Well, actually I’m just planning to use the idea of doing a few compound movements to get the testosterone running and doing a troubleshooting workout the next day.
Here’s the compounds plan:
3 cycles of pushups, squats, bodyweight-rows
3 cycles of standing military press, deadlift, pullups
3 sets of power cleans
Progression plan:
Go from a minimum of 3 reps to 10 reps (20 reps for DL & Squat), then add weights/extra resistance. Add at least 1 rep every workout for every exercise. This way I should be able to train for both, strenght and size, at the same time - right?
Speed:
Lift as fast as possible, lower for about 2 secounds
Rest: 60 secounds of rest for the cycles. Rest for the the power cleans depending on reps.
By doing the cycles my rest periods should be fine, according to this article.
http://www.T-Nation.com/article/most_recent/the_thib_system_training_frequency_and_rest_periods
Troubleshooting day:
Various hand strenght & forearms stuff, calves, neck training. Maybe some biceps curls, since my biceps is shit in comparisation to my triceps. Or I’ll just switch the pullups for chinups if I notice theres not enough emphasis on the biceps.
So far I only did bodyweight exercises and had some good results with those - at a size of 5’8 (172 cm) I went from 165 lbs (75 kg) to 175 (80 kg) in about 2 months and had some good gains in triceps, chest and back.
How about learning the right lifting technique - should I join a gym to learn the lifts correctly before I go back to working out at home or should I try to learn the right technique by videotaping myself and comparing it to instructional vids such as this one?
From what I gather, most gym trainers here (germany) don’t know jack about weightlifting since they always recommend machine exercises.
So… what do you think? I know I it probably isn’t a shotgun workout anymore - I wanted to simplify it. Should I do less compound exercises and rather do more cycles for those that I keep?
If I’d reduce the compound exercises I’d probably just do pullups, pushups and… squats or deadlifts, I’m not sure - what would you recommend?
Thought I’d hate to take the rows out of the mix, I desperately need something that stimulates the rear head of the deltoid since I got a dysbalance in my deltoid, due to all the pushups I did before discovering rows the front head is WAY stronger than the rear head and its pulling the shoulder forward. I don’t want to throw out to pullups either since I had some great gains thanks to pullups… unless you guys believe rowing will also increase my pullup strenght. Then again I could go keep it closer to the original Shotgun workout and do pullups, squats and military press in compound workout 1 (adding some Inverted fly’s in the following troubleshooting-workout for the rear head of the deltoid) and do rows, deadlifts and squats in compound workout 2, doing more than 3 cycles each.
Though then I wouldn’t know what to do about the power clean. Then again, I may have problems learing how to do a correct power clean all by myself anyways, no?