need some routine advice

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by Thelistmaker, Mar 8, 2013.

  1. Thelistmaker

    Thelistmaker bats!

    Hi

    Last year I stopped weight lifting in favor of a routine of 1-2 hour boxing classes 6 days a week. these where mainly cardio with about quite a lot of ad work and maybe 2-3 times a week of light, high rep bodywieght squats and pushups.
    I currently experience no signs of over-training and no muscle soreness. I usually feel as though I could quite easily increase my training.

    I've recently noticed that since last year I've lost a lot of upper body and leg strength.
    I'd like to add some proper strength training to my routine.
    I mainly train in the evenings, so I was thinking of adding a few sets of compound exercises in the morning, maybe 3 days a week. perhaps 3 sets of around 8 reps.

    my goal is to gain in maximal strength whilst maintaining my high level of cardio training. I have good form and am aware of what it feels like to be hurting myself.

    Advice please :)

    Any advice?
     
  2. YouKnowWho

    YouKnowWho Valued Member

    If combat is your main goal, you should still put your combat skill development as your highest priority. The strength training is to "enhance" your combat skill. It should not be treated as higher priority than you combat skill development. Of course if you are a body builder that will be a different story.

    Should you spent your training time in

    - punch/kick on your heavy bag?
    - throw your dummy?
    - bench press?
    - free weight?

    Of course you can do all the above. But what if your training time is limited?

    I have a plastic drum that I can put water into it.

    [​IMG]

    If I fill it up, it will be over 200 lb. When I twist it with my 2 arms, I can develop some good twisting power that I can "directly" apply in wrestling. The power that I obtained from my bench pressing, I can only "indirectly" apply in my wrestling.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2013
  3. benkei

    benkei Valued Member

    I'd maybe go with something like starting strength. It's only 3 days per week and would probably suit you well.
     
  4. Thelistmaker

    Thelistmaker bats!

    Hi, thanks for the recommendations.

    For me strength is not a means to progress in combat sport, it's one of my goals in and of itself. Getting better at combat sports is one of my goals, but so is building strength.

    Also my time is literally worthless :evil:

    I think I'll try the beginners strength training program and see how it goes.

    My plan: 3 roughly different compound lifts every other day.
     
  5. Princess Haru

    Princess Haru Valued Member

    i'm fairly sure for pure strength gains 3-5 rep sets if that is your goal, in 3 x 5 or 5 x 3

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLZ9BcsdrM4"]Dan John: Realistic Reps - YouTube[/ame]

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxDaaFVXFyU"]The Best Reps, Sets And Rest When Training? - YouTube[/ame]
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2013
  6. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    5x3 is your best bet.
     
  7. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    i would say start with more reps (say, 3x10 or something like that) until the weights get heavy enough that you can't complete them all, then drop to sets of 5-ish at a similar number of total reps, and when you exhaust that, either do ramping sets to get higher intensity work in, and back-off sets at mid-high intensity to build up volume (ex: 4x5 in 2.5kg increments, then 20-40 total reps in sets of 5-10 with the first weight), or set a time frame (say, half an hour), and try to get as many reps as you can within that time frame within the 75-85% intensity range, more or less (ex: with a 100kg deadlift, warm up with 60kg or something, then do deadlift singles for half an hour at 75-85kg).

    rationale: if she's going to start light and gradually build up the weight, might as well use the extra reps to build endurance and technique at the same time. if she fails a set of 10, she's still getting some solid work in, and should be able to do 5x5 with no problem the following workout, transitioning seamlessly between the two. same for, say, 5x5 to 3x5. but eventually that's going to give up the ghost as well, and if she's combining MA training and strength training, the MA training might impact her lifting progress (which will already be slower since she's female), that is going to happen relatively quickly. in which case, she adds volume and aims to completely own the weight range she's using on work sets by handling it for ages rather than trying to rush to higher weights from one session to the other ala starting strength or stronglifts.
     
  8. seiken steve

    seiken steve golden member

    /NB females can normally handle more reps at a higher percentage of 1rm, it would be wise to utilise this. when i'm squatting 5x5 my mrs tends to use something like 4x6 for a similar training response, the extra time under tension is something you certainly wont regret when putting on your little black dress and heels either.

    lets not over look the power of back of sets for strength gains and improving form (we can all improve form) 8x3 is a corker 3x3 'heavy sets' with 4 back offs is plenty of volume without impeding on recover too much, (remember you have boxing on an evening) I would be inclined something like 7x4 for a female too.

    also being a woman you have a considerably higher oestrogen count, before we consider this a massive hinernce bear in mond that eo is hugely anti-catabolic, so reducing your frequency shouldn't cause much of a problem, even with all the cardio you are doing.

    typically when programming for a female client for the first 4-6 weeks we'll be looking at numerous sets of 15 anywhere from 3-5 sets for a number of reasons, mainly to teach proper form and get some much needed muscle mass before chasing strength gains with sets of 4-7 reps. I've had female clients squat bodyweight within 2 weeks of the strength development phase using this method, however they weren't going to boxing 6 times a week!!
     
  9. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    don’t over complicate it or overthink it if increasing max strength is your goal keep it simple
    Googles Ed Coan bench press routine, then google ed coan squat routine, they are free easy to follow and have helped a lot of powerlifters get an awful lot stronger (I wouldn’t bother with his deadlift routine until you are a bit stronger but you can follow his squat protocol for deadlifts easily enough, use the same percentages for the main lift and substitute in stiff leg deadlifts for pause squats, and as a bonus they were written by the most dominant powerlifter the world has seen
     
  10. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    i love coan's squat program for the simplicity
     
  11. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    If you look at some of the really strong raw lifters (Efferding really springs to mind) alot of them have listened to Ed and abopted his squat ideas, especially pause squats

    Coan seems a class act and his advice has been listened to for decades and its the same sort of thing all strong raw lifters say: lift a few times a week, keep it simple, start of light to build form and not overtrain and build up gradually. Its not rocket science but its not sexy either
     
  12. righty

    righty Valued Member

    All this is irrelevant unless we know how equipment you have access to.

    So...what equipment do you have access to?
     
  13. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    well since the stated goal is to increase max strength, they have stated they want to use proper strength training methods and they are wanting to use compound methods, i think most people assumed they have access to a gym where they can squat bench row and deadlift, if they dont have access to a squat rack and a bench and some weights they are sort of dead in the water before they start in terms of goals no?
     
  14. righty

    righty Valued Member

    That's sort of my point. It is easy to assume that since they posed the question that they have access to what I would call essential weight training equipment i.e. barbell, weights etc But just because it's easy to assume doesn't make it correct. I've seen enough examples of people asking for help without having access to this sort of stuff.
     

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