Workout of the Week #81

Welcome to Workout of the Week, number 81. This time we have the three-day-a-week mixed method power training workout. So if you remember, we already had a three-day mixed method power training in Workout of the Week number 17. So quite a few workouts ago, but still very similar approach.

The approach is based on Schmidtbleicher and Schlumberger—some German names. They came up with an idea of a so-called “Esmamcomi,” which is just a different name for power method combination. Yeah. And that basically says: on day number one, you do a maximum effort method; on day number two, you do a ballistic effort; and on day number three, you do a plyometric effort.

They used the bench press as the parent exercise. I’ve talked about parent exercise before. Number one: on day number one, they did the bench press. It’s based on a study. They did the bench press at high intensities—so a 3RM load. On day number two, they did it ballistically—the bench throws in the Smith machine at 30% of the one-rep max. And then on day number three, the plyometric effort, they did clapping push-ups, mainly focusing on the stretch-shortening cycle.

So, excuse me for rambling here a bit. I shouldn’t have used the word “ballistic” because it confuses day number two and day number three. It is a reactive push-up focusing on the stretch-shortening cycle. The stretch-shortening cycle is where the muscle is rapidly stretched followed by a rapid shortening. And that is the so-called stretch-shortening cycle, which is in essence what plyometrics is about. The stretch-shortening cycle—it can be a long or short stretch-shortening cycle. And in Workout of the Week number 17, I also outlined that the All Blacks, for example, use a similar adapted approach at times in their preparation.

So what’s the training goal? Long story made short: maximizing power and explosiveness—AKA power training.

Training variables: Again, we have three days. Remember, the first one was a maximum effort day: 87.5% to 92.5% of the one-rep max. Day number two: 10% to 30% of the one-rep max for the ballistic effort. And day number three: 0 to 5% of the one-rep max for the plyometric effort. Repetitions: 1 to 3 for the maximum effort, 3 to 5 for the ballistic effort, and 4 to 6 for the plyometric effort. Exertion: highest exertion for the maximum effort, and light to medium exertion for the ballistic and plyometric effort.

So let’s have a look at the efforts. I already mentioned it: maximum effort on day one, ballistic effort on day two, and plyometric effort on day three.

Let’s have a look at the exercises. On day number one: mainly Olympic lifts, variations of the Olympic lifts, squatting, pushing, and pulling. On day number two and number three: it’s jumping and throwing variations. The exercise order goes from most complex to least complex.

If we look at a few more training variables, the training frequency: we do it three times a week, three days in a week. It’s a station training, but it does include some complexes at times. Training split is full body.

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

Here we are inside our three-day mixed method power training. So download the PDF. You get an overview of the workout, of the program. You get the table of contents. And then you see we do Workout Number One on day number one, Workout Number Two on day number two, and Workout Number Three on day number three. Preferably, we have one day of rest in between the workouts.

Workout Number One. Now we have contrast loading. So I diverted a little bit from the original mixed method power training, where they only focused on the maximum effort. However, I combined the maximum effort and the plyometric effort in day number one, and then exclusively the plyometric effort in day number three. So here we go.

Workout Number One: the contrast loading. Back squat followed by countermovement box jumps. Then we have a split squat followed by scissor jumps. And then we have a bench press followed by the medicine ball power drop. And then we have a pull-up followed by the medicine ball slam.

So the principle behind the contrast loading is you do biomechanically similar exercises. Yeah, so the back squat is followed by a jump. Yeah, similar biomechanical movements. Then we have the split squat followed by scissor jumps. Again, similar biomechanical movements. Then the bench press—a horizontal press—followed by the medicine ball power drop. Essentially the same movement, just done much faster because the load is lighter. And the pull-ups and the medicine ball slam very similarly. Yeah, a vertical pull is the pull-up, and also the slam is a vertical pull movement.

Then we see here we have three sets of three at 87.5% for the higher loading exercise. And for the lighter loading, more explosive exercise, we do four repetitions at body weight if it’s not specified, or we do 1%. The 1% again is based on the parent exercise. Yeah, so if you bench press 100 kilos, you do 1% of that. You use a 1-kilo medicine ball. Yeah, it is very light, but that’s the principle behind the contrast loading. Yeah, so you have the contrast of the heavy loading and the light loading. The heavy loading is naturally with a lower movement velocity, and the light loading, if you do it correctly, is naturally with a faster, more explosive movement velocity. And the same for the last complex: the pull-ups and slams.

Then we look at our Workout Number Two: the ballistic loading. So here we go for barbell jump squats combined with the bench throw. And then we have the dumbbell scissor squats and the clapping pull-ups. So here we can see we use the same parent exercises as in Workout Number One. Yeah, so parent exercise number one was the squat movement. Then we had the split squat as the second parent exercise. Then we had the bench press as the third parent exercise. And then the pull-ups as the fourth parent exercise. And that’s what you see here. Just the exercise order is arranged a bit differently so that we can do it in complexes.

Let’s have a look at that. So we do the barbell jump squats based on the squat movement, and it’s complexed with a bench throw. So we have a squat complexed with an upper body push. Then we have the scissor squats for the lower body. Yeah, so it’s essentially a single-leg squat, a lunging movement, and it is complexed with the upper body pull, where the parent exercise is the pull-up. Here we do it clapping, and we use bands if needed.

If you look at the set, rep, intensity structure: four sets of three repetitions at 10% for the jump squats, 30% for the bench throw, 30% for the scissor jumps, and body weight for the clapping pull-ups or even assisted body weight.

And if we go to Workout Number Three: the plyometric loading. Again, we see the same exercises as in Workout Number One from the light loading section. Yeah, so we take out the heavy loading. The back squat is now taken out, and we do the countermovement drop jump. So it’s not exactly the same exercise—we did a box jump, now it’s a drop jump. Then we do the medicine ball power drop. We do the scissor jumps and the medicine ball slam. So just the first exercise is a variation. Other exercises are the same. And also here, we go for our body weight or 1% of the parent exercise.

You download the PDF. You get a glossary explaining the terms. You can read about myself. You can read what other people have to say about me—my former athletes, my colleagues and mentees. And last but certainly not least, you get a chance to subscribe to the membership, where you get the full four-week periodized program.

Let’s move back and finish that presentation. So what are the next steps?

You download the program. You join the membership. Inside the membership, as discussed, you get the four-week periodized program. This was just the first week of that training program. And you like the video and you subscribe. And you can grab all workouts here—all workouts are free. You can watch the previous workout. If you haven’t already, you can subscribe. Otherwise, I’ll see you next week with Workout of the Week, number 82.