Busting Plateaus with Specialisation Routines

One of the most common things to happen during a prolonged period of training is that you will reach a plateau. A plateau can be in your strength, endurance or body composition and is second only to injury is probably the most annoying thing to happen to any serious trainee.

Oftentimes the causes of these plateaus are fairly straightforward and can be fixed so lets get them out of the way before we look at some methods I use to crack the really entrenched plateaus in programs.

Common causes of plateaus

Lack of progressive overload – I see this one all the time at the commercial gym I go to. It’s the guy who has been training for months or years and who isn’t making any progress simply because they have reached a level of strength or endurance and then haven’t challenged themselves with more weight or more challenging exercises.

If you have actually reached a level of fitness you are happy to live with for the rest of your life then that’s fine (not that I think anyone reading this blog falls into that category!) and you can continue to use the same loads pretty much indefinitely however if your progress has stalled just because you aren’t trying to add load on a regular basis then you need to perform a reality check and slap another plate on the bar.

Lack of variety in programming – Now, this does not necessarily mean that every 4, or 8 weeks you need to change every exercise in your program however if you are doing exactly the same program with the same exercises, sets and reps as when you started 6 or 12 months ago then you can’t expect much progress. For the record my own programs tend to be hideously boring. I squat, I bench, I deadlift and I perform a handful of accessory exercises like pullups, rows and kettlebell stuff HOWEVER what I do every 8 weeks is vary the sets, reps and loading parameters for the major exercises and I will rotate specific exercises such as the snatch grip deadlifts described below, in and out of my program to achieve specific goals.

If you’ve been doing a 5km run on Mondays, pushups and some 400m intervals on Wednesday and a 10km run on Friday every week for a year you might want to consider mixing things up and seeing if you can get some progress in your fitness.

Lack of effort and diligence – easy one this one. If you are not putting in a serious effort to train hard at least 3 times per week or if you are missing sessions and being sloppy with your diet then you will never make progress.

Solution? Harden up and get stuck in. If you can’t do it yourself recruit a friend, pay a trainer etc.

So with the straightforward stuff lets look at some more advanced strategies for dealing with plateaus.

Note that once you’ve addressed the issues above you will only plateau after you have moved from being a novice and intermediate level athlete to being an advanced athlete.

Generally this process takes at least 1 full year and may take several years of consistent training.

Typically if you are serving in the military you will be at an advanced level of fitness suitable for Infantry service and you may run into plateaus in the transition to SF preparation training. If you compete in sports then chances are you will be at the state rep level and competing at the national level.

At both these stages progress is slow regardless of how much effort you put in so be aware that no program at this level will have you improving 10 or 20% in a matter of weeks. As an example elite weightlifters are happy with gains of 2-3% per year once they get to the national/international level.

Plateau buster #1 – Specialised Specialisation.

This method is pretty simple. Fundamentally if you want to get good at something the most logical thing to do is to do it a lot. This approach works well for most aspects of training and assumes that currently you are probably doing quite a lot of different exercises or training methods in your program and that each exercise or method is only performed a limited number of times (say 1 – 3) each week.

Essentially what we want to do here is pick one thing you are stuck on and vastly increase the volume of training on that exercise or method. So say in a typical program you might only perform bench press or squats once per week in this kind of program you would increase this to 4, 5 or even more sessions of one of those exercises while holding the volume of other exercises constant.

This method is often used by people when they get stuck with a plateau but they end up with the opposite effect as they confuse “doing more” with “doing so much you get worn out”. This means that instead of doing one heavy bench session a week or two hard interval training sessions per week they add progressively more maximal sessions until an injury or overtraining stops them dead in their tracks. The key therefore is to increase the volume of training but to moderate the intensity of most of the sessions and cut back accessory work for the duration of the specialization you also need tounderstand that just doing a large volume of training will have a positive impact on performance even if the training is not all maximal.

This method works best if there are no major technical flaws or weak points in your technique.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Strength training

You’ve been training for a solid year and you are now pushing some respectable numbers in the basic powerlifts but after your last 3 months of training none of the powerlifts are budging.

Your program might look something like this

Monday – Bench press 5×5 with 75-80% of your max + core and lower body accessory work.

