Switching Your Training Focus

Training Focus

One of the most radical shifts I did in my training about 1 year ago was switching to a “strength” focus from a “pump” and “swole” focus. I used to be with the old body building crowd of 4 sets, 8-10 reps per set and maybe 1 compound movements followed by 4-6 exercises of isolation movements. Per muscle! I did this for almost 14 years. It’s the typical for anyone getting programs from fitness mags, online, or your gym bro who insists you do cable flyes to “hit the middle of the chest” instead of incline bench. For those who train this way, you can know how often things change – slowly.

However, I finally started to implement true strength progression after I started calisthenics training. We have been doing calisthenics style training for almost 2 years now, and love it. Using leverage on the body, and changing your difficulty in a systematic approach to move up progression charts, gives you a true sense of accomplishment. Since it was working for calisthenics, I decided to shift all my training to this type of method. Constantly trying to increase leverage with the exercise I was doing.

Let me tell you, this radical change has given my physique and strength levels major growth.

Here’s what I did.

My regular training day starts with cardio in the morning at 5:45 bright and early. I get it out of the way as I both do intermittent fasting and hate cardio after my regular workout. I find separated cardio from your other routine burns way more fat, especially fasted. I then come home after work for strength training 8 hours later. Strength training for me is a calisthenics based routine which you can find here garagecalisthenics.com and a barbell/ compound movement routine based on micro loading, extreme tracking of rep and weight and only 1 compound move per body part.

To accomplish the split looks like this:

Day 1: Push Calisthenics, Pull barbell work

Day 2: Pull Calisthenics, Push barbell work

Day 3: Rest: (which for me is usually yoga, but you can rest here if you feel it benefits you and your training.)

Day 4: Repeat push pull but routines, switch up slightly as per our program. You can do what you like.

Some may be like, omg, this is so much volume, so many exercises etc. But that’s because you are used to what I described above, 8 sets of 8-12 reps on iso movements that tax your body, make you sore, and can cause over training.

Instead it looks like this on a few exercises:

Push calisthenics move:
Hand stand push up. 4 sets of 3-5 reps highest progression possible for all strength. slow controlled movement. For me, this is on dumbbells elevated, head to the ground big range of motion. It’s very difficult for me.

Pull barbell move:
Barbell row. 3 sets of heaviest weight possible. 3-5 reps. Rest is actually minimal. You will be surprised that you don’t need 5 minutes in between sets to get these weights in. 1 -2 min is really all you need.

You will find training this way is not exhausting. In fact, after only a few sessions you will hardly be sore any more. But you will put weight and progress quickly as will your physique.

I continue the above for the moves for the day. Calisthenics varies in our program, but barbell pull work is always Row, Deadlift, barbell curl and weighted pull up – the ultimate in compound movements.

For push, it is always Incline bench ( and flat to mix it up ) Standing shoulder press, skull crusher and weighted dip.

Each week your goal is to add 2.5 pounds to your movements. Track it every workout. I made it all the way to 150 pound dips before I couldn’t go any more. Then once you’ve plateaued, load slightly and re start. Once you start to reach your genetic potential for strength, you can back off the progression. You generally will feel you aren’t progressing. Listen to your body. From there you can just add weight every 2-3 weeks. But make sure you always progress at some point.

Give it a try with the heavy strength work, it’s a much different type of workout for pacing, soreness, etc.

I’ll cover why you can’t over train with the above in another blog post.