to do next week tho what should i aim for ? and am I doing the first max right ?

40 to 60 sec rest inbtween sets

monday 10th may 2010

Max Effort Upper Body (Monday)
A. MAX-EFFORT LIFT â?? Work up to a max set of 3-5 reps.
barbell bench press
2x10 20kg/bar 1x8 40kg 1x5 60kg 1x2 70kg (struggled on the 2nd rep)

B. SUPPLEMENTAL LIFT â?? Perform 3-4 sets of 6-10 reps.
Incline bench press
1x10 20k/bar 1x10 40kg 1x10 50kg 2x6 55kg (struggled with last reps)

C. HORIZONTAL ROW â?? Perform 4 sets of 10-15 reps.
Bent-over barbell rows
1x10 20kg bar 1x10 40kg 1x10 50kg 1x10 60kg

D. REAR DELT/UPPER BACK â?? Perform 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps.
dont have bands to do facepulls yet

E. WEIGHTED ABDOMINAL EXERCISE â?? 3-4 sets of 8-15 reps.
Barbell Russian twists (first time doing these)
1 x 10 bar 3 x 10 5kg on bar

#13

REAR DELT/UPPER BACK:

  • bent over lateral raises holding small plates (2,5 or 5 kg) in each hand instead of dumbells

  • BB upright row;

  • BB shrug (for traps);

#14

doesn’t DeFranco use elitefts bands? i’m sure anything works, but if you use those, everyone knows you’re badass

#15

[quote]drgonzo wrote:
Workout today dont know what to do next week tho what should i aim for ? and am I doing the first max right ?

40 to 60 sec rest inbtween sets

monday 10th may 2010

Max Effort Upper Body (Monday)
A. MAX-EFFORT LIFT â?? Work up to a max set of 3-5 reps.
barbell bench press
2x10 20kg/bar 1x8 40kg 1x5 60kg 1x2 70kg (struggled on the 2nd rep)

B. SUPPLEMENTAL LIFT â?? Perform 3-4 sets of 6-10 reps.
Incline bench press
1x10 20k/bar 1x10 40kg 1x10 50kg 2x6 55kg (struggled with last reps)

C. HORIZONTAL ROW â?? Perform 4 sets of 10-15 reps.
Bent-over barbell rows
1x10 20kg bar 1x10 40kg 1x10 50kg 1x10 60kg

D. REAR DELT/UPPER BACK â?? Perform 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps.
dont have bands to do facepulls yet

E. WEIGHTED ABDOMINAL EXERCISE â?? 3-4 sets of 8-15 reps.
Barbell Russian twists (first time doing these)
1 x 10 bar 3 x 10 5kg on bar [/quote]

When I read questions like yours, I wonder if you actually read the program.

Here is the simple answer, next week, you try to do more. Either more reps, sets or weight. For you, I would recommend reps, but if you can’t do that, do more sets. The weight should be increased when you can do the max number of reps with no problem.

Defranco set up an easy program, if you read it, you can easily follow it. If you can’t, check out his blog. He answered a lot of questions there. Also, try reading the new program since it answers a lot of questions there, plus, still lets you follow the version you chose. A lot of exercise choices in that as well.

#16

[quote]get-it-done wrote:
doesn’t DeFranco use elitefts bands? i’m sure anything works, but if you use those, everyone knows you’re badass[/quote]

Ive just bought the ones with the handles a blackband it is suposed to be the strongest.

quote]Arioch wrote:

[quote]drgonzo wrote:

When I read questions like yours, I wonder if you actually read the program.

Here is the simple answer, next week, you try to do more. Either more reps, sets or weight. For you, I would recommend reps, but if you can’t do that, do more sets. The weight should be increased when you can do the max number of reps with no problem.

Defranco set up an easy program, if you read it, you can easily follow it. If you can’t, check out his blog. He answered a lot of questions there. Also, try reading the new program since it answers a lot of questions there, plus, still lets you follow the version you chose. A lot of exercise choices in that as well.[/quote]

Yeh ive read it a few times, I was just unsure for the max exercise if I was warming up right and for the others if I should do more reps to get them all up to 10 or to up the weight and aim for the min reps

Also for the max reps (even tho I have a bit of doms now and couldnt handle the last rep) it felt as if I could of done 1 or 2 more sets with a few mins apart.

Warmups
10 X Bar
8 X 135
5 X 185
3 X 225
1 X 255

Max Effort Attempt
3 X 280 (if this was easy, attempt the next line)
3 X 290