Wednesday – Deadlift 5 x 3 with 80 – 85% of your max + core and upper body accessory work.

Friday – Squat – 5×5 with 75-80% of your max + core and upper body assistance work.

Each day consists of 4-5 exercises in total and the assistance work comprises things like dumbbell bench, rows, overhead pressing, pullups and lunges etc.

Now deciding that you want to focus on your squat for a cycle here is what you might do.

I’m going to pick a classic powerlifting specialization program here called “Smolov”

Smolov involves squatting pretty hard 4 days per week so basically everything else needs to be backed right off to the minimum volume and intensity required for maintenance!

 

Monday – Squat 4 x 9 with 70% of your max + Barbell bench press 3 x 5 + 1 core drill

Tuesday – Squat 5 x 7 with 75% of your max + Pullups for 3 x 5-10

Thursday – Squat 7x 5 with 80% of your max + Overhead press for 3 x 5 + 1 core drill

Friday – Deadlift 3×3 with 60% of your max + 1 core drill

Saturday – Squat 10 x 3 with 85% of your max

Repeat this cycle 2 more times adding 5-10kg to each set of squats in week 2 and 3.

No fancy squat variations here just lots of volume on the core lift.

After 3 weeks take a light week, retest your squat and then switch the volume focus to another one of the core lifts.

Recently I used this approach with my bench press and added 7.5kg to my competition best in 4 weeks (a substantial gain considering how long I’ve been training)

The same approach can be used with something like running where you add more running sessions but vary the pace and length.

Running program

Monday run 5km

Wednesday run 5km

Saturday run 8km

New program

Monday – Run 4 x 800m maximal pace

Tuesday – Run 5km moderate pace

Thursday – Run 2 x 1.6km fast pace

Friday – Run 6 x 400m maximal pace

Saturday – Run 10km easy pace

With the second program the volume of running has increased but the addition of some harder and easier sessions means that burnout will be avoided.

 

Plateau buster #2 – Varied Specialisation.

The second method of busting a plateau calls for a similar increase in the volume of training but adds a lot more variety of exercises.

There are a few good reasons for doing this.

1. Sometimes different exercises are needed to target weak points in a movement such as the lock out of a bench press or the start of the deadlift.

2. Using more variety can avoid overuse injuries that might be caused by doing the same thing 4 or more sessions a week

3. If you are used to standard exercises then more variety can provide a novel stimulus which can have a significant effect on breaking through a plateau.

Here is an example from my current training plan.

Normally I deadlift 2 x per week, once is heavy conventional (narrow stance) deadlifts and once is a lighter session of conventional deadlifts.

At the moment I am experimenting with deadlifting up to 6 times per week using 4 different variations of the deadlift

Monday AM – Heavy conventional deadlifts 5 x 3 or 5 x 2 @ 85 – 95% of max

Monday PM – Moderate Sumo Deadlifts 5 x 3 @ 65 – 75% of max

Tuesday AM – Snatch grip deadlift off blocks 6 x 6 @ 50-60% of max

Thursday AM – Moderate Sumo 5 x 3 @ 65 – 75% of max

Thursday PM – Heavy band deloaded deadlift 5 x 3 or 5 x 2 @ 90 – 105% of max

Friday PM – Snatch grip deadlift off blocks 6 x 6 @ 50-60% of max

As you can see this is a lot of deadlifting however many of the sessions are sub maximal and are designed to work on things like my lower back and core strength and my lockout.

If you’ve reached a plateau in your training and want some advice on how to bust through it try implementing some of these strategies or, if you want a custom designed solution shoot me an email and I can put together one of my Elite programs to take care of it!

 

Don’s new most/least favourite exercise

Over the years I’ve discovered a few exercises that have proved somewhat of a revelation in my training. These exercises may not look like anything special at first but their effect quickly earns them a place in my rotation of exercises.

Normally these exercises are supplemental exercises that have had an unusually powerful effect on my performance in the core lifts like squat, bench press and deadlift.

My newest exercise that I love to hate is the snatch grip deadlift off a platform with a slow eccentric.

I’ve shamelessly stolen this exercise from my Powerlifting coach Sebastian Oreb who has borrowed it from Charles Poliquin who probably read about it in some Russian text book.

