If You Build It...

Can't afford a personal trainer? Sure, most of you can... Just give up that daily Starbucks or a couple of dinners out or... Well, that's behind the point.

If you've been training for some time and want a quick framework to build your own basic fitness program, here's a quick and dirty plan to do so. Note: this program is basically a GPP program, not a hypertrophy, strength, power or other goal-specific program.

This program is designed to be performed for 4-6 weeks and consists of 3 days of strength training and 2 days of metabolics. There are 2 rest days, but these days you can also use for foam-rolling, stretching, and/or mobility and stability work. You can also perform this accessory work during rest-intervals(RI) within the regular sessions.

On the strength days you will select 1-2 exercises from each category:

* knee-dominant exercise, such as squat or lunge variations
* hip-dominant exercise, such as DL or swing variations
* upper-body push, such as bench or standing press variations
* upper-body pull, such as row or pull-down variations
* carry or drag, such as farmer's walk or SB drags
* explosive exercise, such as box jumps, MB slams, plyo pushups

You should perform at least a 10-15 minute dynamic warmup prior to the body of the session, and a 5-10 minute cool down after.

On the metabolics days, you will perform density sets or ladders. For density sets, you will choose 2 exercises and take turns executing each for 30 seconds each for 5 minutes. Sample pairings: KB or DB swings with an RKC plank, prisoner squat jumps with chest-to-deck pushups, burpees with KB snatch. You can repeat these 5 minute sessions up to 6 times as long as your form is still good. RI between sets is up to 120 seconds.

For ladders, you pair two exercises ( such as KB snatch and mountain climbers) and work your way down the rep scale from 20 to 1, alternating exercises. For example, 20 snatches followed by 20 climbers, 19 snatches followed by 19 climbers, etc. Rest as little as possible, but keep your form strict.
If you do these right, you should be fried at the end of the session.

And here's a sample strength day:

1. Bulgarian split squat, 4X12 each leg
2. KB or DB 1-hand swing, 4X12 each arm
3. Standing 1-arm DB press, 4X12 each arm
4. Hand-over-hand weighted rope pull, 4X length
5. 1-arm backward sandbag drag, 4X length ( 40m minimum )
6. Broad jump, 2X5 reps

You build it, the strength and conditioning will come.


Annie: what happens if the Voice calls while you're gone?
Ray: take a message (Field of Dreams, 1989)

Fitness Asylum