Posts Tagged ‘limiting your potential’

Don’t be distracted by the title. If you clicked here thinking this might be about relationships or something similar then I’m sorry to disappoint. That said, I’m sure some of the things I’m going to mention might be applicable there as well.

When I sat down to write something it had been such a while since my last post (sorry about that if you’ve been waiting for something new – just been busy busy) that I had so many topics running through my head and so many notes and bits of information put aside for you that I didn’t know where to start. So I thought maybe a simple way to get something down was just to post a recent workout of mine that I thought worked well.

Then it hit me! In doing that I could give a very important piece of advice at the same time and a lesson I think is extremely important when it comes to training, fitness and getting to the results you are looking for.

So I’m going to do as I set out to do and give you a breakdown of one of my recent workouts that I feel worked fantastically well.

It’s a leg day workout and it involves Front Squats. However that is really neither here nor there. What I want you to know is that 3 or 4 months ago I hated front squats, so much so that the very idea of trying them made me cringe.

Now, regardless of the exercise, that probably rings true with you on some level. Am I right? At some point in your quest for health, fitness, leanness, a toned stomach or buns of steel, there has bound to have been a workout you dreaded, couldn’t be bothered with or thought was ‘too hard’. Or, at the very least, an exercise that you never put in your programme because you just don’t like it.

You may well have justified its absence to yourself (and no doubt others) in a way that makes you feel good about skipping it altogether, but in your heart of hearts you know that is the exercise, workout, class or activity you should really be doing.

You didn’t go running because “It’s bad for your knees” and you really needed to stay at home and do 10mins of abdominal exercises, when in reality it was raining and you didn’t feel like getting wet.

You don’t do squats when you are at the gym because “It’s bad for your back” when actually you’re just not adept at squatting and don’t want to embarrass yourself when the young girl in the size 6 leotard comes over and squats the same weight as you.

You don’t want to lift heavy weights because “you don’t want to get all bulky” when actually you just can’t lift anything heavier than a bag of sugar for more than 4 reps.

You can add your own in, but rest assured, at some point in your life (some more than others) you have done this.

With me it was front squats.

A few years back I had been back squatting around 160kg for 6+ Reps for a few weeks as part of my leg day and thought it was time to mix things up a little. I knew how good front squats were and that the guys that did them swore by them and I thought now was a good time to give it a try. I had read somewhere that a front squat weight would on average be around 70% of your back squat weight (which would be around 112kg) but despite the fact this was my first attempt, there were other people in the gym. I didn’t want them to see me with that on the bar. So 120kg was the weight I selected.

Needless to say I got about one decent rep out before the bar started rolling away from me.

BTW if you don’t know what a front squat is, you are essentially holding the bar across the front of your shoulders rather than behind the neck with your elbows high in order to stop the bar rolling forward. There are 2 common grips for this, the power lifting grip (which has your hands gripping under the bar at just beyond shoulder width with your elbows straight out in front as high as possible) or a bodybuilding grip (where your hands cross to hold the bar from the front, again lifting your elbows high). I tried both that day, but my grip of choice now is always the latter.

So I ‘humbly’ dropped the weight to 100kg and tried again. I think by this point I had two foam collars on the bar and a towel wrapped around it to try and take the discomfort off my shoulders.

This time I think I managed 5 very dodgy reps before re-racking and walking away to find my next exercise as if it was all planned.

It was years before I tried again.

Late Aug 2009 I decided enough was enough. This is a tool I should have in my training arsenal and I was going to master it.

I started with no weight on the bar and performed 8 reps as smoothly and as close to perfect form as I could manage. I then started adding 10kg at a time, each time aiming for 8 reps. If I made it I would go on, if not, I’d stop there and start at the previous weight next time and go from there.

I made it to a very humbling 60kg!

However, on my next leg day that 60 became 80kg and I vowed to get to 100kg before the end of the year.

I didn’t bother using pads, just steel on skin and I came out with bruises after every session. But each time the bruising was less and the pumped feeling in my quads became more.

I used a combination of straight sets and cluster sets to force the weight higher and by the end of October I was loving leg day. I looked forward to it before hand. I hated the pain during it (there is something so different about lower body workout pain to upper body) but afterwards I felt fantastic and that I had really achieved something. And then I reached my 100kg in mid November with around 6 weeks to spare.

And this is the point I want to make!

