T Nation

Whole Body Every Day

Powerlifting
#1

I just wanted to post a mini pseudoexperiment I did last week. Beginning on Sunday, I trained the entire body every day. Now, the reason I call it a pseudoexperiment is because it was very much by the seat of my pants. I sort of did what I felt like and what I was motivated to every day. I didn’t keep a log or record exactly what I did. I relied on how I felt and what I remembered I did earlier in the week to determine what I did and how I did it. I’ll try to give a rough breakdown of what I did:

Sunday

Weighted chins for singles and dips for triples, then heavy snatches from the floor for singles with hack squats or jerks mixed in just for fun.

Monday

5x5, hack squats (playing around with them on Sunday motivated me to do them) and power jerks antagonistic superset

Teusday

2x15, back squats and leg curls, decline bench and barbell rows

Wednesday

3x3, squats and deadlifts, weighted chins and tricep lock outs

Thursday

12 sets of light snatches done as explosively as possible for three reps

Friday

4x6 zercher squats and pull throughs

Saturday

3x8 front squats and RDL’s, bench press and low cable row

Then that night, tire flips. We flipped the tire next to a railroad right of way and I found a railroad tie which I also flipped end for end and if that isn’t a sumbitch…

I’m not sure, it seems like I didn’t include all the upper body pressing/pulling work I did, but as I generally hate horizontal pressing movements, it stands to reason that they just didn’t register in my mind. Rest assured I did do horizontal pushes and pulls, with enough pushes to balance my pulls.

Today I’m not sure I’ll do any strength training, I did 20 minutes on the erg just to get loosened up this afternoon. Or maybe I’ll go in and do some moderately heavy singles in the power clean. Who knows…

Anyway, I just thought I would share, as this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and it just sort of came to fruition last week. I guess I’d like to do it again this week and then cut back to three sessions only next week to recover, but as always I’ll just fly by the seat of my pants.

#2

I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do, I’ll continue to train whole body everyday this week, then I’ll cut it back to three sessions next week to recover and reevaluate from there.

Hopefully this will be a good experience and T-Nation and I will find it useful.

Tonight I did power cleans for singles. Man, are my power cleans nasty. I just don’t feel as good doing them as I do for my snatches. I don’t feel like I’m getting full extension at the ankle, and I don’t feel like my traps are getting involved. Come to think of it, I don’t know if I’m using my traps like I should in my snatches either.

My issues with the clean aside, I did 12 singles and then I went and did heavy, close grip pull ups (supinated = pullups?) and finished with some grip work on a little implement I made.

#3

Sounds interesting…be sure let us know how it turns out when you’re all done.

#4

considering the lack of volume in these workouts, you could probably work out every day for the rest of your life.
I’m not trying to put you down. What you did was space out your week’s worth of workouts and did some each day. Its not a bad thing to do.
Either gradually add more to each day or do more each time and add some rest days.
And your upper body work was mostly missing.

#5

I agree, you’ve hit the nail right on the head. Basically, I took what would be a moderate or large work load if it were performed over three sessions and spread it out over a week.

As far as upper body work being mostly missing, that’s a fair enough critique, as my lower body strength and developement has always lagged behind my upper body. I was the kind who didn’t see fit to train legs, but I’ve been fixing that for the last six months or so.

I’d like to state, along those lines that I haven’t done any direct arm work for weeks, and especially not when doing heavy compounds every day.

I also run or perform cardio every night during a second session, and usually I get truck pulls, tire flips and stone carries in a few times a week, but I had some troubles with getting a location last week so I only did tire flips once. This week I should get two sessions of aforementioned strongman type events in.

Anyway, this afternoon I did 5x5 power jerks and hack squats.

#6

Today was 12x2 back squats, and 8x3 bench press and low cable rows, antagonistic superset.

#7

Okay, an update

Wednesday I did 3x15, overhead squats, pull downs and leg curls.

The OH squats were so hard because I am so uncoordinated. They will definitely become a focus of my training.

Thursday was 15x3 explosive with approx 65 percent for power cleans and decline bench.

Friday was supposed to be 4x6 front squats and dead lifts, but I pulled or strained an intercostal on my left side after my third set of front squats. I finished my third set of deads and went to rack the squat for my last set, got the bar off the pins, made it worse and had to set it down, done for the day.

Saturday I had a family engagement and didn’t train. Ate anniversary cake and had fun…

Today I did snatches for singles, along with some dips and finished up with Turkish Get Ups. If you can’t tell, Sunday is sort of my fun day, when I do what I please and have a good time.

Anyway, I think im noticeably bigger and fuller, and even my dad noticed a difference, and he hasn’t seen me since the weekend before I started training everyday. I consider that a good sign.

So, to wrap up, I’ll continue to train everyday this week, and then cut back to 3x next week. I’ll keep yall informed.

#8

Very cool. Why don’t you go ahead and keep a detailed log tho?

#9

After the first week, when I realized I would be doing this for a while I started logging everything. Now I write down my sets/reps, exercises, weights and other relevant notes.

I plan on lifting everyday, with periodic weeks at a lower frequency to “back off” for the foreseeable future. So I will have the next full cycle logged in detail.

The modifications I plan on making are to cycle by cycle, over say 12 weeks, increase the total work done, so that now the workload for each session is pretty low/moderate, but eventually each session will be a large amount of work, for a tremendous workload on a weekly basis. I may even add a session of GPP work, like sledgehammer or sled dragging, on top of playing with the tires and stones.

So, I’ll do three weeks of everyday training with a week of 3x training 4 times, thats 12 weeks, then I’ll do CW’s Strength Focused Mesocycle. That’s my plan for now.

#10

Just curious, why are you training the whole body daily? I know you’re seeing some results, but remember the six week rule: any program will “work” for 6 weeks, then you’ll have to make some changes or you’ll plateau.

Experiments, even pseudoexperiments, are better when the procedure and results are recorded.

#11

[quote]BFBullpup wrote:
Just curious, why are you training the whole body daily? I know you’re seeing some results, but remember the six week rule: any program will “work” for 6 weeks, then you’ll have to make some changes or you’ll plateau.

Experiments, even pseudoexperiments, are better when the procedure and results are recorded.[/quote]

More than anything, because I want to! I know that’s not very exacting or rigorous, but I do enjoy it. I’m having alot of fun and I look forward to working out every day, so that’s a personal element that can’t be overlooked.

I also think that the very frequent training, especially if it uses many different set/rep parameters and gradually increases volume, will build work capacity. I don’t intend on training this way forever, and as I said I intend on backing off and using a 3x whole body routine along the lines of Chad Waterbury’s TBT ot TTT next week. There are also lots of other parameters I can start messing with to avoid stagnation, set/rep volume, rest period, number of exercises. I may also add some higher rep, isolation type feeder workouts at some point.

So I guess to reiterate the answer is because I can, I like it and I think I can use enough variety day by day to keep the gains coming for 12 weeks or so.

Also, I do apologize for not keeping good records the first couple weeks. This week and the weeks that follow will be more rigorous!

#12

Another update:

Monday was 5x5 hack squats and power jerks

Tueday was 3x15

zercher squats/leg curls
semi upright rows/decline bench
wrist roller

Wednesday
3x3
deads, chins, dips

Thursday
15 x 3 70% 1RM explosive
snatches
bench press

also, tire flips, truck pulls and stone carry that evening

Friday
8x3
back squats/leg curls
45 degree db presses/weighted chins

crush grip work

Tomarrow will likely be prehab/GPP type stuff with my pa…

Anyway, pretty much the last harcore workout of everyday training. Next week will be M, W, F weight training only.