Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Day 151


Max-Effort Upper Body

"Not much about the max-effort movement has changed since my original article was published. I still prefer a 3-5 rep max (RM) - as opposed to a 1RM - for my skinny bastards. The one thing that has changed – you’ll notice this later on in this article - is the second movement on max-effort upper body day. We recently started having our athletes perform two high-rep sets of an exercise immediately following the max-effort movement.

This high-rep movement is usually an exercise that’s closely related to the max-effort movement. For example, if our athletes performed a 3RM in the bench press, their second exercise may be two sets of dumbbell benches. We don’t do this all the time, but it’s a new “twist” in our templates that wasn’t covered in previous articles." 

- Joe Defranco

A.) Max-Effort Exercise – work up to a max set of 3-5 reps in one of the following exercises:
  • Thick bar or regular barbell bench press
  • Barbell floor press
  • Rack lockouts / Suspended chain lockouts
  • Incline barbell bench press (regular grip or close grip)
  • Close-grip bench press (index finger on smooth part of bar)
  • Weighted chin-ups
  • Board presses or foam presses
  • Chain bench press (*recommended for not-so-skinny bastards)
  • Band bench press (*recommended for not-so-skinny bastards)
  • Reverse band bench press (*recommended for not-so-skinny bastards)

B.) Supplemental Exercise – perform 2 sets of max reps in one of the following exercises. 

(Choose a weight you can perform for 15-20 reps on the 1st set. Use the same weight for both sets and rest 3-4 minutes between sets).
  • Flat DB bench press (palms in or out)
  • Incline DB bench press (palms in or out)
  • DB floor press (palms in)
  • Barbell push-ups (wearing weighted vest)
  • Blast strap push-ups (wearing weighted vest)
  • “Criss-cross” chain push-ups
  • “Triceps death”
  • Chin-ups (don’t perform these if you chose to do weighted chin-ups for your first exercise)

C.) Horizontal pulling / Rear delt superset - Superset one exercise from “Group 1” with one exercise from “Group 2.” Perform 3-4 supersets of 8-12 reps of each exercise.

Group 1
  • DB rows
  • Barbell rows
  • Seated cable rows (various bars)
  • T-bar rows
  • Chest supported rows

Group 2
  • Rear delt flyes
  • Scarecrows
  • Face pulls
  • Seated DB “power cleans”
  • Band pull-aparts

D.) Traps – Perform 3 – 4 sets of 8-15 reps of one of the following exercises:
  • DB shrugs
  • Barbell shrugs
  • Safety squat bar shrugs
  • Behind the back barbell shrugs

E.) Elbow flexor exercise - Perform 3-4 sets of 8-15 reps of one of the following exercises:
  • Barbell curls (regular or thick bar)
  • DB curls (standing)
  • Seated Incline DB curls
  • Hammer curls
  • Zottmann curls
  • Iso-hold DB curls
Here's what we did:

A.) Thick Bar Bench Press (Fat Gripz)

- Work up to 5RM

B.) Incline DB  Bench Press (2 x max)

C1.) Seated Row 4 x 12
C2.) TRX Scarecrow 4 x 12

D.) DB Shrugs 3 x 10

D1.) Barbell Curls 3 x 10
D2.) Rope Tricep Push-Down 3 x 15

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