To perform this exercise.

1. You’ll need a sturdy block or flat plates approximately 5 – 10cm high to stand on. I tend to use a block that is only about 5cm, this seems to be plenty!

2. Warm up with a couple of easy sets of deadlifts and then a set or two of snatch grip (hands outside the outer marks on an Olympic or powerlifting bar)

3. Throw on your straps and then load the bar to about 40% of your best deadlift. If this seems too light then just wait.

4. Strap on to the bar and stand on the plates, get your hips really deep and your chest up and your lower back as extended as possible.

5. Breathe in and lift the bar as you would for a normal deadlift.

6. At the top of the movement breathe out and then breathe in again, get your chest up and your shoulder blades together with your back arched.

7. Proceed to lower the bar with a 4-5 second eccentric

8. As soon as the bar touches the ground lift it again, breathe out and in and repeat for sets of 5-6 reps

By the end of the 6th rep your back and legs will probably be screaming at you. If not then add 5kg and do another set and keep going until you’ve done 6 or more sets.

Here is me doing a set with about 120kg (about 45% of my best deadlift) somewhere inside a workout that called for 10 sets of 6. The form here is not super strict (I need to work on my back extension) but you can get a good idea of the set up and general idea of the lift.

Snatch Grip Deadlifts

I would have posted one of the later sets from this workout as the weight got up a bit but I was also working pretty hard and had removed my shirt and no one needs to see me here in just a pair of tights, kids might be watching.

Evidence from the powerlifters I know that have been using this exercise indicates that you will only get to about 50 – 60% of your best deadlift if you are doing this correctly.

So what’s so great about this exercise.

This exercise is a powerful assistance exercise for both the squat and deadlift and anything that requires a strong and stable posterior chain (so things like running, pack marching etc).

There are several factors that contribute to this effectiveness.

1. The extended range of motion from standing on a 5 – 10cm platform hits your legs very hard. Your quads, glutes and hamstrongs will get a lot of work.

2. Your entire back from your traps to your glutes will get an incredible workout and will bulk up like you started taking something illegal.

3. This will lead to a huge increase in your ability to keep your torso rigid when it is loaded through the arms or across the back.

In my case this fixed my traditional weak point in the squat of folding like napkin in the middle when the loads got high. Now I can keep my torso rigid and instead fail because my legs run out of gas (more on fixing that later on).

So if you like to lift heavy things or you need your back to be strong and tough for your job I highly recommend doing this exercise at least twice a week for 6 sets of 6 with about 50% of your max deadlift. You will hate me for it but your back will thank you!

 

The Wait is Over!

My new book “Couch to Commando” is ready and has been sent to everyone that pre-ordered it.

The book turned out to be 165  pages long with over 130 pages of programs divided into 6 different levels to provide a progression suitable to take anyone from Couch Potato to Commando Candidate.

I am currently working up some extra sections and bonuses that will go out with the book but anyone who purchases the book now will receive all of the updates for the life of the book at no extra cost.

I am also offering a service where you can get personalised versions of the programs in “Couch to Commando” for a fraction of the cost of my fully personalised Elite Programs.

These personalised programs will use the programs in the book as a base but I will provide specific loads for the weights programs and will make modifications to take into account your personal schedule and access to equipment if the standard program is not suitable.

Normally a full Elite Program is $250 but when purchased with the E-Book these personalised programs are $50 for one and $40 each for two.

Purchase now via the paypal button below!

All E-book sales and programs come with a 100% money back guarantee AND if you follow a program and don’t make an improvement in your fitness then I will refund you 200% of the purchase price.

customised programs

E-Book Only $47.00 AUD E-Book + 1 customised program $97.00 AUD E-Book + 2 customised programs $127.00 AUD

Announcing “Couch to Commando”

A complete step by step guide to military fitness

Following on from the success of my E-book “Beat the Beep Test” I have decided to write and release a similar step by step guide to military fitness that will assist anyone to achieve their military fitness goals.

The contains over 20 programs divided into 5 levels designed to take people literally from Couch Potato to Commando ready.

All of the programs have been developed and thoroughly tested over the last 5 years from programs used by my clients to achieve their military fitness goals.

