Thib - Would you post up some examples for the 4 (5) ‘work’ days?
- Upper Body Hypertrophy
- Upper Body Strength
- Lower Body Hypertrophy
- Lower Body Strength
- ‘Strongman’ day
TIA.
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I might write a follow up article. But I’m sorry, I don’t have time to write complete workouts on my forum.
No worries, just looking for some suggestions.
Try this
Upper body pump
A1. Peck Deck
A2. Chest Dip
B1. Hammer Strength Supinated pull down
B2. Seated Neutral grip row
C1. Lean away cable raise
C2. Neutral grip z press
D1. Standing cable curl
D2. Rope overhead extension
W1. 3 x 10 w2. 3x 12 w3. 3 x 14 w4. 3 x16
Leg strength
- Squat variation
- Deadlift variation
- Olympic lift from hang
- Loaded carry
W1. 3 x 4 w2. 4 x 5 w3. 3 x 6 w4. 4 x 7
Cardio CTs running program in athlete lean athlete strong
Upper body strength
- Overhead press variation
- Horizontal row variation
- Horizontal press variation
- Chin up variation
W1. 3 x 4 w2. 4 x 5 w3. 3 x 6 w4. 4 x 7
Lower body pump
A1. Leg extension
A2. Leg press quad focus
B1. Seated leg curl
B2. Snatch back extension or reverse hyper
C1. Single leg exercise
C2. Seated calves raise
C3. Accentuated ab crunch
W1. 3 x 10 w2. 3x 12 w3. 3 x 14 w4. 3 x16
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CT wrote this for cardio once.
3 x Flying 60m (Gradually build up speed over 30m then go all-out for 60m)
3 x Acceleration 60m (sprint all-out for 60m then maintain 80% of that speed over 30m)
3 x 60m
Multimodal medley 20m prowler/sled pushing + 20m sprint + 20m Farmer walk + 20m sprint for 3-4 sets… the difference is that here the rest period (3 min) is done jogging and not complete rest
This looks like a good approach.
Would the weights stay the same throughout on the strength days given your progression?
What percentage/Rm would you start with on the 3x4?
Using CTs ideas you could do this
Upper body pump
A1. Peck Deck
A2. Chest Dip
B1. Hammer Strength Supinated pull down
B2. Seated rope pull to neck
C1. Lean away cable raise
C2. Full plate raise or viking raise
D1. Standing cable curl
D2. Spider curl or reverse triceps extension
W1. 3 x 10 w2. 3x 12 w3. 3 x 14 w4. 3 x16
Leg Strength
- Any squat variation
Week 1: (8,8,8,6,6,4)
Week 2: (7,7,7,5,5,4)
Week 3: (7,6,6,5,5,4)
Week 4: (5,5,4,4,4,3)
Week 5: (5,4,4,3,3,2)
Week 6 (6,5,4,3,2,2)
- Any deadlift variation (I am doing snatch deadlifts from a deficit with 2 sec pause on concentric mid shin and 4-5 sec eccentric)
4 x 6-8
- Zercher Carry, trap bar carry, farmers walks or prowler push
4 x 30-50m
Lower body pump
A1. Leg extension
A2. Leg press or machine hack squat
B1. Seated leg curl
B2. Back extension or reverse hyper
C1. Single leg exercise
C2. Seated calves raise
C3. Accentuated ab crunch
W1. 3 x 10 w2. 3x 12 w3. 3 x 14 w4. 3 x16
Upper Body Strength
A1. Incline Bench Press
Week 1: (8,8,8,6,6,4)
Week 2: (7,7,7,5,5,4)
Week 3: (7,6,6,5,5,4)
Week 4: (5,5,4,4,4,3)
Week 5: (5,4,4,3,3,2)
Week 6 (6,5,4,3,2,2)
A2. Tbar row, chinese row or 1 arm elbow out row
Week 1: (8,8,8,6,6,4)
Week 2: (7,7,7,5,5,4)
Week 3: (7,6,6,5,5,4)
Week 4: (5,5,4,4,4,3)
Week 5: (5,4,4,3,3,2)
Week 6 (6,5,4,3,2,2)
B1. DB neutral grip z press
4 x 6-8
B2. Chin ups
4 x 6-8
B3. Powell raise
4 x 12-15
Sprints
Exercise Week Sets/Rate Distance/Time
A Moderate Intensity Cardio
(jogging if outside, treadmill or elliptical if inside) 1
2
3
4
5
6 120 bpm *
130 bpm
130 bpm
140 bpm
140 bpm
140bpm 10 min.
