The Program (background)
Right, the details.
Back when I was at my best, I was doing a program called ABBH. It's an interesting program, and I got some quite good results from it. In essence, you use heavy, compound lifts, with the weight predetermined and based on a percentage of your 1 rep max (1RM). You also have, for the same body-part, high-rep and low-rep days.
So, for example on day one you might be doing: Bench 80% 1RM, 3 reps, 10 sets. On day four, you'd do: Bench 65% 1RM, 10 reps, 5 sets. On the second week, day one would be 80% 1RM, 4 reps, 10 sets; and day four would be 70% 1RM, 10 reps, 5 sets.
As you can see, for the low-rep days you increase the number of reps from week to week, where as for high-rep days you increase the weight from week to week.
Overall I found the program to be really useful. However, as always, I have some things that I'd like to tweak. I guess it's worth pointing out why I'm chaning something that I've already said that I liked.
I've been lifting weights on and off for a few years now, and I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how good the program is, unless I'm motivated to do it it's useless. That is, a 'sub-optimal' program that I enjoy is more effective that a technically perfect program that I can't be bothered following.
I'm also aiming to make my prgram as simple as possible.
So what are my changes to ABBH? Basically, I'll only have one exercise per bodypart, and will only do a total of 4 different lifts. Those are my favourite lifts, and the ones that I love lifting heavy for: deadlift; bench; bent-over bar row; and weighted situps.
I'm also incorporating running and yoga into my program. Up until recently I've never been able to run for more than a couple of minutes, but for whatever reason I've discovered that I can now run for 10 minutes without too much trouble. As a result I'm going to incorporate running and see if I can't get myself up to half an hour or so.
Yoga's something I've been doing on and off for a couple of years too. Flexibility and strenght in supporting muscles really help when you're lifting heavy, and I've found that yoga can be quite useful for this. Of course there's the mental elements as well.
I should probably note here that 'lifing heavy' is a relative thing. I don't mean squatting 500kgs - I mean lifting heavy relative to my ability. That is, relative to my 1RM. So my 'heavy' days are the ones where I'm lifting 80% of my 1RM. The beauty of using your 1RM as the yardstick is that you increase the weight you're trying to lift relative to the strength you've gained, rather than some arbitrary amount.
Back when I was at my best, I was doing a program called ABBH. It's an interesting program, and I got some quite good results from it. In essence, you use heavy, compound lifts, with the weight predetermined and based on a percentage of your 1 rep max (1RM). You also have, for the same body-part, high-rep and low-rep days.
So, for example on day one you might be doing: Bench 80% 1RM, 3 reps, 10 sets. On day four, you'd do: Bench 65% 1RM, 10 reps, 5 sets. On the second week, day one would be 80% 1RM, 4 reps, 10 sets; and day four would be 70% 1RM, 10 reps, 5 sets.
As you can see, for the low-rep days you increase the number of reps from week to week, where as for high-rep days you increase the weight from week to week.
Overall I found the program to be really useful. However, as always, I have some things that I'd like to tweak. I guess it's worth pointing out why I'm chaning something that I've already said that I liked.
I've been lifting weights on and off for a few years now, and I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how good the program is, unless I'm motivated to do it it's useless. That is, a 'sub-optimal' program that I enjoy is more effective that a technically perfect program that I can't be bothered following.
I'm also aiming to make my prgram as simple as possible.
So what are my changes to ABBH? Basically, I'll only have one exercise per bodypart, and will only do a total of 4 different lifts. Those are my favourite lifts, and the ones that I love lifting heavy for: deadlift; bench; bent-over bar row; and weighted situps.
I'm also incorporating running and yoga into my program. Up until recently I've never been able to run for more than a couple of minutes, but for whatever reason I've discovered that I can now run for 10 minutes without too much trouble. As a result I'm going to incorporate running and see if I can't get myself up to half an hour or so.
Yoga's something I've been doing on and off for a couple of years too. Flexibility and strenght in supporting muscles really help when you're lifting heavy, and I've found that yoga can be quite useful for this. Of course there's the mental elements as well.
I should probably note here that 'lifing heavy' is a relative thing. I don't mean squatting 500kgs - I mean lifting heavy relative to my ability. That is, relative to my 1RM. So my 'heavy' days are the ones where I'm lifting 80% of my 1RM. The beauty of using your 1RM as the yardstick is that you increase the weight you're trying to lift relative to the strength you've gained, rather than some arbitrary amount.
posted by Ben at 5:08 PM
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