Workout of the Week #26

Welcome to workout of the week number 26.

This time we have a 6 day Push Pull strength and power workout.

What is the training goal?

As I just said maximizing strength and power, so maximizing strength and certainly become more explosive AKA powerful.

Let’s have a look at the training variables.

We follow a heavy light load approach here, that means our heavy loading is done at intensities of 85 to 100% of the 1 RM and our light loading at 0 to 5% of the 1 RM.

The rep ranges, we do 1 to 3 repetitions for the heavy loading and 3 to 6 for the light loading.

Our exertion is hard to near maximum for the heavy loading, and light for the light loading.

Our training effort, we follow a maximum effort, or we have to do we have to follow a maximum effort for our heavy loading and a dynamic plyometric effort for the light loading.

Let’s have a look at the exercises. For our heavy loads, heavy loading days we use Olympic lifts and variation of the Olympic lifts, squatting movements, deadlifting movements, pushing movements, pulling movements for the upper body, and for our light loads we use jumps and throws.

The exercise order goes from most complex to least complex.

And if we look at more training variables, the training frequency we do 6 sessions a week, the training split is a push pull. And if we look a little bit more into detail, we have basically a push, we have a pull and we have a push-pull, and we have an upper body and a lower body, so this shows we do an upper body push workout, we do a lower body push workout, we do an upper body pull workout, we do a lower body pull workout, and we do an upper body push-pull, and a lower body push-pull. So these are our six sessions.

How does it look in detail?

Let’s just jump into it.

So here we are inside of our workout, our 6-day Push Pull strength and power workout. You get an overview of the workout and the week, you can see the week structure, so basically after just outlined it, workout number one upper body push workout, number two lower body pull workout, number three upper body pull workout, number four lower body push workout, number five upper body Push-Pull, and workout number six lower body Push-Pull.

How does it look?

Let’s have a look at workout number one, the upper body push, so we have here our first exercise is the push press and that is complexed or contrasted with the medicine ball push press. The second exercise is the bench press and that is complexed or contrasted with a medicine ball power drop, that’s why you see 1A and 1B, that is one complex contrast 2A and 2B is another complex / contrast, and you can see here we start in our first week, 1 repetition for 4 sets at 92.5 and our explosive light loading is 3 repetition at 2%.

2% of what?

Again I’ve outlined that concept of the parent exercise, so for example for the medicine ball push press, the parent exercise is the barbbell push press, so if you can push press I make it easy for myself 100 kilos, 2% would be using a 2 kg medicine ball. The same is true for the bench press, you have here, if you can use 100 kg in the bench press and then 2% would be a 2 kilo medicine ball for the medicine ball power drop.

And if we look at our next workout, the lower body pull, we do a trap bar deadlift complexed or  contrasted with a medicine ball scoop, and then we do a Romanian deadlift as a heavy loading and then we do kettle bell swings band resisted for the light load loading, and here there we only deviate a little bit from our from our setup, so we still have heavy loading 4 sets of one with 92.5% and the light loading 4 sets of 3 with 2% and the same is true for the RDL, but for our band resisted kettlebell swings, we have a slightly higher intensity, so 10% again 10% of what? If you can Romanian deadlift 100 kilos, 10% would be 10 kilos. So you use a 10 kilo kettle bell you swing it but you have a band attached so that it just doesn’t go into a free flight, as soon as you get to parallel with the arms and the kettle bell is going to be pulled back. You need to be prepared for that, otherwise you might feel that in your hamstrings next day.

Let’s have a look at workout number three, the upper body pull. Here we combine pullups with the medicine ball slam, and we combine the dumbbell pullover with the medicine ball overhead throw and also here we do 4 sets of 1 at 92.5 combined with 3 sets of 2 at 2%. A word of caution here, people might be asking “Well how can you do a 1 rep with a barbbell pullover?” Again this program is made for athletes, please go to Instagram and look for Vetter. Johannes Vetter, the German Javelin thrower, he posts quite a few videos on heavy loaded pullovers, explosive pullovers and so on and so on. Obviously you can’t do it if you’re not prepared for it, but you can certainly do it, if you train for it. And again this is for advanced athletes.

So workout number three the lower body push, here we do a back squat combined with a counter movement box jump.

What is counter movement box jump?

You stand upright, you dip down, and you jump up. And then we do step ups with single-legged non-counter movement box jump.

What is non- counter movement? You stand on one leg, you go down into the bottom position, where you jump off hold that position for 1 to 2 seconds, and jump off without a counter movement, a non-counter movement.

Our fifth workout, now we combine the push and the pull for the upper body, and here please pay attention to the left side. We have 1A, 1B, 1C and 1D, that means we do one set of bench press, followed by one set of the medicine ball power drop, followed by a set of the pull-ups, followed by the medicine ball slam. Obviously you need to respect the rest period, the inter serial rest periods in between, but here we do four exercises in a row. Heavy loading push, light loading push, then we have a heavy loading pull, and a light loading pull, that is one complex.

And then we go to the next one, we do our workout number six, the lower body Push Pull, here we have the Box Squad combined with a non-counter movement box jump. The same idea here, we want a complex and contrast of similar movements. So the box squat takes out the stretch shortening cycle to a certain degree and this is the same what we do in the jump. We do concentric only mostly concentric only squat, the Box Squat and that is complexed with concentric only jump, which is the non- counter movement box jump. And then we do something for the posterior chain, the pulling, there we do an RDL with the medicine ball scoop.

If you download that PDF you can read the glossary, where all the terms are explained. You can read a bit about me, you can see what all my athletes and former athletes have to say about me, what my mentees and colleagues have to say about me, and then there is a chance to join the membership where you get the four 4-we customizable program. This was just the first week of that 4-week program and inside the membership you get the full 4-week program, and considering we are at workout number 26, you also get 25 other 4-week training programs, so 25 * 4, you already have 100 weeks of training with different training programs.

Joking aside, let’s move back.

So what are the next steps?

Number one you download the program that’s free, number two you join the membership there you get the 4-week customizable program, plus as I just said, 25 other 4-week programs you like that video. In case you liked it, you subscribe and this way you don’t miss any of the next workouts. You can see the previous workout here, and I’ve made it easy, you can subscribe again if you haven’t, if you don’t want to, don’t do it. Anyway I’ll see you next week with the next workout of the week number 27.