Workout of the Week 92

Welcome to Workout of the Week, number 92. This time we have a two-day hybrid strength and anatomical adaptation workout. Well, there was a two-day hybrid strength and anatomical adaptation workout in week 62, so 30 weeks ago. But anyway, no program here is the same. There will be slight differences, and we’ll look at that.

The training goal: Anatomical adaptation is the main goal, but we want to maintain high strength levels. I’ve outlined this many times before. For some sports, it’s just not possible to focus exclusively on anatomical adaptation or strength endurance because the losses in strength would be too high. So there needs to be some maintenance of strength levels.

Training variables: For the anatomical adaptation, we work with an intensity of 40% to 70% of the one-rep max, and for the strength maintenance, 85% to 90% of the one-rep max. Rep ranges: 12 to 20 for the anatomical adaptation and 2 to 4 for the strength maintenance. The exertion: moderate to medium for the anatomical adaptation, and hard for the strength maintenance. The effort: a repeated effort for the anatomical adaptation and a maximum effort for the strength maintenance.

Let’s have a look at the exercises. Anatomical adaptation: we’ve talked about that before. There are compound, multi-joint movements, but also multi-planar. Yeah, so in all three planes: forward-backward, lateral, and rotational. Then there are combined movements, and there are bilateral and unilateral movements. For the strength maintenance, it’s fairly simple and straightforward: a squat, a hinge, a push, and a pull.

The exercise order goes from most complex to least complex. Whilst that is not entirely true for this program, because here we don’t start with the most complex. We start with the strength and then we do the anatomical adaptation in the second part of the workout. So if we look at complexity in terms of movements and combinations of movements, then the second part would be more complex. However, we want to have a high-quality stimulus on the strength maintenance. Therefore, we do the higher-intensity compound movements first.

Training variables: We train two days a week. It’s a station training which includes complexes. It’s a full body split.

So how does it look? Here we are, and we’ll jump right into it.

Here we are inside Workout of the Week number 92: the two-day hybrid strength and anatomical adaptation workout. You download the PDF, you get an overview of what that workout is about, you get the table of contents, and then you can see here how I would do it. I would do Workout One on the first day, two days of rest, then Workout Two, followed by three days of rest. But obviously, that can be modified.

Workout Number One. Here you can see the first three exercises are the ones that focus on the strength maintenance, and the second three exercises are for the anatomical adaptation. Let’s go through that. We do a front squat, a bench row, and a shoulder press. So we have a bilateral squat, an upper body pull, and an upper body push. The sets, reps, and intensity: three sets of four at 85%, which equates to an RPE of 8, and that remains the same for the three exercises focused on strength maintenance.

You can see here the intra-complex rest, because it’s a complex: between the squat and the bench row, 90 seconds. Between the bench row and the shoulder press, also 90 seconds. After the shoulder press, before you go back to the squats, you get three minutes.

And then we do our anatomical adaptation work. Again here we have 2A, 2B, 2C. So that’s again a complex of three exercises: bench press alternating, then a dumbbell single-leg RDL to forward lunge, and then a chin-up to handstand—some people call it the typewriter. We do three sets of eight for the bench press alternating at 40%, which is based on the bench press. Then we do the dumbbell single-leg RDL to forward lunge. I have to make it bigger, otherwise I can’t see it with my bad eyes. I think this is three sets of six. And the same is true for the chin-up to handstand, the typewriter: three sets of six repetitions.

And then we go to Workout Number Two. We have the deadlift, the pullover, and the bench press. Then we do the dumbbell Bulgarian split squat, the inverted row, and the push-up to star hold for the second complex. Again, three sets of four at 85% of the one-rep max for the strength maintenance exercises.

So why pullover here? Yeah, I was wondering myself. I would have loved to do some pulling movement. However, if we would put in a row variation or a pull-up variation, we would have the deadlift targeting the grip strength, and then the next one would also be targeting it. Well, it’s not targeting the grip strength, but the grip would be the limiting factor. So I tried to find a way to have a hinge motion plus an upper body pull and an upper body push. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it works.

So anyway, then we go to the dumbbell deficit Bulgarian split squat to dumbbell shoulder press. The shoulder press is in bold font, so that means the intensity is based on the dumbbell shoulder press here. Yeah. Then we do the inverted row and then the push-up to star hold, each side.

You download that PDF, you get a glossary explaining the terms. You can read a bit about myself. You can read about what other people have to say about me. [That has to be updated: he is now, by the time of this recording, an 18-time world champion, so let’s see, there’s one more to go. And Roy is also a six-time world champion by now.] Anyway, what other people say about me, you can read what my former athletes and mentees say about me, and then my former colleagues. And last but certainly not least, there’s the membership. You can enroll in the membership. You get the four-week periodized program. This was just the first week of the four weeks.

Anyway, let’s move back and finish it. What are the next steps?

You download the PDF, follow the program, and join the membership to access the four-week periodized training program. You like and subscribe. You can grab all previous workouts here, all free workouts. You can subscribe if you haven’t already, and you can watch the previous workout.

I’ll see you next week with the next Workout of the Week.