The Couch to Commando E-Book will be available from the 1st of June 2013 and will retail for $47 however I am offering the book for pre-sale at the special price of $39 from now until 31/05/2013.

Pre sale orders will be sent first and will also go into the draw to receive one of 5 copies of my Kettlebell DVD and E-Book as a special bonus.

Pre-sale copies can be ordered via the Paypal button below.

 

How to Live Forever Part 1

Ok so the title of this post might be a touch on the optimistic side and instead it should probably read “How not to become a useless crippled specimen of humanity that ends up a burden to his family before subsequently dying a lingering death of preventable causes” but it didn’t sound quite as sexy.

Anyway….

Regular readers of my blog and newsletters will know that I spend a lot of time working with people to help them develop a high level of performance for sport and military applications. This is very cool and tons of fun however in the last few years my personal focus on training has shifted ever so slightly to include working on the question of optimal health over the long term.

At this point some people may be wondering if I’m about to start raving about going paleo and spending 2 hours a day doing mobility work and meditation but the good news is that while I’m going to touch on paleo and stretching this is not some born again rant about the evils of hard training and the need to renounce the iron game for a life of tofu and yogalates.

So for a start what prompted this increased interest in the pursuit of optimal health?

The answer comes in several parts, some of the personal and some of the social.

1. I got older. Yep, happens to all of us. I ticked over 30 and of course started to notice that I now suffer more when I abuse my body whether it’s from excessive training, under recovery or the occasional overindulgence.

2. I had a kid. Its cliché but it’s true. Before that time there were really no external consequences of bad habits, if you drop dead at 40 or 50 and you don’t have kids then chances are the only people you’ll disappoint are self sufficient enough to bury you and move on with their lives.

3. The fitness industry, media and some medical professionals I know started to get increasingly vocal about how basically western society (and any society stupid enough to copy us) is basically digging itself into a grave with our forks and spoons.

4. I started working in the life insurance industry as well as running Octogen. (bet you didn’t realise that one!) This gave me first hand access to dealing with the medical conditions that cause people to end up sick and off work for long periods of time and this was massively eye opening!

So for all these reasons I decided that both on a personal level and for the benefit of my clients I would investigate the steps that anyone from elite athlete to office worker can take to optimise their health and minimise their chances of becoming a horrible statistic or cautionary tale.

Now, if you believe some of the mega health nuts out there you would believe that if you want to live for a long time you have to spend so much time and energy on living a healthy life that you will end up not doing anything except living a healthy life without having the ability to appreciate the benefits of your continued good health.

I certainly don’t intend to fall into that trap and my observation of health and physical phenomenon is rooted heavily in the law of diminishing returns.

Simply put this means that at the start of making a change a little bit of effort gives the most substantial result and as you progress further up the curve of benefit you have to input progressively more and more effort to get smaller and smaller improvements.

Fitness and health are full of extremists that advocate the advantages of a diet or system and insist that 100% adherence is necessary without realising that perhaps 90- 95% of the benefit comes from only the first 50 or 60% of effort!

Now before we go and look at these interventions I want to outline the goal of this exercise.

1. Everyone has a bullet out there with their name on it. We are all going to die but the aim of this exercise is to either dodge a bullet entirely, reduce the calibre so it hurts you less or delay the firing until you are 85+, still participating in activities you enjoy and merrily annoying your children because you refuse to die and leave them an inheritance.

2. The major causes of adult mortality in the west have WITHOUT EXCEPTION got lifestyle factors associated with their onset. We want to reduce these.

3. Long life is no good if quality of life is rubbish. Doctors can keep lots of people alive well past the time when they cease to do much more than take up space. If you spend your last 30 years taking 15 medications and living in a hospital then I would argue you are not really living. We want to compress the declining phase of our lives into as few years or months as possible or better yet just drop dead doing something awesome at 95.

So without further ado let’s look at a bunch of things you can do in your life to improve the long terms quality of your life.

Do some basic screening

Before you start taking action it’s a good idea to identify the areas that might cause you problems now and in the future. A good place to start with this is to go to your doctor and get a regular medical check up. This should include a full blood count, blood pressure, weight and height and basic screening for lifestyle and age related factors. I would also request specific blood tests for Magnesium, testosterone and Vitamin D if you are male and Iron and Vitamin B if you are female.

