My Current Training and How It Is Evolving

So, as you’ve probably guessed by now, I’ve been training two days a week. Heavily influenced by the Dan John article I linked in my last post, as well as this article on Diesel Strength by Wil Fleming: http://www.dieselsc.com/the-simplest-weightlifting-program-ever/

After my meet, I started training as follows, essentially using the combos from the above article:

Day 1:

Snatch

Squat

 

Day 2:

Power Clean

Front Squat

 

Day 3:

Bench Press

Push Press

Bent Over Row

 

This was short-lived, and became this:

Day 1:

Snatch

Squat/Front Squat (alternated each week)

 

Day 2:

Power Clean

Bench Press

 

Occasionally I would (and still do) throw in a third day where I do chins and push ups, and maybe curls or extensions if I feel like it. So technically I am not doing just two days a week, but I also don’t stress if I don’t get this workout in or shorten it. It is also not a very stressful session.

While I was PRing on the bench press, I decided I was not interested in doing it right now. So what I have been doing in place of benching is pulls (clean pulls or snatch pulls). This has been working well. Training has been very fun. Even though I am doing very limited movements, I feel like I am working harder than I have in the past. I also try to limit myself to an hour and 15 minutes tops in the gym, primarily after reading this article: http://70sbig.com/blog/2012/02/hit-it-and-quit-it/

Since I don’t have any upcoming competitions or anything putting stress on me about my athletic performance, it is more about having fun and going in, getting the work done, and getting out. I feel good. I feel happy. I feel recovered. I’m not beat up or hurting all the time. And I am making progress.

I’ve been piecing things together from different readings, both what to use and also to validate my own ideas, and a couple that have really stuck with me are David Woodhouse and his System, and the fact that Jim Wendler has been doing two days a week for awhile now. Here is an example of Wendler’s training: http://www.jimwendler.com/2012/07/training-update-2/

and Woodhouse’s System: http://pendlayforum.com/showthread.php?t=2503

As of late, I’ve been programming my squats and front squats (and pulls) using Wendler’s Advanced 5/3/1 percentages and sets/reps schemes. For my cleans and snatches, I’ve been doing 8 doubles in the snatch and 8 singles in the clean and jerk, a la this article from Dan John: http://danjohn.net/beginners/

I have a few weeks more to go with the training cycle I have laid out. After this I may run some combos inspired by Wil Fleming, back squats, and push press to hopefully assist my jerk, still doing this over two days a week. After that I may go more strictly into Woodhouse’s the System. Either way, for now, until the unforseeable future, I will be sticking with two days a week (with my possible third day thrown in), as I intend to keep working on the olympic lifts and because my time is limited. It has work in the past, and it appears to be working now. Will it work forever? Probably not, nothing does. I may have to make tweaks, but I don’t necessarily believe I will have to add days. Especially since I am only going to continue getting older. Do I like being in the gym more? Sure. Do I feel like I should be in the gym more? Absolutely. Do I need to be in the gym more? Doesn’t look like it.

Again, is this for everybody? No. It is what is working for me and what I am enjoying doing currently. And maybe it will inspire someone to give it a shot or create their own minimalist training program.

 

Minimalist Training

Yup. I said it. Minimalist training. There it is. Now that it’s out of the way.

I feel like this term generates eye rolls and yawns of boredom and dislike. But whatever. It describes the type of training well, and it is what I have been doing.
To me, minimalist training means both a minimal number of exercises and a minimal number of training days. I first got a taste of this with Brooks Kubik’s Dinosaur Training. It was a 2-day training routine with only a handful of exercises each day. I tried it, but I didn’t stick with it too long- mainly due to the “feeling” that I needed to be doing more and be in the gym more often. At that time in my life, I also had more free time to be in the gym. Next time I did a twice a week program was when I just couldn’t manage the time at work. Although I have to admit, I didn’t really program it correctly or put in the effort.

My most important dose of minimalist training came from Dan John and this article on T-Nation http: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/2_times_a_week_for_twice_the_gains&cr=. I did this for a bit last summer, and while I didn’t follow it to a T, I still hit my best bench press ever. Despite that, I went back to doing other things because they were “cooler” or “sexier” and I thought I needed to be training more than twice a week. Even when training more times a week though, I would usually keep the volume lower. This seemed to work best. Any time I upped the volume to crazy amounts (more is better, right? Wrong.) I would get hurt, and be forced to take time off.

Well, shortly after my last meet, when I had decided I wanted to train differently, life took another turn (in a very positive  way), but this limited my time even more. So I found myself re-examining minimalist training and if it would work for me, and how I would want to set it up.

I am not going to sit here and say that minimalist training is for everyone. I am not going to say that you can’t get better results from going 3, 4, or 5 days a week. But I will say, that if you don’t have time, if your diet isn’t great, if you don’t get a lot of sleep, if you work full time, if you’re not using PEDs, or if you are getting older (which, I am. I didn’t start lifting as a teen like a lot of people did so I didn’t get all the benefits of that, and I’m not getting any younger), then minimalist training may be for you. It allows for better recovery (I have poor recovery to begin with), makes you really think about what you want to focus on (as training sessions are limited), and leaves you with more time to do things with the rest of your life.

Are you a professional athlete? An Olympian? A model? An actor? No? Then you probably don’t need to be in the gym so much. And you probably also aren’t afforded the luxuries that the aforementioned people are (i.e. it is not your primary job to look good or perform the best- you probably have a day job, significant other, family, friends, responsibilities, etc.)

Why train like a professional athlete if you aren’t one? These people have no other jobs. This is their job. They have spent years doing this and have become accustomed to the frequency, intensity, and volume that their workouts demand. You, most likely, have not, and therefor will not achieve optimal results mimicking what an Olympian or your favorite football player does. Also realize that many of these people are genetically gifted. Chances are, you are not. Most of us are not. Do not use the exception to prove the rule. Find out what works, but realize that more is not always better.

Where have I been? And where am I going?

Haven’t updated this thing in quite awhile. I have still been lifting and competing. I did a deadlift only meet last summer at a WADBL event and pulled 551 in a really loose single ply suit. Spent the summer training single ply again and was getting good at squatting and pulling in it, but could not get it together with the bench shirt. That’s a hard one to learn without spotters and people who know gear. So I went back to raw and just like the year prior, found my raw numbers were down. I ended up doing a meet in December and one most recently in February. Neither went as I had hoped. I hadn’t been having fun training and it can be really disappointing when you have a less than expected performance at a meet, when you consider the time you put in training and the cost of entry and travel and whatnot.

After those two disappointing meets, I decided to go on a hiatus from powerlifting. I’ve been interested in olympic lifting for quite some time and figured now would be a good time to give it a go. It is a lot more technical, and requires a lot more speed than powerlifting. It is extremely different and difficult, especially since I have no one to coach me. But training lately has been fun. I actually stopped benching recently, but I was hitting some PRs when I haven’t hit any in about 9 months. I even hit a beltless deadlift PR after not pulling in a month.

 

So that’ where I have been. As far as where I am going- I am not sure yet. I am just trying to have fun in the gym. Not stressing myself out about hitting certain numbers or worrying about a competition. I think it would be fun to at some point compete in a USAW meet, but if that happens, it will be in the distant future. I can’t say I won’t ever do a powerlifting meet again either, but right now that’s not where my heart is.

The best pieces of advice I’ve received lately have come from my fiance and a 70s Big article. She said “do what is fun” and the article was titled “Hit It and Quit It.” Together, these two things have put me on a different path with my training and my philosophy toward training.

More on that next.