Lifting

Reversibility says that a 60 year old who stops lifting will lose 40% of his strength in 60 days.  If staying at your current level means progress, what does it take to move forward?  Careful daily consistency and occasional real challenges.  Like vaulting I have some benchmarks that tell me I'm in a good place.  Benching 225 lbs (100kg?) twice is a good place.  Before I went to Sydney in 2009 I benched 260 once.  I don't lift heavy just like I don't vault on big poles often.  It's just a result of the exercises and types of lifting I do.

I'm a big believer in mixing big lifts with what I call secondary, or minor lifts.  I've strained so many little muscles that I had to do this. It gives you a better muscle density as well as, if done correctly with a full range of motion, increases your flexibility.  So quickly I'll walk through what I lift and the sets and reps. 

Because I will do three rotations before a break for my trip to Denver, that means I'll double up on one configuration and do the long one only once.  Tomorrow is the short but heavier day and this will be my first training day of my championship year.  BTW - since I "started" mentally Monday I've felt a lot more focused and driven.  Even though I had no workouts I was more deliberate with my diet and gave a lot of thought to my training.  Cool.  Can't wait to feel like an athlete again!!

Tomorrow I start with biking the hill in front of my house and then I will do 8,6,4 in deep squats in a Smith Machine to protect my back and assure perfect form. This allows me to use a little more direct leg strength without worrying about tweaking my back with a little wobble.  Us feeble fossils have to worry about stuff like that.  Next I will do sets of 8 lunges in the smith machine with my foot up on a block to get a big stretch under my butt.  Next is 8 bench step ups on each leg.  Just like it sounds, I put the Olympic bar on my back and step up on a bench and jump off of that foot and land on the other, step down and then step back up.  After that is a torture for shoulder stability I have always called Power Sets - 8,6,4 of the following exercises performed as one set - 8 X standing curl, 8X upright row, 8X overhead press, and 8X lateral dumbbell flys.  On set two I start with the second exercise and rotate each set.  I stretch and do sprint drills between all sets.  On Monday I do this lift again but this time it is Squat - 8,8,6,6, lunge/step up as 8,6 and Power Sets as 8,8,6,6.  So I have a long conditioning day there whereas the other was a heavier day.  I will also do 10 X stadium ramps that would have been done today had I not traveled.

Saturday I go to the gym and do 3X front levers on the bars + 2 X P-Bar Bubkas, then Leg Press, leg extensions, seated leg curls, lying leg curls, seated arm curls, seated tricep extensions = 10,6  (my other day is 2, 1 on bars and 12,8 on lifts.  I start with 12 minutes on the StairMaster Gauntlet.

Sunday I'll do the hill again on the bike and then do 8,6,4 on a bench/lat pull superset combo.  On the lat pull superset I do 8X hands wide and facing away followed immediately by 8X hands close and palms facing.  Next is 8,6,4 Incline/hang clean combo.  After that I have 1 X 16 lying tricep extension/close hand bench press combo + bent over concentration curl as a 10, 6.  Next is 1X32 alternate incline dumbbell curl followed by 10,6 on tricep pushdown.  Also stretch and sprint drills between sets.  My other day is 8,8,6,6 on big lifts and 12,8 on secondaries except for the lying tricep press/close hand bench press which is 1X18.  Those muscles are more dense and require a constant bombarding to react.

That's it.  Give it a try and I think you will like it.  I start with super low weights and just complete the work.  The weights will ramp up when they ramp up.  After all I have 14 months.  The key is DO NOT MISS WORKOUTS!!!  Have a great day and thanks for being here!  Bubba

Bad Company - by Bad Company - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7vPjic5sRE&ob=av2n