Critique routine

[Kärnfysikern]

here it is below.

A couple of comments. The bench part of the routine is identical to what I did spring and summer 2006 to increase my bench from 140 to 160kg(315 to 360). That time I first did the whole 9 weeks and gained 10kg, rested for one week and then repeated but % based on the new max and starting at week 4 instead.

I am going to do a similar approach this time. First the whole thing, rest for a week and then repeat but starting at week 3 or 4 instead. Im aiming to gain another 10kg. Hopefully more.

I have removed all squats. Im doing legpress mostly because I like to have beefy legs but also because it helps me in the start of the dead. Lungs I do because they hit my hams like no other. I use quite light weights on the shrughs because I like to hold and squeese at the top for a few seconds. But I might change it around and do superheavy explosive shrugs instead. Not sure yet. The superheavy ones usualy blast my traps much better but it might be to straining with all the deadlifting going on.

I didnt do very well in the deadlift last spring so any comments regarding what exercises I should add or remove to help the dead is much appriciate. I usualy gain best when I deadlift alot. Thats why I have 3 kinds of deadlifts in the routine. I do all my dead reps with a pause on the floor to avoid any bouncing.

All weights are in kilogram.

[Kärnfysikern]

Ohh yeah pausbench is with a one breath paus on the chest. The other bench exercises is touch and go.

Alll exercises not in color is not to failure. I stop one rep short of failure.

[Doc.Sust]

lets talk, where are the squats? you need them even f they are light, they will work alot better than leg press and lunges, get rid of them. get rid of the dumbell presses. rpelace with rack partial press or board press.

[Kärnfysikern]

lets talk, where are the squats? you need them even f they are light, they will work alot better than leg press and lunges, get rid of them. get rid of the dumbell presses. rpelace with rack partial press or board press.

What would you suggest for squats? Higher rep? Partial reps? Wide or medium stance? I could replace lunges with squats. I hate lunges almost as much as squats!!! Box squats in the 6-8 rep range could be fun.

I cant se myself doing any heavy below parallel squats though. There is no exercise I hate as much as those!

The legpress is there because no other exercise seem to help me as much with of the floor strenght. Im always at my strongest in dead when I am repping heavy in legpress.

Cant do board press. No spotter and my gym wont allow me to store boards at the gym.

I have been thinking about rack partials. I used to do them all the time and loved them. But my triceps are already my strongest pressing muscle. The lockout is usualy never a problem for me. Do you think I need them in addition to close grip bench? Adding them would be fun but the risk is it will overtax my pressing muscles.

One worry is that if I add to many pressing exercises my shoulders go to hell. My shoulder is my weakest pressing muscle and I need push press, clean and press or something explosive like that to build shoulder strenght. But having a heavy shoulder exercie in the routine forces me to restrict other pressing exercises. I overtrain shoulders so easily that I have been neglecting them for years. I cant even rep military press with 50% of my bench 1rm. Thats how pathetic they are

So what I need most for my bench is a stronger chest and stronger shoulders but also beeing very carefull not to overdo it. Is there anything I could do instead of db press to build chest strenght but that is as forgiving on shoulders? If I had a spotter I would defenetly replace db press with decline bench.

Do you feel the carryover betwen db press and bench is very low?

[Doc.Sust]

What would you suggest for squats? Higher rep? Partial reps? Wide or medium stance? I could replace lunges with squats. I hate lunges almost as much as squats!!! Box squats in the 6-8 rep range could be fun.

I cant see myself doing any heavy below parallel squats though. There is no exercise I hate as much as those!

The legpress is there because no other exercise seem to help me as much with of the floor strenght. Im always at my strongest in dead when I am repping heavy in legpress.

Cant do board press. No spotter and my gym wont allow me to store boards at the gym.

I have been thinking about rack partials. I used to do them all the time and loved them. But my triceps are already my strongest pressing muscle. The lockout is usualy never a problem for me. Do you think I need them in addition to close grip bench? Adding them would be fun but the risk is it will overtax my pressing muscles.

One worry is that if I add to many pressing exercises my shoulders go to hell. My shoulder is my weakest pressing muscle and I need push press, clean and press or something explosive like that to build shoulder strenght. But having a heavy shoulder exercie in the routine forces me to restrict other pressing exercises. I overtrain shoulders so easily that I have been neglecting them for years. I cant even rep military press with 50% of my bench 1rm. Thats how pathetic they are

So what I need most for my bench is a stronger chest and stronger shoulders but also beeing very carefull not to over do it. Is there anything I could do instead of db press to build chest strenght but that is as forgiving on shoulders? If I had a spotter I would defenetly replace db press with decline bench.

Do you feel the carryover betwen db press and bench is very low?

for strength the carry over is bad, you get to a point where it is harder to lug the dumbells around to set up than it is to press them.

here is what i suggest, we are going to cut some volume on the auxillary presses

lets do this one day at a time.