10 min.
12 min.
12 min.
B Short Sprints 1
2
3
4
5
6 4 x 40m
4 x 40m
4 x 60m
4x 60m
4 x 80m
4 x 80m
.
.
C Moderate Distance Sprints 1
2
3
4
5
6 5 x 100m
5 x 100m
5 x 200m
5 x 200m
5 x 300m
5 x 300m
.
Would this be optimal for natural lifters, given what CT wrote in The Best Damn Workout Plan For Natural Lifters?
Understand that the title of this article series is to attract more readers. There is no such thing as a “best” program.
However I do agree that the program recommend in this thread has too much volume. I did recommend a higher volume of work before I had a deeper understanding of physiology. And still do from time to time depending on the person’s individual tolerance for volume.
It is also possible to have 1-2 fairly high volume days on the primer 52 as long as the overall weekly volume is not excessive.
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Coach, I’ve read (maybe this is your writing even) that the optimal range of sets per muscle group is between six and twelve sets per muscle group.
Would you take into consideration whether or not a muscle is acting as a prime mover? For instance, I have long arms so when I bench I’m primarily hitting my pecs and not my triceps. Would you in such a session allow yourself to go “above” twelve sets on the triceps as all of those bench sets weren’t really hitting the muscle or is that the scenario in which you’d rather go as high as twelve sets? And thus tend towards 8-10 sets usually?
That’s a good question.
And if we get into that rabbit hole we might never come out. Why only look at a muscle if it is a prime mover or synergist? A muscle that acts as a stabilizer or fixator in a movement is also working.
But I get what you are saying.
I personally look at when a muscle is the prime mover to count sets BUT I do take into account when a muscle is a synergist in many exercises. That’s one of the reasons why I do not include much direct biceps, triceps and deltoids isolation with when working with clients (unless they are competitive bodybuilders with the needs and “advantages” that come with that activity).
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Thank you Coach, I’ll keep this in mind.
Somewhat unrelated, but you’ve been posting videos of some of the athletes you work with recently, do you have video material of an athlete that has very long legs and arms executing the main lifts with decent form?
I learn very well by watching others execute movements and I’d like to cross-reference myself against someone else to see if there’s something I can improve.
Define very long.
Gab (bobsleigh), Tom (powerlifting) and Paul (football) are those that I post more often and they all have arms and legs long relative to their torso.
I’m still not adept enough to see someone’s stature in that sense from videos so thank you for making it explicit. I’ll study those videos further.
Very long might be an exaggeration, but long nevertheless. I’m carrying less muscle than them so I look lanky in comparison.
To be equally explicit in kind,
I’m 186cm
Wingspan 190cm (avg/long)
Humerus 40cm
Ulna 28cm
Humerus/Ulna 70%
Leg length as measured by the first picture 104cm (55.9% of height)
Leg length as measured by the second picture (inseam) 81cm
Tibia 40cm
Femur: 104-40=60
tibia/femur: 62.5% (short tibia)
Thank you Coach, that clarifies my question.
Do I have to Increase the volume of each workout, given that I don’t get the same frequency as in the “best” damn workout program? If I use your recommendations from the article, an upper body day would only consist of six exercises with two preparation sets and one all out set each.
Is this enough volume to stimulate protein synthesis when training just two hypertrophy days?