The aim of these tests is to identify things like high cholesterol, liver problems and low vitamin levels so that you can take appropriate action. Depending on your age and family history a doctor may suggest screening for bowel, breast, prostate and skin cancer. For example I’ve got pale skin and spent a fair bit of time in the sun over the last few years so I get skin cancer checks annually because I figure if anything is going to jump out and nail me now it’s going to be skin cancer.

Next I would go get a DEXA to get an accurate measure of your body fat and bone density.

From my experience of working in life insurance I can tell you that the big things that are mostly preventable and are going to seriously ruin your quality of life are the following.

1. Heart disease

2. Diabetes

3. Prostate, breast, bowel and skin cancer.

4. Liver cancer or lung cancer if you smoke and drink heavily

5. Falling over and breaking a hip or femur

6. Psychological conditions

7. Dementia

If you ameliorate the risk of these conditions then you have achieved the largest part of our process to improve your length and quality of life. Most of the interventions mentioned from here on are designed to address one or more of those conditions.

In Part 2 we’ll start looking at specific interventions.

 

Blog Wrap

I like to keep up to date with what’s going on in the fitness world so I keep an eye on a lot of websites and blogs, some good, some indifferent and some bad.

So, here is a short list of a few of the most valuable blogs that I’ve been reading recently and a few reasons why I recommend them.

Beyond Strong

www.beyondstrong.com

Beyond Strong is run by Nick McKinless who is a professional stunt man for major Hollywood movies (Sherlock Holmes etc), he has also been Britain’s Strongest man under 105kg, has lifted a bunch of the famous Scottish stones of manhood and performed a heap of world class feats of grip strength.

A few years ago I was fortunate to run into Nick when he was training at our Olympic weightlifting gym and through him I got my first taste of strongman events and was able to train with him a few times.

On top of all these achievements Nick is a great coach who has worked with Laurence Shahlaei (Several time Worlds Strongest Man competitor) and a heap of other athletes and a few movie stars. He is also a super nice guy and always willing to share his knowledge so I strongly suggest jumping on his blog and picking up some no nonsense nuggets of advice.

Like me he’s had a bit of layoff but I’ve been in contact with Nick recently and he has a book in the works and we are looking at running some workshops together later this year.

Juggernaut Training Systems

www.jtsstrength.com

Unlike Nick I’ve never met the guys from Juggernaut however after stumbling across their website from a link on facebook it became the only blog I’ve ever paid money to access.

Their content covers a wide spectrum of strength sports but mostly Olympic lifting, Powerlifting, Strongman, Football and some stuff on American football/MMA and Crossfit.

The good news is that even if you don’t pay the $7 a month there is a ton of great content posted for free on a regular basis and the guys posting are the real deal.

The paid content gets you full training programs aimed at specific goals and extensions of the free articles.

Elite FTS

www.elitefts.net

If you have been training seriously for a while and you haven’t heard of Dave Tate, Jim Wendler or the other guys from Elite FTS then you haven’t actually been training seriously.

Many of the top names in strength and conditioning have written for Elite over the years and a quick search through their archives reveals over 400 article written just by Jim Wendler (author of the very good and popular 531 method) and Dave Tate (Elite powerlifter) and I believe that they have over 3500 articles in total.

70’s Big

www.70sbig.com

The guys from 70’s big have a mission. Lift heavy stuff, eat lots of meat and grow sweet beards and mustaches to bring back the spirit of 70’s manliness when legs were big and shorts were inappropriately tight.

70’s big is full of serious training discussion but it’s done with a healthy dose of humour and given how humourless and annoying a lot of people in the fitness industry can be it’s a nice change.

The Jon Gordon Project

www.thejongordonproject.com

I met Jon when he was studying medicine at Sydney University and running the strongman club there.

Jon has a background as a rugby player and competitive strongman and is now working as a doctor and has just started writing this blog which looks at how an active lifestyle and physical training positively impacts health from a medical perspective.

Jon has kicked off with some great posts on the growing number of medical researchers who are coming to the conclusion that that the best thing for EVERYONE on earth to do is to cut out some of the crap we eat and move more.

