After an abysmal showing at APF Equipped Nationals, I'm now in an off season mode of training. Currently, I am in a hypertrophy block focusing on quality of movement and time under tension. This will build the foundation for my strength phases to prepare for WPC World's in November.

For programming and coaching inquires, please email SmitleyPerformanceSystems@gmail.com or visit brandonsmitley.com

Thursday's back day was a super quick one. I would have liked to add in some intensity techniques or a bit more work for the low back, but due to being out of town coaching Purdue Barbell over the weekend, I knew I was going to have to shift my Saturday leg day to Friday to make things work. As such, I wanted my low back to be fresh for that session, and also not feel totally destroyed going into the next day's session. I'm still trying to build up the work capacity and tolerate to the individual body part splits anyways, so right now I'm not stressing it too much.

The best part about this session and training Friday, was that my town hosts a Strawberry Festival every summer, and they had it on this particular day. I only snagged the strawberry toppings, and used my own low fat ice cream to refeed up post workout. It was delicious and something that I normally wouldn't do, but that's the great thing about off season is that I'm a bit more flexible with my eating. Nearly 6 months of being in prep had prevented me from doing things like that.

But, the first week of the hypertrophy work is in the books and I feel pretty good about it. Hopefully next week I'm not so damn sore.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQj3BUV65zM]

Items Used in this Training Session
Meadows Handle
Econo Core Blaster

Warm Up
Cats & Camels - 10
Quadraped T-Spine Ext - 10 each
Band Dislocations - 10
Alternating Band Dislocations - 10 each
Band Pressdowns - 15
Band Straight Arm Lat Pulldowns - 15
Band Face Pulls - 15
Single Arm Band Fly - 15 each
Band Rows - 15
Band Curls - 15

A1) Meadows Row
4x8  per arm

B1) DB Rows
4x15 per arm

C1) DB Pullover
3x12

D1) Chin Ups
4 sets of failure