Relentless Minnesota, despite some of the trials, had an awesome result in the end. A PR squat at 123, a PR deadlift at 123 and an all-time PR total of 1122! Now, I am moving on to Physique prep training and dieting. First show is Junior Nationals June 12 & 13. These 10 weeks will continue to focus on my weak points (shoulders, quads and some more separated hamstrings) as well as groove my raw bench work a bit. Amit Sapir is doing my diet and nutritional needs this year. Training details will be laid out as we go. If you have any questions regarding diet, training, programming, and more, just send me a question!
Oh, leg day. No matter how it looks on paper, whether it seems hard or excruciatingly hard, I love leg day. It's always challenging and always forces me to dig a little deeper.
Today was a decent day. Been a little stressful overall and sometimes that causes me to lose motivation in the gym. Determined to not let that get in the way of pushing hard.
MONDAY - Legs and upper back
TKE's - 100 each leg
Squats
175x10
185x10
195x10
195x10
195x10
195x10
NOTE: Working on getting my hams and glutes to work harder out of the hole. Due to my years of gear squatting and box squatting
Yoke Bar Wide Stance squats - 4x6 (with a little booty squeeze)
NOTE: Hams and glutes were definitely working on this. With everything else fatigued, this was harder than I expected. Again, working on more technical things (not hinging back too far) and getting my hams and glutes to work like they should.
Wide Pull-ups (all about 1 minute between sets)
x6+10#
x4+10#
x4+10#
6xBW
5xBW
4xBW
3xBW
Meadows Rows
10x6
20x6
30x6
40x6
Dropset @50, 40, 30, 20, 10 x6-8
Feet elevated Lunges
2x10 each leg @ 15's
2x10 each leg @ 20's
Low Row
2x25
KB One leg Stiffeys
5x6 each leg, alternating, no rest
Overall, a great session. The squats smoked me. Still sore from Friday too. I like the volume and I think overall it (and the other exercises) will build up my hams and glutes to help with my overall squat.
Diet is going great. No real news there. Carbs are down a bit. Generally speaking not real hungry although I won't lie, stress has me wanting to eat some junk food... like maybe a pint of Ben & Jerry's. That will come eventually. For now, stay the course, as all will be OK in the end.
Cardio is on track too. Right now I'm at 4 days a week. Working to keep stress levels down. Things have been hectic around here the last couple weeks. Still working on getting a few seminar dates nailed down.
Regarding a split... there's many ways to get to the bottom of it. You say size and strength are your goals (which it usually is for most of us) and you can usually find a pretty good balance between the two. Personally, I would focus on strength for your big lifts and then size with your supplemental and accessory work. Now also realize that in order to get stronger, you have to have the right supplemental (secondary big exercises) that will build your main lifts. And then adding size you might need more specific isolation work in certain areas.
So, if you want to get stronger (which getting stronger will in turn help your muscle mass), focus on those big lifts.
You could have a squat day, bench day, deadlift day, and then a shoulder/fluff/bodybuilding day.
You could do a heavy squat day with lighter deads and accessories, heavy bench with accessories, heavy-ish deads with light legs and lots of back work. and then lighter skill bench and shoulder work.
also remember that your sets/reps and volume have to match your goals as well. if your push/pull/legs routine has more 3x10 type sets, then you might need to add more heavier stuff/less reps for the strength portion.
For years I focused on getting stronger and good dense muscle came along with it (although yes there were some lagging parts). I've been able to find a way to build some of those areas and still get stronger. In my PL training, I do the following (and am also natural by the way):
Heavy squat OR Deadlift (rotate weekly) with posterior chain accessories
Day off
Speed/Skill bench with triceps and back work
(next day) Shoulders as this helped bring up my weak point
Speed/Skill squats and deads with posterior chain accessories
Day off
Heavy Bench with shoulders and triceps and light back work
hope that helps. let me know if you have any other questions