Some of the videos posted are on the long side but they make compelling viewing and the most startling thing for me was how little actual effort is required to improve the health of such a wide range of patients and populations.

I had considered writing a series of blog posts about some of this health and medicine stuff but to be honest now I’ll just let Jon do it and keep pointing everyone there.

Morrison Industries

www.morrison-industries.com

Nate Morrison is an ex USAF Pararescue operator and was one of the original Senior RKC kettlebell Instructors. He is an 18 year veteran of Special Operations and an expert at preparing military members for the demands of their jobs.

I met Nate in 2004 when he was an instructor at the RKC kettlebell instructors course I attended in the US.

This blog is an excellent look at a variety of issues facing military personnel trying to develop fitness.

Ok so that’s my wrap of the blogs I’m following at the moment. Admittedly there are dozens of great blogs out there and this is not a comprehensive list by any means but I think that these give a great return on investment. If there is anything particularly great you have found please email me at octogenstrengthcoach@gmail.com and I will include them in a future blog wrap, plus I might not have seen them and I’, always interested in new stuff to read!

 

Strength Training for Boxers

This question came up the other day on the military forum and while it’s not military specific I do get a fair few martial artists contact me for training and there is obvious crossover to military applications (hint, don’t fight boxers, unless you can get them on the ground they’ll beat the S@#T out of most people)

Anyone have a good workout to increase power and strength for boxing. I am boxing three times a week doing glove work, sparring, bag work and floor stuff. But I would like to do another three days in the gym working on power and strength. Also I have plateaued on pull ups for ages, stuck on 13. Would love to get to 16 if any one has any tips?

In answering this I’m going to make some assumptions

1. The boxing sessions probably involve plenty of cardio in various forms of interval training like skipping and also the glove and bag work so I’m not going to add any extra cardio.

2. The boxing sessions are going to be fairly demanding on recovery so the aim is going to be to add strength and power with the minimum volume of extra training.

3. Boxing is a weight class sport so the best outcome is for only a moderate increase in muscle mass, restricted to the upper body as much as possible.

4. The main focus should be on maximizing the strength and particularly the power of the upper body muscles.

So with that in mind I would recommend the following two workouts for boxers alternated over the 6 workouts of a 2 week cycle so the first week is ABA and the second week BAB.

Keep in mind that this is assuming a minimal base of strength training and once a couple of months of this training has been completed we can switch to a more power based program which I will detail in a later blog post.

Workout A

Deadlift 3 sets of 5 reps with the heaviest weight that can be handled with good form.

Bench press 5 sets of 5 reps working up to one maximally heavy set on set 3 and then 2 back off sets at 20% less focusing on speed.

Pullups 5 sets of 75% of max reps

Medicine ball chest pass 8 sets of 5 reps focusing on reactive speed (have someone pass the ball to you and return it as fast as possible).

Workout B

Barbell power snatch or dumbbell hang snatch 5 sets of 3

Double kettlebell or barbell jerks 5 sets of 5 reps

Weighted pullups 5 sets of 5 reps start with 5kg and add weight each set if possible.

One arm row 5 sets of 8 reps

You will notice an absence of squats. To be clear I love programming heavy squats but boxers are the one exception to this rule. Squats tend to add too much mass to the legs which then means a fighter can carry less upper body mass in the same weight class.

The deadlifts and power snatch here provide enough strength and power stimulus to the legs and posterior chain while keeping muscle mass gains down.

 

Ok so that’s our plan for an intermediate boxer. In a week or so I’ll post part two with some more advanced routines.

 

The other day I received my favorite type of email.

Here it is

Hey mate

How’s it all going?

Just a quick email to say a big thanks and to let you know I made it through selection!

Job well done!!!

Hope all is well and have an awesome rest of the year.

This email is from my latest client to pass selection for Australia’s elite Commando Regiment.

It’s always a slightly nervous wait when one of my clients heads off on selection as it’s generally the culmination of months of coaching and a huge amount of time and effort on their part to complete the programs I write.  Then, as the course runs for several weeks they just disappear and i’m left in the dark until I get an email like the one above.

 

So far since 2008 I’ve received a heap of emails like the one above and out of everyone who has completed programs with me through to the selection course not a single person has failed to make it all the way through and be selected.

