Workout of the Week #11

Welcome workout of the week number 11.

This time we have a 4-day a week strength and power development workout.

So what is our training goal?

Well I just said, we want to develop strength and become more explosive, also known as maximum strength training and combined with a power training.

Let’s look at our training variables, and let’s start with the training intensity so within this program we have so-called strength days and we have power days. On the strength days the training intensity is 85 to 100% of the 1 RM, on the power days it’s a mix of Dynamic and Ballistic work, so the ballistic work there the intensity is between 20% and 50% of the 1 RM, and for the dynamic work 50% to 70% of the 1 RM.

What’s the repetition range?

On our strength days it’s 1 to 3 repetitions, on our power days it’s 3 to 6 repetitions, or 2 to 4 repetitions. 3 to 6 repetitions for the ballistic work, 2 to 4 repetitions for the dynamic work.

The exertion, what is the exertion? On our strength days it’s hard to near maximum exertion and on the power days it’s light to medium exertion. Our training effort on the strength days it’s a maximum effort and on the power days it’s a ballistic effort, and a dynamic effort.

Let’s have a look at the exercises again strength days and power days. In the strength workouts we do very fundamental movements, squatting, hinging, pushing, and pulling. And on the power days we use accommodating resistance for the dynamic work, and we use medicine balls and kettlebells for the ballistic work.

The exercise order is most complex to least complex. And if we look at a few more training variables,  we have our training frequency being 4 days a week. It’s a station training including some complexes, the training split is in upper lower split, and I’ve mentioned by now we have strength days and power days so therefore our upper lower split looks like we have an upper body strength day, we have a lower body strength day, and we have an upper body power day and an lower body power day. That makes up for the four sessions.

So how does it look?

Let’s look inside the program and jump right in. So here we are inside our training program, if you’ve downloaded that PDF before, you will know the structure by now you get an overview of the program. You see the table of content, you see how to structure the week so basically you do strength workout number one lower body strengths, followed by power workout number two the upper body power, then you rest today then you have lower body power followed by upper body strength. You can arrange the workouts differently, but I would propose to stick to this structure.

So let’s have a look at the workout number one, which is our lower body strength day. So fairly simple, we have three exercises we do a bilateral squat being the back squat, we do a deadlift a hinge and we do a unilateral Squat you can see here, we have 5 sets of 3 repetitions at 90% of the 1 RM, which equates to an RPE of 9, the inter-serial rest is 5 minutes. So even though it’s only three exercises it’s a total of 15 sets, and every set is interspersed by 5 minutes and the exertion being at an RPE of 9 you will definitely feel something after that workout.

Workout number two, upper body power, so now we have our complexes, we do exercise 1A followed by exercise 1B, and then exercise 2A followed by exercise 2B. Let’s have a look. The movements are somewhat antagonistic, meaning we have the medicine ball push, so we push the ball up, followed by a medicine ball slam, where we slam the ball down. So we’re using antagonistic movements and the same is true then for the bench press which is band-resisted and the bench row which is also band-resisted, so the first two exercises are ballistic and we work at an intensity of 25% of the 1 RM for 4 repetitions. For the next two exercises the accommodating resistance, a dynamic effort, we work at intensity of 60% of the 1 RM for 4 repetitions.

Let’s have a look at workout number 3, the lower body power, so here again we do three exercises, they are not complexed, we do a barbell jump squat as the first exercise, then we do kettlebell throws or kettlebell swings, ideally I’d like to do kettlebell throws, but they are really an advanced movement. So number one you need to know how to do them, and number two is you need to have the ability to do them, meaning you need to be able to throw the kettlebell somewhere. And you also need to make sure that it’s done safely, so that you don’t throw the kettlebell at someone or the kettlebell does not fall onto someone. Alternatively, you can do the kettlebell swings, but again there’s no release it’s not per se ballistic. And then you follow with a box squat accommodating resistance, with accommodating resistance, the band-resisted box squats and the RDL, which is also accommodating resistance. And then we look at the intensity and the repetitions, which is similar to the previous workout the upper body power 25% of the 1 RM for the ballistic work and 60% of the 1 RM for the accommodating resistance.

Let’s have a look at strength workout number 4, which is the upper body strength. So here again we have the exercises complexed, and we start with a horizontal push followed by a horizontal pull and the second one is vertical push and vertical pull. And also here, intensities of 90% of the 1 RM for 3 repetitions and 5 sets. Within the complex after the first exercise you do 2 minutes of rest, and after the completion of the complex, the second exercise you do five minutes of rest. And that concludes our 4-day strength ad power workout.

And let’s move back to our presentation. So we’re back and now what are the next steps so you can download this workout and fill it out you can join the membership within the membership you get the four-week program, this was only the first week of the entire 4-week program and then in the four-week program that is also customizable and I’d appreciate if you like the video and subscribe and then you get notified for more workouts every week.

There will be a new workout so you will get notified to not miss any workout so and with that I thank you for listening to me you can check out the previous workout and here again I made it simple for yourself you can subscribe.