Since I have no specific athletic or body composition goal in mind — other than chasing the fullest, most well-rounded expression of my phenotype — I’m at liberty to explore, to the widest extent, the speed-strength continuum and the force-velocity curve. In English? I get to dabble with my workouts, mix it up; have fun and do what I feel like doing on a particular day, versus worrying about what I need to accomplish to realize a specific goal. Life is all about balance, and I’ve had plenty of periods in my life where my training, out of the necessity of chasing a specific goal, was much more directed and pin-pointed. Now is not one of those times. Now is a period of — for lack of a more perfect term — loosely controlled chaos.
To illustrate my point, consider this 3-day snapshot of time from last week:
Thursday: power cleans; working up to 7x max singles. The work-ups were performed over an approximate 4-hour period, between client training sessions, with the 7 singles coming in a continuous, 20-minute or so, time block.
Friday: a traditional, bodybuilding-like, arm routine; supersets of bi and tri work — in this case, straight bar bi curls and cable push downs — with each movement range of motion performed in two different “zones” in a basic JRep methodology.
Saturday: a little bit of MetCon fun; 4 rounds of a front squat/farmer’s walk combo. This clip is kinda dark, but you get the idea.
Big hat tip to Meesus TTP for filming this immediately following her own Efficient Exercise-style, total-body dust-up. Way to be a gamer, my darling!
Oh, and be sure to check-out this recent post from Scott Abel, Adhering to Real World Principles: Understanding Max Load Training. There are no bad training methodologies, just bad applications of existing methodologies. Know what it is you’re trying to affect, and choose the appropriate method.
And finally, here are a couple of clips (here and here) of some our Efficient Exercise “trainer training the trainer” series; something we hope to do more of in the near future. These two are an example of some mixed methodology training — in this case, some classic pre-exhaust (using basic some basic zone and JReps concepts, here), followed by a complex movement using ARX Fit technology. ARX equipment allows for some severe envelope-pushing under fatigue, as one need not worry with mishandling the load. Good, good stuff. Of course, there are many ways (and arguments for each) in coupling the exercises in the 2nd clip; I chose to end this particular routine with triceps, though one could easily argue for pre-exhausting the tris prior to delving into the overhead press. The “pick a horse and ride” analogy works well in this case 🙂
In health — and happy labor Day!
Keith
Theory to Practice 