Workout of the Week #23

Welcome to workout of the week number 23.

This time we have a five day a week bigger lifts workout.

What is the training goal?

As the title suggests, we want to improve the big lifts, and we have a look at what the big lifts are in a minute.

Let’s look at more training variables.

The training intensity, we use 85 to 90% of the 1 RM for the big lifts, and we use a range of 72.5 to 87.5% of the 1 RM for assistant lifts.

As you know me by now, I’ve kept it fairly simple here, so we have the big lifts, and I’ve classified the supporting exercises assistant lifts. I’m pretty much aware that there is a range of classification options out there from assistant lifts, ancillary lifts, supplemental lifts, and so on and so on. You will see in the structure of each workout, there will one big lift followed by two supporting exercises and I have called them here assistant lifts.

The rep ranges, we do 3 to 5 repetitions for the big lifts and 3 to 10 repetitions for the assistant lifts. The exertion is hard to near maximum, and the effort is a maximum effort on the big lifts, and repeated effort on the assistant lifts.

Let’s have a look at the exercises.

So for our big lifts, I’ve chosen to go with a squat, a bench, a deadlift, a row, and a single-legged squat variation, but you can modify that by using, and that I’ve put in brackets here, so there’s a lower body push, so any lower body push movement could serve the purpose, as well an upper body push on the second day, a lower body pull on the third day, an upper body pull on the fourth day, work out day, and a lower body unilateral push on the fifth day.

How do we choose our assistant exercises?

Fairly simple, as well we use variations of the big lift, you will see only in the first workout the squat workout that there will be the second assistant exercise will not be a variation of that. But for all the other exercises that is true. So we’ll use a variation of the big lift. The exercise order, we move from our big lifts to the smaller lifts.

If we have a look at more training variables, we’ll see we train 5 days a week, the organization, the training organization is a station training, and we follow a movement focus or exercise focus. Exercise, I just said squat, bench, deadlift, row, single-legged squat, but I’ve also outlined, and I’ve put into brackets the movement. So a lower body push, an upper body push, a lower body pull, an upper body pull, and a lower body unilateral push.

How does it look?

Let’s have a look at the program and jump into it.

So here we are inside of our workout, the five day bigger lifts workout. You can see the weekly structure, we do three consecutive workouts, or on three consecutive days, followed by rest day, and then two more consecutive days.

If we have a look at workout number one, the squat or lower body push, you can see the first exercise I’ve chosen a back squat, the second exercise I have chosen, a front squat for one and a half reps. One and a half rep means, you go down into the full position, come halfway up, go down again, come all the way up. So basically this is one and a half reps, but the most difficult part, the deepest position is targeted twice. So when we look at the repetitions here we see four repetitions, that much rather equates to eight repetitions, because you do the most difficult part the bottom position eight times. And then we do a single-legged back extension.

Why single-legged back extension?

I wanted to target the posterior chain, but I wanted to target the function of hip extension, and not so much the knee flection, otherwise I could have chosen for a leg curl, and I also wanted to put minimal load on the back, so therefore single-legged back extensions.

For our big lift, the structure is three sets of five at 85% of the 1 RM and that progresses to higher percentages repetitions go down, and sets also progress from 3 to 4 to 5. For the Front Squat, again you see here the RPE is not quite applicable, because actually it’s not four repetitions at 77.5% of the 1 RM because it’s more eight repetitions, anyway something to work with.

Then we go to our next workout, the bench, the upper body push, we see a similar structure here so the bench press is the big lift, and then we do a shoulder press, a vertical pull and then we do dips, preferably weighted dips, if you’re strong enough, as another assistant exercises assistant exercise. And we can also see here three sets of five for the bench press at 85% of the 1 RM, for our shoulder press we do three sets of six at 77.5% of the 1 RM and for our dips we do two sets of eight at 77.5% of the 1 RM.

Let’s move to workout number three, the deadlift. Also here, first week three sets of five in the deadlift, the second exercise is a deficit deadlift, we stand on a 25 kilo plate and then lift from there. We work on the same percentages as the Deadlift, so therefore 3 sets of 6 at 72.5% and the last exercise targeting the posterior chain, without any contribution of the knee extension, which is the RDL, and there we do 2 sets of 6 at 77.5% of the 1 RM.

Let’s have a look at our upper body pulling, the rowing workout. So I’ve chosen for a bench row, but you can also choose a bent-over row for example, or any other row variation, that makes sense. So bench row, 3 sets of 5 at 85% of the 1 RM, then we move to our dumbbell single arm bent-over row, so this is not where you support yourself on a bench, you are hopefully an athlete, so you have to learn to stand on both of your feet, hinge over, and then pull with one arm. We do one arm at a time, so single arm row, and the last exercise, the pull-ups for our supporting exercise. The dumbbell row, we do 3 sets of 6 at 77.5% of the 1 RM, and for our pull-ups we do 8 repetitions at 75% of the 1 RM.

Let’s have a look at our last workout, the workout number five, the lower body unilateral push, and here I’ve chosen for the Bulgarian Split Squat, we start with three 3 of 5 at 85% of the 1 RM, the second exercise we use Step-Ups, and the third exercise is a combined exercise, we do single-legged RDL into a Forward Lunge with a dumbbell, so we combine the posterior chain, and the hip extension with the anterior chain and the lunging movement, and also here we do 3 sets of 5 for the big lift, the Bulgarian Split Squat, then we go to 2 sets of 6 with 77.5% of the 1 RM for the StepUp, and then for the dumbbell single-legged Romanian deadlift to forward walking Lunge we do 4 repetitions, that means for each leg, so in total eight repetitions.

And you can see here, there’s a glossary explaining the terms, something about myself, you see testimonials, what people have to say about me, and then last but certainly not least you can join the membership.

Let’s move back to the presentation.

So, what are the next steps?

I just outlined you can download the program and follow it, then you join the membership.

What’s the membership?

Inside the membership, you get more training programs, so this is just the first week of a 4-week training program. The training programs are progressive in nature, and can be customized. And then you like this video, in case you liked it, and you subscribe, and then you will get notified when the next program comes out, the next workout comes out. You can see the previous workout here and again an option to subscribe.

I see you next week with the next workout.