monday, rack presses, 2 sets of 5. get the bar lower than lockout,set it up so it is closer to a half press, put your pinky fingers on the line,

also your jm presses, cut them back to 2 sets of 5's
this should help you out and give your shoulders some rest, this is the same ammt of volume i used on my press day to hit a 575lb equiped press,less IMO is better. everything else you have written down is fine

tuesday
get rid of the dumbell curls move them to thursday. instead i want you to do some rotator cuff movements,front and lat delts dets, keep it real light 2- sets of 15 for 2 exercises

for the SLDL's 3 sets of 8 is fine but you need to get rid of the hyperextensions,trust me. also if you plan on doing pulls off a box later in the wk, you dont want to burnout early first 4 wks 3 sets of 8 2nd 4 wks 3sets of fives. i am going to give you an alternative day to do the hypers later in the wk if you feel like you need them.but for now, this is plenty for the dead lift day.keep shrugs and abs the same

thurs
ok close grip, 2 sets of 5 instead of 2 sets of 3's. i have been taught to keep my auxillarys at 5's and working sets on core lifts at 3 reps. you may consider droping it down to 3 reps the last 2 wks if you desire but no sooner. throw in your curls on this day. the day was a short one for you anyway so i dont think they will keep youin the gym that much longer

fri
SQUATS!!! first regular stance squats, you dont have to go way under to parallel just get close to parallel, the key to a good deadlift is a good squat.. 2sets of 5 reps. next do the box deads. than go to high bar close stance box squats,. it is done just how it sounds, keep the bar higher than normal and the legs closer to the neck and the stance close.no reason to go balls heavy, keep them moderate. just get some work in. first 4 wks 2 sets of 8's , next 3 wks 2 sets of five. johan get rid of the curls on this day!!! as a powerlifter i seriously dont do any curls at all, i get all my arm size form back work, if you feel you need more bi work, throw a few more sets in on thursday. instead hit some more back, wide grip pulldowns, or single arm rows etc etc,pick something you like 3 sets of 10. now if you still feel good, this is the day to do hyper extensions. if you feel beat up, skip them. listen to your body

johan , make the changes try it my way, if it doent work, i will fly across the pond to the neatherlands and let you punch me in the face!!!LOL i guarantee this will work better for you. give this a shot for 8 wks.

also johan, have i ever sent you my spread sheet workout? i got the workout from a highly ranked IPF powerlifter, it is close to the same volume in your program. pm me your regular email addy and i will send it to you, this program really is what set me up to break the raw records i was after for 3 years, i owe alot to this program

[Kärnfysikern]

To be honest I only include the curls for looks reasons I have quite good triceps but poor biceps. The little bodybuilder within that is still clinging on But adding a another exercise for the lats sounds better to me.

Il change the routine later today and post it up again to se if I understood everything properly

[RJstrong]

Doc has you headed in the right direction... keep us posted on your results!

[Doc.Sust]

Doc has you headed in the right direction... keep us posted on your results!

thanks RJ! i try to do my best, any suggestions you want to throw into this program analysis

[RJstrong]

thanks RJ! i try to do my best, any suggestions you want to throw into this program analysis

honestly i like the ideas you have thrown around... now i'm just curious as to how it works for him.

[Doc.Sust]

honestly i like the ideas you have thrown around... now i'm just curious as to how it works for him.

i guess we will see. lol!!! this is what works for myself, and i have sampled it on other lifters and so far so good

[Doc.Sust]

RJ shoot me you email and i will send you the original program/spread sheet if you like

[Kärnfysikern]

Lets se if I got it right!

[Property of Steroid.com]

With my clients who train for strength, I typically would have more upper back movements. For every back supported pushing movement, I would have a chest supported rowing movement...and for every chest supported movement, I would have an equal amount of vertical pulling movements (chins) ....same sets in all cases. In other words, I'd be doing more upper back and pulling movements.

I think the rep scheme for deadlifts is probably needy too....if you're looking to improve your deadlift, you have too many posterior chain movements there, I think.

[Doc.Sust]

the more i look at anthony is right, i dont think you have to many exercises but maybe too much overall volume with the dead, back the regular and SLDL's down to 2sets intead of 3, remember you are also going to be doing H cleans and box deads so you have alot of exercises, keep the box deads light, work more on speed for this, i would change up the rep scheme here. first 4 wks 6 sets of 2, 2nd 4 wks 4 sets of 2, 30 second break btwn sets. use 50-60% of your max on this, i would work this like a westside speed exrecise using the pendulum wave, but instead of usinga 3wk wave, try a 4 wks wave. wk 1 50% wk 2 53% ,wk 3 56% wk4 60%, than repeat it from the begining for another 4 wks with now les working sets. the key to the box is getting faster from the floor and breaking throught your sticking point. also last thing get rid of the machine curls on friday and pick another back exercises(lats) . fcuk the machine curls!! more back on firdays. less beach muscles!lol!

[Doc.Sust]

With my clients who train for strength, I typically would have more upper back movements. For every back supported pushing movement, I would have a chest supported rowing movement...and for every chest supported movement, I would have an equal amount of vertical pulling movements (chins) ....same sets in all cases. In other words, I'd be doing more upper back and pulling movements.

I think the rep scheme for deadlifts is probably needy too....if you're looking to improve your deadlift, you have too many posterior chain movements there, I think.

i dont think you need to have an exact ratio of push to pull exercises, but i do agree that this porgram needs more back work and that the posterior chain would be too taxing. looks like we can agree on some things ehh hooker! LOL! i n all seriousness, good points made on the critque

[Kärnfysikern]

Ok here it is with new mods. This time I have it posted in % instead of weights. Im not sure on the % for the rack presses. Are they ok?

The close grip benches might be to heavy aswell. I used the same kind of % last spring with no problem, but then I did 3*3 not 2*5.

One slight change from what you said about the box deads is that I do it a bit heavier the first 4 weeks. Since the weights in all other exercises are quite low during this period I want to put a bit more effort into them.

Thanks for the advices to both of you I might squeese in one more lat exercise but not sure where to place it.

[Doc.Sust]

percents don need to be used in the rack or close grip, go frokm wk to wk by how you feel, just make sure you get all the reps and you arent trining to failure before you hit the ammt of reps the program lists