One Plan to Rule Them All
My goal in training has always been to develop the physical qualities necessary to be an agile bodyweight athlete (rock climbing, ninja warrior stuff), with explosiveness (Highland Games), and stamina (MMA, boxing), with enough muscle to look like a badass (marginal bodybuilder). I have finally distilled it all down to the principles that make most sense to me, and are yielding consistent results. I'm going to lay out my principles as succinctly as I can, and hopefully in a logical order. 1. Follow the Old-school Split: I was a whole-body training zealot for years, till my deadlift got to 500+ lbs and my squat to 475. Once I started getting heavy in those lifts and my snatches and cleans, my lower back just couldn't handle the constant exposure to training stimulus. Also, my targeted muscles needed more time to recover. Paul Carter recently wrote an article on why Push, Pull, Legs is the best split. I use it. It works. At the moment I'm cycling through Push, Pull