- Joined
- Apr 17, 2015
- Messages
- 1,744
I have tried everything over the years. I am always detailed in my approach but I love simplicity in training. Sure you have to keep an eye on volume in order to recover effectively so I always keep an eye on working sets but in parts of the year anything goes and I do high volume and push my body to it's limits. I do love the typical loaded and back off set approach for most major lifts. That is usually in the 8-10 then 12-15 rep ranges but legs may be a little higher at times.
When you're as strong and experienced as Luki you can't always just go heavier so you have to think overload using a variety of other techniques (volume, rep ranges, rom, tut, rest periods etc). There is no real reason for this post because as you guys know we could talk about training for hours and there are so many possibilities but I will mention something because it's fresh in my mind as I just changed things.
I generally keep to the same split but I rotate things through the year due to various factors. An example recently I have been on DNP and my physical/mental energy in the gym was massively impacted so I got to the gym and figured I want to lower exercises (I often do many more) and keep things simple and just be able to focus on my working sets and stay put but at the same time I don't just want to lower volume/working sets but I also don't want to just do multiple similar working sets. Although I do love the traditional rest paused method of 3 sets using the same weight and resting a fixed time and going for a total of approx 25 reps total before moving up in weight next workout. However now I wanted to take some rest between sets but also work in different rep ranges so my last PUSH workout looked like...
Warm Up.
Standing DB Lateral Raises... 3 working sets (low, moderate and high reps).
Seated Barbell Shoulder Press... 3 working sets (low, moderate and high reps).
Pec Deck... 3 working sets (low, moderate and high reps).
Machine Press... 3 working sets (low, moderate and high reps).
Superset of Overhead Cable Extensions and Machine Dips... 3 working sets (low, moderate and high reps).
Now for some movements (especially machines) they are too light to do a low rep set so in that event I really slow down the reps (5 sec negatives for example) and may even do some paused reps and I even decreased the rest period between sets just so I could truly fail in the planned rep ranges. Nothing needs to be exact as long as I truly fail but I aimed to fail roughly in the 8-10, 12-15 and 20+ rep ranges. Now you could just stick to free weight (plate loaded) so this won't be an issue and you can go as heavy as possible for everything (an example for tri-ceps doing ez bar skullcrushers and weighted dips).
WOW.... I am literally training like that.... was thinking to change.... but it gave me the right feelings...
How are your PUSH and LEG day?
During push i tend to do 4 exercises for back and sometimes i think it's too much.... 2 horizontal 2 vertical movements.