View Single Post
 
Old 11-06-2008, 01:58 PM
Darkhorse Darkhorse is offline
Rank: Light Heavyweight
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: CA
Posts: 4,174
Send a message via Yahoo to Darkhorse
Default

"The Working Class Hero"
By Darkhorse

This article is for the majority of us who work for a living. Those of us who aren't in high school anymore or burnouts living with their parents with all the time in the world to train. Who here spends long hours in the office? Take that number and superset that with a family! Lots of responsibilities that keep you home, and realistically, no matter how hardcore you think you are, you'll always choose your family over the gym. Even if that means grabbing a pair of bands and heading out to your garage, or doing pullups in the backyard holding onto a tree branch lol. A pump in the gym isn't going to make you feel any better sleeping on the couch! And if it does, you've got problems well beyond the scope of this article.

How many times have you heard:

..Not optimal
..Not popular
..Where's the (pick popular compound exercise)
..That's not what "So and so does"

While many times that's exactly what some trainees need to hear, there's a lot that people just don't take into account. So those words get replaced with "availability" and "what I can, when I can".

Lets take powerlifting, por exemplo. While you can absolutely be a beast without any specialty bars or equipment, it does help. Using accomodating resistance as well as that infernal SSB bar helped my deadlifting tremendously! That said, aside from my gym at OCSC, I do not have access to that equipment. Now, I work upwards of 60 hours a week, so aside from Thursday's, I cannot make it in. It's as simple as that. Additionally, I was extremely tired and feeling run down with having to cut sleep short all the time to make it in the gym 4 days per week. I mean, it's imperative to go 4 days because everyone says so, right? Not necessarily. While I cannot brag about a 800 lb squat, I certainly can brag about making it past 500 while working 60 hours a week, having a big family, and being drug free.. Same thing goes for most of you. There's a lot of impressive physiques here hands down, and I know most of you on a more personal level, and can certainly admire what a lot of you could accomplish while having so many demands outside of the gym. Being able to balance all your responsibilities like the food on your scales.

So what can you do about it?

1) You need to make peace with your situation. Don't try to take on more than you can chew. If you cannot make it in 4 days per week for your upper/lower split, then don't try to because your mind will certainly not be focused on the weights in your hand. I know the times I've tried to go back to back days in the gym, all I could think about was if it was worth my getting up so early before work. No matter how subtle, it'll affect performance, and no amount of preworkout magic shakes is going to change that.

2) Be honest with yourself. Don't worry about the things you believe are "unchangable". If you want to workout three days per week, who the hell said it absolutely has to be every other day? If you can easily make it in Wednesday and the weekends, then by all means do so. Make things easy on yourself. Whether you know it or not, stress is one of the biggest reasons why most people aren't seeing the results they're after. I know I joke all the time with my friends that Lexapro has been the best bodybuilding supplement I've ever had LOL.

3) Make very attainable short term goals. "You may have won the battle, but not the War." That doesn't apply to us! Just worry about each little goal (battle), which will not only help win the War, but more importantly, it'll keep motivation, confidence in your abilities, and in what you're doing high as well. Having confidence in what you're doing is working is extremely important to be successful.

4) Do not be influenced by those around you! Straight from Beyond Brawn right here. If you're on a program like something out of Practical Programming where you're strictly doing bench, squat, and rows in a day, don't overanalyze and think you need some cable flyes to finish off that workout. Stay on task, and as long as the results keep coming, why change something? They may look like they're having fun on the hammer strength machines, and I guarantee you they'll STILL be looking like they're having fun 2 years from now on those machines looking the exact same.

5) Don't keep an online journal. What did he say?! Yep, believe it or not, it can hinder more than help. How many people's journals have any of you read where there's an excuse or ellaboration as to why the weight was low for that day? Or starting off the entry saying that you're a 350 lb bencher, but today they only benched 250.. Personally, I don't think it would be a motivational tool for someone to keep a journal when they're missing workouts because of a very hectic work schedule. Perceived expectations could weigh you down...

In closing, I hope I was able to give all of you some food for thought. When it comes to training, you'll be hard pressed to find two people doing the same exact routine because everyone has needs, whether it's a weakness in strength or physique, or outside interference. I'll follow this article up with what I'm personally doing as well as a few other routines that think outside the workman's box.

This is from Ironaddict's forum. This is a wonderful layout for anyone who sincerely wishes that there was more than 24 hours in a day.

Day One:
Bench or Dip
Incline Bench
Chin
Barbell Curl
Deadlift

As many rest days as needed

Day Two:
Bench or Dip
Incline DB Press
Row
Decline Skull Crushers
Squat

As many rest days as needed

Think about the possibilities here. There's just so much you could do here it's not even funny. Certainly none of this, or any program needs to be so "conventional" or vanilla either. Who the hell needs everything to be 3 x 10?!

This is just ONE of a thousand interpretations. I think most of you will absolutely love some of the intensification techniques I've included lol:

Day One:

Bench - Changes every week:
- Week One: 5 x 5
- Week Two: 5 x 4
- Week Three: 5 x 3
- Week Four: Rest back to 5 x 5 with increased weight
Incline Bench - 2 x 12 (1 second pause on chest)
Chins - 30 total reps (just get there!) - If you make it, either increase weight, decrease rest or sets to get there.
Barbell Curls - 20 rest paused
Deadlift - 1 x 4-6, rest 5 min, 1 x 8-12

Day Two:

Weighted Dips - 3 x 10 (pyramid to top set)
Incline DB Press - 20-30 rest paused
Rows - 3 x 10 (4 second negatives)
Decline Skull Crushers - 3 x 8-10 (60 second rest between sets)
Squat - 1 x 20 (using 12 RM)

Now, that will certainly get the job done. As you can see, there's A LOT of different things mixed in that you could get away with since it's really only "when you can". I tried to provide a lot of different ways of spicing up a routine. Any one of a number of different variations to the "same ol', same ol'" exercises would suffice.

What if you could only get in *pick a day* and the weekends? Here's a thought:

Wednesday - Full Body

Saturday - Upper Body

Sunday - Lower Body

Or

Wednesday - Legs

Saturday - Chest/Back

Sunday - Shoulders/Arms/Abs

There's so many different things you could do, and get just as good or even better gains than if you tried fitting everything in to an already very busy schedule.
__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


I can be found at
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Reply With Quote