Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Training and ACE trainers

Monday and good mounrings. what a combo. I decided not to do deadlifts for the sake of time, get in and get out cuase I am rushing to make my 9 am class.
Whenever I do Good mounrings I somtimes find myself fantasizing about the ACE certified -thumb-up-my-ass good for nothing comming over to me and correcting my "squat" form. This was enhanced from the sticky note ontop of the dreadful mirror infront of the power rack that read "Look here" I have overwhelming suspicions it was him who put it there for assholes who cannot keep thier spines aligned when squating there 135. Anyway, as he walks over to set up his -from the floor pin presses with his notebook, water, and jumprope (and smug look of "I'll help you out cuase I study this stuff") on the power rack next to me (thanks god for set 7!) This is when that scenario plays through my head, and of course I enjoy it very much. Partly due to what was on my back to soon be lifted in quite an awkward way, was signficantly more than what he had on for pin presses.

Currently my trainning is what has been said by t-nation authors as "back to basics" except I took it a step even more basic and made the already basic outline and split it to push pull.
The idea is to not go nuts, avoid eating chalk, slamming walls, yelling, fighting, painfully waiting for ATP to build back up. Instead, lift fast, lift moderate weight, high volume and concentrate of forms. I like this becuase It allows me to do some rather different movements that I wouldnt normally attempt on, lets say, a push day; like zerchers squats.
A typical push day (today) would look like this:
Bench 8x3 (4 sets fast, 4 sets slow) @ 205 on 35 seconds rest
Front squats 5x 6-7 @ 155 on 30 seconds
DB bench 5x6 @70lbs on 15 seconds
Clave raises (i know I know! it was early...) 5x6-7 @ 230 on 20 seconds rest
Dips 5x6-7 @body weight on 15 seconds rest

Note here that the rest times are pretty low in coordinace with how complicated the movements gets. and the generally high volume and meduim weight amounts of each workout. Also the weight were not "built" up to what is written. A sufficent warm up with some specfic things thrown in there to complete it prempted the workout and the weights shown are what was used for each set. The article says that once it starts to feel easy -change it. And thus on day 16 of this workout I have changed my weight very little. Point being, its not to get hugley strong or massively cut up, but I see it as being a way to built upon what you know, work with it, and get better at certain movements.
Granted my extensive experiances doing the wrong things for a long time, and the right things for a generally short amount of time I have certainly had my chance to learn movements. But take my bench into consideration. Not once have i ever concentrated so much on accelerating towards my body (eek!) and "pulling the bar apart" to recruit my pecs faster (better?). 205 never felt so -good-. Yes its easy but it is hard to say a movement ever feels good.
This trainning will last for about another 25 days or so, and works great for my current schedule with school. After this I have some ideas of what I will being doing, but will be abandoning the "not going crazy" idea.
-GFH

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