June 9th, 2010
Hey,
I said last time I will break down my workouts in more detail and let you know what’s happening. Right now I’m transitioning to Strength so last week I did 2 days of hypertrophy and 2 days of strength. Now doing Max Strength this is really going to up the weights that I’m doing. Max Strength you are trying to lift as much as you can a very small amount of times. Before I go into my workouts I want to explain the term “Rep Max”.
Your rep max is simply the maximum amount of times (repetitions) you can lift a specific weight for a specific exercise. So people usually talk about their one rep max for bench press, mine is around 240lbs. When doing strength, you are working in anywhere from 1-5 reps, each at rep max. Based on predicted values my weights at each rep max would be 1 rep – 240lbs, 2 reps – 228 lbs, 3 reps– 223 lbs, 4 reps – 216 lbs and 5 reps – 209 lbs. That’s based on normalized percentages of your max, 1 rep being 100%, 2 reps – 95%, 3 reps – 93%, 4 reps – 90% and 5 reps – 87%. All this means is that when I want to work max strength and let’s say I will be working in a 3 rep range at max, for my bench press I would want to use around 223 lbs (for simplicity I use 225 lbs). These percentages can be used to find what weights you should be using for each exercise, and can also be used in any order. For example if you know your 12 rep max, you can predict your 1 rep max.
My lifts are as follows, all are 4 sets, 3 reps each:
Monday – Legs (Squats, Deadlifts, Straight Leg Deadlifts, 45 degree Leg Press, 45 degree calf raises, DB Split Squats)
Tuesday – Chest and Triceps (Bench Press, Incline DB Press, OH Tricep Cable Extensions, High Cable Flyes, Dips)
Wednesday – Shoulders and Upper Back (OH BB Shoulder Press, Bent Over BB Row, Front Shoulder Raises, Weighted Pull-Ups, Rear Delt Cable Rows, Shoulder Shrugs)
Thursday – Repeat Legs
Friday – Repeat Chest and Triceps
Saturday – Rest
Sunday – Repeat Shoulders and Upper Back
So that’s 6 days on, one day rest. The workouts themselves are fairly short, but when working in strength you need lots of rest. So 3 – 5 minutes between sets, at minimum only counting rest; my Monday would take almost an hour and a half. Time is cut down using supersets but working on strength is more waiting around resting, than actually lifting.
Pierce Hnatiuk, BPE, CSCS, CPT High Performance Strength & Conditioning Coach Alberta Sport Development Centre – NW Grande Prairie Regional College phone: 780-539-2040 phnatiuk@gprc.ab.ca
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