Looking for a flexible, high-frequent SST-Training

B

baek

New Member
Hello,

a few words about myself at the beginning.

First of all, please excuse my english spelling mistakes - I'm not a native english speaker, as you might already guessed.

I'm lifting weights almost continiously since five years. First, I trained after several splits until I discovered HST. Then I trained after HST for approximately three years with great results and almost no problems. Since last year, I changed to Cluster-HST and also increased my frequency from three trainings per week to almost six trainings per week. The results were good, but they came with a price - after four or five weeks - a lot of my joints started to be painful and I was forced, to do a SD every few weeks. I accepted that, because I liked the training and the results. Also I was cutting, I was able to increase my personal records in my lifts. Speaking of my records, here a few stats, so you can better estimate my situation:
body weight: 143 lbs
body fat: ~10%
age: 22
deadlift: 310 lbs for 3 reps
squat: 220 lbs for 3 reps (started squating again only a few weeks ago)
bench press: 200 lbs for 3 reps
row: 200 lbs for 3 reps
dips: body weight + 55 lbs
chin ups: body weight + 40 lbs

Okay, my situation and attidudes changed over the last time and I want to change my training. My goals are now primarily strength oriented. To state them explicit with order of priority:
1. Increase my strength in the main lifts (deadlift, squat, bench press, row, dips, chin ups)
2. flexible training system, which means to be able to train four to six times a week for a maximum of 60 min., a variability of the frequency between four and six days should be possible
3. to reduce the risks of injuries and joint problems
4. to be able to do some cardio (jogging, swimming) on free days
5. increase my muscle mass

long term: implement olympic lifts into my programme. I would greatly appreciate some tips how to start with clean and jerk & co.

So, that are my goals. I'm new to strength specific training, so any help would be appreciated. I would classify myself as an advanced lifter ... do you know any programmes which fit to my goals? (especially in flexibility, strength orientation and injury prevention)

Thank you very much for your help! :)

Edit: Sorry for posting this in the wrong section!!! Would be nice, if someone could move it to the SST-Section
 
OK - First, the oly lifts. Study the form onlione, and start with parts of the lifts. For the clean & jerk, first learn the hang clean, then move to the power clean, then add a jerk when you feel comfortable. Oly lifting can be added to a cycle as it doesn't require nearly the recovery time that strength training does. That's the beauty of oly lifting.

To your other items of intrerest:

1. Increase your strength: bottom line, lift weights - heavy ones - often. Strength will increase.
2. Train 4 to 6 times per week: how about this:

Monday: Push
Tuesday: Pull
Wednesday: Oly/Cardio
Thursday: Push
Friday: Pull

Pick your reps - maybe start at 5 x 5 and progress to 3 x 3 over a period of 9 weeks. Meaning - weeks 1-3 do 5 x 5 training; weeks 4 - 6 do 4 x 4 training, and weeks 7-9 do 3 x 3 training. Do 3 exercises per workout, with plenty of rest and warmup time. Progress the loads weekly, and PUSH YOURSELF. Should work nicely. Heck - if you still have gas in the tank, do 2 x 2's until you hit a wall, deload and repeat. Sounds like fun to me - maybe I'll do that one next time....

3. Reduce the risk of injury: FORM. You won't get hurt if you behave and use good form.

4. Cardio - Wednesday.

5. Increase muscle mass: Take a measurement before you start, and again when you end. I'd guess you'll grow a bit.

Good luck.
 
baek,

Your first and fifth goals mean that you will be training with weight you can lift 5 - 6 times. This products strength and muscle mass together. However the constant use of these heavy weights may hurt your joints. So we cannot use heavy weights all the time. There are two ways to manage this problem. First way is to do an HST style cycle where you increase the weight and lower the reps every week. The second way is called undulating periodization. You will change your reps every workout. Example: 5-6 reps Monday, 8-10 reps Wednesday, 10-12 reps Friday. This style puts on muscle mass well and will add some strength while letting your joints heal.

Your second goal is flexibility. You want to train between 4-6 times per week. This can be done and it will actually help your strength goals. Create a four week cycle. Each week of the cycle you change how hard you train: low, medium, high, very high.

Week 1: High. Train four times per week and do 4 sets. Light cardio.

Week 2: Medium. Train four times per week and do 3 sets. Light cardio.

Week 3: Very high. Train six times per week and do 5 sets. No cardio.

Week 4: Low. Train 4 times per week and do 1 set. Light cardio.

Start week 1 over again a little stronger. Add more weight or more reps.


Your third goal, reduce risk of injuries and joint pain, can be achieved by choosing your lifts carefully and doing them properly. I will give you a few examples.

Example 1: Overhead press causes shoulder pain for some people. A way to change this to make it a closed-chain exercise by doing hand-stand pushups against a wall.

Example 2: Most people do dips incorrectly. They keep their heads up and their legs curled. This puts a lot of strain on the shoulder. The correct way to dip is to tuck your chin into your chest, straighten your legs, and keep your feet slightly in front of you.

Example 3: Bench press. If you keep your elbows "flared out" like in bodybuilding magazines you will stress the shoulder joint. Powerlifters keep their elbows "tucked in" and this reduced the strain.

Example 4: Squats. People say that squats don't hurt the knees. Louie Simmons noted that the best squatters don't let their knees go past their toes. These men squat well in to old age. Olympic lifters, on the other hand, squat with knees totally out and their careers tend to end in their mid-20's. Consider squatting like Louie Simmons and the rest of Westside Barbell.

Example 5: Upright rows cause some people shoulder impingement problems. The way to solve this is to not do upright rows at all, to grab the bar wider, or to use a rope.

From these examples you can see that keeping joints pain-free is about choosing the right lifts and making sure you are doing them in a manner that others have found does not strain the joints.

Olympic lifts can be very hard on the joints.
 
Hi baek,

Your lifts are all very respectable compared to your bw (your squat number is a bit on the low side but you mention that you have just started retraining squats so that would explain that). Well done for getting this far.

Re. point 5: I'd like to know how tall you are as this will give me a better idea of how much mass you can expect to add without chemical assistance.

Check this link for an idea of what you can expect to lift at your bodyweight:

http://exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards.html
 
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