If you really want to make a difference! If you have a goal you genuinely want to achieve! Then that thing that you don’t want to do because you ‘don’t like it’ or ‘it’s just too hard’ or whatever other excuse you have given out for avoiding it, is probably the very thing you need to be doing. And if you can just be determined and stick with it for a few weeks (That’s right, doing it once is not an excuse to say “I tried it and I didn’t like it) make sure you are doing it the way it should be done; make sure you are giving it your complete attention; see the results it is going to bring you.

If you can do that, you might just find that the ‘hate’ you had in your mind for that one thing turns to love. Something you really look forward to. Something you can FEEL working for you.

And at that point, it’s probably time to change your routine and find something else to do!

Because if you are loving it, it’s probably too easy and you’ve adapted to it and you have to find a new way to challenge your body. But you will always be able to come back to it after a while and you now have another tool in your arsenal to use for the rest of your days.

So with that said, here is a note of my leg day workouts from that period taken from mid October.

I would point out that when I started in late August I was doing almost the same workout every 4 or 5 days and it was twice as long as this. After a few weeks I decided to split the workout in two. So I would do this session format, then a Back & Triceps day, followed by a rest day, then a shoulders, calves & abs day, then the other half of my original leg workout (tweaked a little), then Chest & Biceps, another rest day, before returning to this workout.

After following that path for a few weeks I realized my results were much better and my sessions much more focused.

(A1) High Box Squats – Worked up to 4RM (at 175kg)

(B1) Front Squats (Clusters) – (100kg) 5/5/5/5/5 Reps

(C1) Stiff Leg Deadlift – (90kg) 5/5/5 Reps

(D1) Lying Hamstring Curls – (32.5kg) 6/5/4 Reps

Notes:

I used the High Box Squats primarily as a primer for my quads. I set the box up just above knee level and started with just the bar. Squatting with my feet in a much narrower position that normal for a box squat (just inside shoulder width) to put the focus fully on my quads, I would then squat back to the box under control, pause for a couple of seconds focusing on relaxing my hip flexors, whilst keeping my core tight. Then driving up hard with my quads and repeating.

After around 10 reps, I took the weight to 60kg and did the same again. I then moved to 80kg and performed 5 reps and re-racked the bar. I was nowhere near failure and didn’t want to be. Remember, this is only really a warm up / primer. I repeated this process adding 5kg to the bar each time, taking just as much time as necessary to be fully recovered for the next set. (which was around the time it took to change the plates until the last few sets). At 175 I felt the 4th rep was a bit of a grind and so I re-racked the bar and got ready for the next exercise.

I should point out that I foam rolled before this and between sets for the first 3 sets just to be sure my muscles were loose and warm but not weakened through over stretching.

For the front squats, this was the first week I tried 100kg on the bar. I had gotten stuck at 92kg for 6 reps 2 weeks running and so switched to clusters to get used to the bigger weight. Last session I used 97.5kg.

The cluster sets I followed were 10 sec rests between reps. After 5 reps I would take time to fully recover (no more than 2mins) before repeating and managed 5 clean reps on all 5 sets.

I reduced the bar to 90kg for stiff leg deadlifts. My target was anywhere between 4 and 6 reps and it so happens I managed 5 on each set. Again taking as long as needed (under 2mins) to recover for each set.

With my hamstrings burning I moved on to Hamstring curls. I wanted to keep this heavy as I do slightly higher rep work on my 2nd leg day, so I loaded 32.5kg worth of plates on to the bench and focused on fully contracting each rep with as much force as possible (with good form) and then lowering under total control. On each set, as soon as that perfect form started to go and I was no longer in full control of the weight, I stopped and rested for the next set.

After some stretching it was time to head home with a feeling of a job well done. If I had to continue the session my focus would possibly have lapsed and I wouldn’t have had such a good feeling afterwards. So I’d suggest, when planning your programmes, sometimes it is necessary to push your limits, but it is easy to write out a huge programme that is going to hit every muscle fibre available, but that doesn’t make it the ideal choice.

Sometimes less is more.

Remember you don’t build muscle in the gym, you build it when you are recovering and if you can’t recover in time for the next session all you are doing is damage.

So now that I’ve been through all of this, have a think, is there something you know you should be doing as part of your routine? Maybe it’s something as simple as getting off the sofa and doing SOMETHING. Or maybe it’s a little more advanced than that. Either way, put the excuses behind you; leave your ego at the door and just resolve to get it done.

And if you just don’t know what to do, then the best thing you can do is hire a personal trainer. (erm – you’ll find my contact details at the bottom ;-p)

Remember, it’s OK to be yourself. Just be your BEST self!

Mark.

If you want to contact Mark about Personal Training, Coaching, Nutrition, Classes or anything else, please email – info@designsonyourself.com