Post 20: Summer Training

          I heard a funny comment earlier this year in our office regarding the nature of S&C professionals. Actually, in my experience this applies to anyone that spends a worthwhile amount of time in the weight room either coaching or lifting. The guy I'm talking about said you could take five people from any other profession and put 'em in an elevator, hallway, anything; and they'd talk for hours. If you're familiar with strength coaching, or coaches you know damn well that most of them would gladly do the opposite, if you're lucky a smackdown might even ensue and you'd have great seats. Unfortunately this is the personality type that most of us are assumed to possess. I will admit there are many of us who do exhibit these types of behaviors, and there are also some who have a little more humane approach. The egalitarian side of me will tell you that it all depends on the athlete, and a little plasticity with respect to how you handle them will go a long way.

          Again, I've digressed from the purpose of my musings. What I intend to allude to is that there are several realms of training that each have their own dedicated and aggressive advocates. These disciples range from bodybuilding, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, and high intensity to the martyrs of bosu balls, TRX bands, and kettlebells. Again, my democratic alter-ego would say that ALL of these things work, but at different times of the year - of course I'm referring to periodization of athlete training programs.

          Anyways, the most recent of my training experiments has lead me into the church of high intensity. I read some good stuff by Ken Mannie and saw Mickey Marotti's latest salary and that turned into the flavor of the week for me. I hadn't even taken a serious look at a machine in a gym since my junior college days, but when I looked at them in this light I was "inclined" (get it?) to throw two days of my workout at that side of the gym. I called these two days my "intensity" days, one for upper and one for lower body. I called the other two days Volume Days where I went back to dumbbells, cables, and some of my other favorites. I'm falling in love with the machines because they afford the opportunity to get some high volume work done with better loading and more time under tension. The blood coming back to these muscles gives you that good full feeling or "pump" that we all so desperately seek. In combination with good rest periods this is a great opportunity to add some more pounds to your program, and maybe bust some plateaus wide open when you don't have access to equipment for a good dynamic day.

          The above is what I've been up to since I got back, a little less than two weeks ago, and it's a refreshing change from what became somewhat of a stagnant routine from before. In the next week or so I'll be looking to make some changes involving some more "true HIT" in the intensity days, and potentially try some different pre-exhaustion strategies in my compound sets on volume days to see how I like that. That's it for now.

-Alex