Thursday Training

Well, I decided that I wanted to play basketball so I offered my services to the women's coach. He was more than happy seeing as they're playing "a big ole girl" on Thursday. So, 3, 2 hour practices Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday pretty much took care of conditioning. I spoke at length with Jim Wendler and one of the things I'm concerned about is the amount of time I'll have on a daily basis to train at this time of the year (not sure if I mentioned this in an earlier post). The plan thus far takes me about 2 hours. Doing 10 sets of Squats or Pulls and 10 sets of Benching or Pressing takes a long time. I just don't want to get in a situation where I'm skipping work because my schedule doesn't allow a full training session. Jim to the rescue. My plan now Looks like 3 full body workouts a week (same as before) with the focus on one main lift per day. So, a week will be 8 days. Squat Monday, Bench Wednesday, Deadlift Friday, Press Monday... repeat. I did the first lift today to get a feel and iron out any kinks. I opted for upper body because my feet, knees and back are locked up tight from all the basketball and the last lift of the old cycle on Monday.

• Med Ball Slams 3x5 with warm-up work

 

• Bench warm-ups 95x10, 115x5, 135x5
• Pull-aparts 2x25
• Split Squat 2x15 each

 

• Bench Work 165x5, 185x5, 205x5
• Pull-ups 4x8

 

• Bench FSL 5x8@165
• Hammer Row 2x20
• Side Raises 2x25

Jim's rule was this should take 45 minutes. It took me 40. I envision no issues here with upper body work because my weights are still so light. Lower body stuff will be a different story. I'm shooting for 55-60 minutes with that. Saturday I'll give that a run and see how it plays out. I think this is a very realistic plan to follow given my time constraints this time of year. As of right now I have:

• 10-12 football groups (class conflict groups added)
• 5 volleyball groups
• 3 women's soccer groups
• Injured athlete groups/programs

per week. Plus, 4-5 recruiting Saturdays over the next 6 weeks. Not a lot of time, but time I have to be at work. What I've noticed with my last 8 weeks of training.

1. I'm feeling stronger with the main lifts
2. Pull-ups are feeling easier (time to add the weight vest back in full time)
3. My joints feel great with all the bodyweight movements
4. My muscle mass is the same/maybe a little less because of all the bodyweight stuff
5. Conditioning is great (had no issues running up and down in basketball practice 3 days in a row other than being sore from not running.

I'm very pleased. I've picked up a new full-time hobby on top of playing the guitar. I went out and picked up a Smith & Wesson M&P 15. It's beauteous! It came with a 30 round magazine and I had to go out and get a 40 round magazine, as if 30 wasn't good enough. It came with a carrying handle and the traditional iron sites. Once I recover from the dent it put in my wallet I'll pick up a Red Dot Scope/optics. The iron sites are fine, but I want a scope! I'll take the carrying handle off the rail, get a riser and add the scope. I went out to zero the iron sites and they were dead on for how my dad taught me to aim. Put the site at 6 o'clock and squeeze the trigger. With the new scope I'll have to zero it, which I'm looking forward to. I've never had to zero a gun because Papa Rhodes had all of ours set. Hoping to continue shooting through the winter depending on my schedule.