If you want the edge in your training for SF you know where to find me…

 

Military Fitness Q and A

I keep an eye on the forum at ausmilitary.com and answer a lot of questions that are asked on the forum or sent to me as personal messages.

Because some of the questions are quite relevant I thought I’d start a regular section here where I take questions on military fitness and answer them in a bit more details.

If you have any questions on military fitness please email me at octogenstrengthcoach@gmail.com with the subject “Military Q and A” and I’ll answer them here.

This one comes from the Aus military forum

Question

I am going to basic in 6 weeks, and for preparation my friend/trainer has swapped my programming around from 5×5 to 10 sets of 15-20 reps. at ~70kg to help with endurance apparently.

Is this a good idea, or should I be returning to previous/different programming?

Answer

The short answer is no, this is a bad idea for a couple of reasons.

1. The basis of any military fitness program should be strength. By dropping the 5×5 you are missing out on this critical element. This close to enlisting you may want to drop the volume of strength training to make way for additional endurance training but switching completely is not ideal. I suggest keeping 3×5 or even switching to 5×3.

2. Sets of 20 squats with 70kg is not very specific to anything you will do in basic training. A far better approach is to keep the heavier squats as above and add some sessions of higher rep kettlebell swings to build leg endurance. 10 sets of 15 – 20 swings with a 24kg kettlebell will give you what you need.

Question

I read both of your articles in the newsletter about squatting and running but now I’d like to know what is the best way to schedule the two types of training. If I do squats and then go running will this cause problems with my knees etc?

Answer

One of the challenges facing military personnel and any other athlete who needs to develop a broad range of fitness abilities is the timing of the different types of workouts for optimum efficacy.

The first principle to keep in mind here is that any combination of endurance running and strength training will be in some way counterproductive to both abilities. The interference may not be a huge amount but it will definitely occur. No one has ever set a world record in a strength sport and endurance running. This is not to say that you can’t develop a fairly high degree of both strength and endurance, just keep in mind the interference.

The second principle is that the closer to each other these activities are performed the more prominent the interference.

In general reasonable strength work affects endurance performance less than the other way around (although I’ve done squat workouts that have left me unable to walk) and therefore strength work should preceed endurance work.

In an ideal world you would perform leg strength work on one day and then run the next day. Less than ideal but still very good is to perform leg strength work around lunch time (early morning is bad for squatting heavy as the muscles and nervous system are generally not primed) and then perform running later in the day after a 4-5 hour rest.

Slightly worse again is to run in the morning and then perform strength work in the afternoon.

Finally the worst combos are to perform heavy strength work followed immediately by running or a hard run followed by strength work.

Having said this sometimes doing everything in one session is unavoidable. If this is the case you just have to go back to our first principle and reduce your expectations of the outcome of the session. For example if you have to squat a solid 5×5 at 80% of your max and then go out on a 2.4km run don’t expect to run close to your personal best time.

In terms or doing damage to your knees, ankles, hips etc there are no issues unless you really overdo it on squats, miss one very badly and cause yourself and acute injury.

 

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If you are looking for the ultimate results in your fitness program then it is essential to have a coach working with you every step of the way.  

I’m a coach and even I’ve got someone in the background kicking my ass each week!

Unfortunately good coaches can sometimes be hard to find in your local area.  For this reason over the last 5 years I have offered personalised online programs for police, military personnel, martial artists and other serious athletes.

Utilising the state of the art Visual Coaching Pro system I have coached people from all over the world including military members deployed to South Korea, Iraq, East Timor, the USA, Lebanon and every state in Australia to help them reach their pre enlistment and Special Forces Selection goals.

Each program is specifically written for the individual and takes into consideration your current fitness level, goals and your available time and resources.  Every program includes unlimited phone and email support as well as diet advice.  Programs are delivered via our online system which allows me to monitor your training and adjust as required.

Normally an initial program is $250 but until April 30 (or until spots sell out) I am offering a 4 week trial program for just $87 with an option to extend at the end of the 4 weeks at a discounted rate. 

In order to keep the quality of coaching high I have a limited number of spots at any one time.

Therefore I am only offering 10 programs at this discounted price, 5 starting in April and 5 starting in May.

 Get your 4 week trial for just $87