The 3 reasons men lift heavy

[jailer345]

The way I see it, there are 3 reasons we all lift and try to get stronger. The order of these 3 may be different, but otherwise we are basically all the same. The 3 reasons are feel good (this includes health and longevity), look good, and be dangerous. Now, I think lifting for strength does a pretty good job of accomplishing these goals to a point. However, I do feel that with no other training, one's ability to move well in an athletic manner is not being sufficiently trained to fulfill the "be dangerous" imperative. I work in a large jail. It is fairly rare, but occasionally I have to wrestle with an inmate. I always feel I have plenty of strength, but I sometimes walk away wishing I were a little more agile on my feet.

For this reason, I have programmed sprinting into my schedule in an attempt to increase my agility and athleticism. I will spare you the details, but I basically work squats and deads on the first day of the week. I work my upper body on two other days of the week, and I sprint twice a week on separate days from lifting.

Lately I have been starting my squat and dead day by warming up and doing one heavy set of five. Then I squat afterward. I will be honest, I don't have much left for squats when I am done deadlifting. I am starting to think I should just do one or the other. If you were in my shoes, would you squat for 5 sets of 5 across or just continue to do one heavy set of 5 on deads? Or I guess, how would you program my lower body day in general. Thanks.

[Mac Ward]

These issues have been covered many times. Deadlift programming is tough in that it destroys ability to do much else and it takes a while to recover from. For me, I have a squat priority day and a deadlift priority day, and I program from there. 5x5 on the DL's is not sustainable for very long as you will soon find out. Do some searching on the board, read Andy's forum, ready PP, there is TONS of information on this.

I do not recommend increasing volume on the deads for more than about 2 weeks - assuming you are doing anything that even closely resembles intensity for your capability.

[veryhrm]

Others are more qualified to speak on this than me, but how much martial arts training are you doing? If your "sport" is "wrestling" (within department and law mandated parameters), then you should make sure you're training for it. That practice will allow you to harness the strength developed in the gym towards your specific "sports" goal.

One reason i suspect that maybe you're not doing a lot of that practices is because if you were you would likely have noticed any lack of agility there rather than in an actual encounter. (also please don't "be dangerous".)

[Sean Herbison]

The 3 reasons are feel good (this includes health and longevity), look good, and be dangerous.

You forgot a very important one: competition. Whether in PL, another sport, or some other way. But competition is a very big factor for many people.

[cacafuego]

It can be counter productive to sprint for long distances. Running at high speeds causes a decrease in muscle entrapment and a reduction in max strength results. Depending on how much running and sprinting you already do it could be very easy to get hurt if you begin with max effort sprints

[curlrackhog]

Wouldn't programming power cleans instead of deadlifts help with explosive strength and, to some extent, agility? I'm squatting one day a week and doing power cleans afterwards and I've found that it doesn't take nearly as much out of me as deadlifts.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Some of my own thoughts after having had a long career in law enforcement and security.

If agility (I kind of suspect you mean speed in this too) is what you think you might want to improve, do power cleans or snatches. They are whole body explosive movements that make you have to do everything faster in order to do them at all well.

Given your job in a custodial setting you are probably required to operate under some restricting and limiting protocols that may preclude striking in unarmed self defense. If so, then some of my other advice that follows may be out of line for your particular situation. But using a heavy bag for striking flurries in conjunction with a speed bag while constantly adjusting your footwork may help in addressing your percieved limitations at this time. Use all manner of open and closed hand strikes and include low kicks and knees into the bag. These alone can get you re-wired or improve the current state of your skills and make you more agile on your feet. But again, using them may land you in the shit if you resort to out of policy techniques even to save your ass. If strikes are out of bounds, find a martial arts school that teaches self defense rather than competitive MMA or TKD or BJJ or other such art. Krav Maga is a readily available and accessible choice, but again, you have to take your agency's unarmed tactics policy into account. Some KM techniques involve control and restraint holds as do some (standup emphasis) jujitsu dojos. Mushin ryu and danzan ryu are both good choices but may be hard to find where you are. Hapkido can also be a good choice if you don't connect with a thinly disguised TKD mcdojo.

[Sean Herbison]

It can be counter productive to sprint for long distances.

Aside from being counter-productive, it's impossible. If you're doing long distances, you are by definition not sprinting.