Phase 2 begins 25 FEB

I am steadily progressing towards Highland Games competition season.  One of my goals for this year is to devote the proper amount of time to conditioning.  I saw my photos from Nov 2012, and my gut was entirely too big for my kilt!!!!

The plan thus far has been working well.

Completed Phase 1:  Hypertrophy (muscle growth) phase
  • 6 weeks duration
  • lower % of 1RM
  • 8 - 12 rep range
  • Higher volume
  • marginal weekly variety
Phase 2:  Strength and conditioning
  • 6 weeks duration
  • working as high as 85% of 1RM
  • 6 - 10 rep range
  • movement-pattern specific MetCons at end of each session
Sample Phase 2 training session:
  1. warm-up:  3 mins jump rope
  2. Front squat:  10,8,6,8,6 (wave loading)
  3. Overhead press: 10,8,6,8,6 (wave loading)
  4. Chin-up:  5 x max reps
  5. MetCon:  max rounds in 10 mins of:
    a. alternating jump lunges x 10
    b. dips x 10
    c. squat jump x 10
    d. kipping pullup x 10

A Note On MetCons:

One of my complains against CrossFit is the over abundance of variety.  As an athlete, I need to get good at specific movement patterns.  the best way to do that is repeated practice.  By limiting the variety of my MetCons, I'll still make great conditioning progress, but will master these movement patterns faster.

Also, since I have 6 weeks of a limited number of MetCons, I'm going to start with a very small timeframe and gradually increase the duration:
  • 5 mins max for weeks 1 and 2.
  • 7 mins max for weeks 3 and 4
  • 12 mins max for weeks 5 and 6

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