I am a yell leader at my university. I was trying to find out if my traning program needs corrected. I train 5 days a week (mon-chest,back Tues-legs Wed-shoulders,tricep,bicep Thurs-legs,back Fri-shoulders,tricep,bicep) Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are my heavy days. Then I do 3x15 on Thursday and Friday( I am not really trying to get any bigger but, I need more explosiveness). I decided to do this because last season I was struggling because my muscles were locking up on me. The reason I do chest only one day a week is because its one of the easiest parts for me to get strong and it gets in the way during partner stunting. I do twenty minutes of mild cardio on an eliptical bike monday,wednesday,and friday. I appreciate any suggestion or comments.
atrain,
I’m a cheerleader, and a couple of the other cheerleaders have routines very similar to yours. It doesn’t seem to hurt them at all. My routine is more like a Westside routine but adapted for Olympic lifting. I do a ton of overhead pressing and jerks because of that, and I feel like all of the overhead work has helped my partner stunting (since you have to lift the girls over your head anyway). As for cleans and snatches helping my toss, they have to some degree, but I wouldn’t say they’re essential. As for squats, deadlifts, and the like, they seem to help a little with stabilizing the lower body during stunting/pyramids, etc. I don’t know anything about your programfrom what you wrote. All I can say is, you have to be able to hold 200 pounds over your head if you want a double cupie.
Here is my training program. These are the exercises and the sets are on the bottom of the page. For a little bit of my background, I have now cheered for 1 and 1/2 years. I am the main base in all our pryamids because of my strength. For partner stunting I can do the basics(chair, chair to hands, hands, hands extension) and I got a cupie or awesome two weeks ago. I played every sport growing up so I mixed some weight training from each sport to come up with this program. So if you have any comments or suggestions I would be very thankful.
Monday
Back
Lat Pulldowns
db rows
seated rows (use different bars to work inside and outside of the back)
Incline bench
Decline bench
dumbell flyes
cables
wrist curls
(20 mins of Cardio on Mon,Wed,and Fri
Tuesday and Thursday
Legs
Leg extensions
Leg curls
Squats
leg press
lunges
calf raises
Wednesday and Friday
Shoulder press (I start with dumbells and then use a barbell as weight increases)
Push Press
front,lateral,rear delt raises
lying tricep extensions
dumbell preacher curls
tricep pressdown
crazy 8’s
wrist curls
Sets Mon,Tues,Wed
12,10,8,6,4,2
8,8,7,7,6,6
5x8
Thursday and Friday
3x15
4x10
First, 3x15 is NOT the way to inrease explosiveness. Do a search on this site for the “Dynamic Effort Method.” Lifting fast is how you develope explosiveness. I don’t know what you mean by your muscles “locking up” on you.
What are your goals? Bigger? stronger? I suggest reading The Eight Keys by Dave Tate, and the Periodization Bible by him as well, they give a lot of insight into gaining strength and size.
For your program specifically: On your “heavy” days, how heavy are you really going? I can’t go “heavy” for 8 reps. Heavy is at least 80% of your 1RM. You have to delve into the 1-3 rep range to gain the most strength possible.
For explosiveness, take 60-70% of your 1RM and lift it as fast as possible for 2-3 reps per set. Do 8-12 sets with very short rests (30-45 seconds). That will develope explosiveness.
Also, your workout should be structured so that you do the big, compound lifts first (squats, bench, deadlifts, push press, shoulder press) because you can move the most weight when your fresh. Then, if you have anything left, move on to the more isolated exercises. I think if you pick 2 compound lifts per body part and work them hard each day, you won’t have the energy to do a lot of the isolation exercises. You’ll find they weren’t very necessary in the first place.
I don’t know if you’re looing for a partner-stunting-specific workout or not, but in that case I’d say dump the chest and focus on shoulder presses, jerks, push presses, snatches, and any and all overhead lifts.