More Weight: Izzy T's Log

[Tom Narvaez]

I have to be in the gym five days a week starting next week so it's no bueno, bro.

[Carlos Daniel]

I have to be in the gym five days a week starting next week so it's no bueno, bro.

Do a TM split then and do conditioning on a day. Add an extra day for arms or calves or whatever, if you must.

[Tom Narvaez]

That's not very different from what I'm doing. I'm just getting volume from assistance exercises instead of the actual lifts.

[Tom Narvaez]

Out of curiosity, what would you suggest? Instinctively, I feel like doing the lifts more frequently is better, but I don't know how I want to set it up. Also, my inner bro REALLY likes the assistance work, lol.

[Carlos Daniel]

Out of curiosity, what would you suggest? Instinctively, I feel like doing the lifts more frequently is better, but I don't know how I want to set it up. Also, my inner bro REALLY likes the assistance work, lol.

I think the best way to get good on the lifts is doing the lifts. Now, that's a surprise, huh?

Now, if you want to do something similar to what you're doing, you could the following.

Warm up to top set of 3. Take a little weight off, do set of 5. Take weight off, set of 8. Do some assistance. Say this is squat, so do the reps and follow up with some leg curls or pause squats or leg press, bavarian drunken one legged jumping jacks. This would be Monday.

Say, Tuesday you do bench. Same thing, and do some assistance like DB press, incline, close grip, portuguese tittie twisters, whatever.

I'm sure you can see where this is going and can fill the holes for the other lifts.

Now, those three sets might be enough to spur progress, depending on how heavy you do them (how close to failure you go, that is). Depending on your deficit and how you're managing the diet, you might not have a lot of wiggle room with the accessories so take it easy on the volume. Maybe just 2 sets of 8 or something. The nice thing about this setup is that you get a heavy triple, which is good for max strength but you also get some volume to keep things going and get some hypertrophy too.

This would have you doing the lifts once a week. It's not what I do, but people seem to be doing once a week for ages and well, they seem to be doing ok so I guess it can be made to work.

One thing: EVERY lift has to be included for a reason. You have to look at each and every lift and be able to say "I'm doing this lift because of ...". The main lifts are easy: they are the competitive lifts so you kinda have to do them. The OHP keeps the shoulders happy. Now, every accessory must have a reason to be. You wanna do pause squats? are you weak out of the bottom? if so then yes, do them. Don't add a lifts just because. The reason I'm saying this is because accessory lifts are individual. If your deadlift sucks because your hammies are weak do RDLs or something. If they are not the limiting factor, then don't fucking do it! If you copy someone's else's lifting program you get a program that worked for THIS fella at THIS specific stage of his training. Ed Coan says his quads are weak out of the bottom of the squat, so he did high-bar pause squats. If this is not your weakness, then don't do this exercise!

Well, this is all I have to say.

Tom (and anyone reading this), what do you think about this?

[Tom Narvaez]

It makes perfect sense.

That said, Ed is kind of a special case. He really did do the same stuff over and over and over. That's not to say he didn't improve upon the template over the years, but according to Marty, and even Ed, he ran the same stuff and just added 10lbs to every 4 month cycle.

Non-main lifts that I really suck at right now: DB bench, ab wheel, GHRs, power cleans, curls, and chinups. Last time I did front squats, I sucked at those. That was a long time ago.

I like doing the lifts more than once a week because I love practicing technique. I'll have to take everything in and consider this all. My off days have to be Thursday and Sunday. I'd also prefer to do intensity squat on Wednesday, intensity bench on Friday, and intensity deadlift on Saturday.

Initially, it leaves me with this:
Mon: Bench Volume, Press Volume
Tue: Arms
Wed: Squat Intensity, Speed DL/Power Cleans
Thu: Off
Fri: Bench Intensity, Press Intensity
Sat: Deadlift Intensity, Squat Volume
Sun: Off

And I kinda like that to be honest.

[Carlos Daniel]

This looks very good, I think. I'm not a big fan of doing both bench and OHP on the same day but I don't see a way around that and it's probably not the end of the world anyway.

I'd put chins on Tuesday and watch out the triceps isolation on Tuesday too, since you'd be doing them after a good 10 sets of 5 of pressing exercises. I don't know about GHR, if you must, put them where you like them. I must point out that if soreness is any indicator, RDLs are the king of hamstring training. You could do them on Wed instead of the speed dead or PC.

[Tom Narvaez]

Initial idea:
Mon:
Bench: 5x5
Press: 2x8
Dips: 1x10-20

Tues:
Chins: 3x5-8 / 3xX
Curls: 1x10-20

Wednesday:
Squats: 5x1
Cleans: 8x3
GHRs : 3x10
Abs : 3x10

Thu:
Off

Fri:
Bench: 5x1
Press: 1x5
DB BP: 2x8

Sat:
Deads: 3x1
Squat: 5x5
Krocs: 1x10-20
Abs : 3x10

Sun:
Off

[Carlos Daniel]

I'd leave out the dips. There's a ton of triceps volume already.

But really, I agree with the rest.

[Tom Narvaez]

I like this better than the monster of a program I was staring into before.

Thanks, Carlos.