Anyone who has trained for any extent of time knows that all training methods stop producing gains at some point. No matter how productive your current program is, there's no doubt that it will need to be modified or changed sooner or later. This can even happen with Positions of Flexion (POF). Luckily, POF is flexible'you can make changes while still maintaining the basic principles.
ITRC Development: Minor Tweaks for Major Changes
Anyone who has trained for any extent of time knows that all training methods stop producing gains at some point. No matter how productive your current program is, there's no doubt that it will need to be modified or changed sooner or later. This can even happen with Positions of Flexion (POF). Luckily, POF is flexible'you can make changes while still maintaining the basic principles.
As we've learned through our years of experience, the changes don't even have to be very drastic to kick-start new gains. Our switch back to full POF training for each bodypart at every workout after the taumatic/nontraumatic (T/NT) training produced some good results, but we can tell that it's time for some more minor tweaks. Our split will stay the same, however as follows:
Monday: Delts, back, biceps
Tuesday: Quads, hamstrings, calves, abs
Wednesday: Chest, triceps, forearms
Thursday: Off
Friday: Full body
Weekends: Off
We'll stick with full-on POF routines for the Monday through Wednesday workouts. It's with the contracted-position movements that we'll start the changes. Contracted movements are usually the final exercise in the standard POF routines'with midrange first, followed by stretch and then contracted. In order to initiate some deeper muscle burn, we're going to be finishing with a drop set on the last exercises. As I said, these are only minor changes, but they are very noticeable and will help to slowly add volume to our routine (summer's coming up soon, you know).
If it's been a while, or you've never done drop sets, it's a pretty simple idea. After reaching failure with a weight that you can use to get around eight reps with, you immediately reduce the weight and blast out another five or six reps till failure. This will effectively increase your time under tension and provide an almost unbearable burn.
We'll continue pyramiding the weights for the midrange exercises, and we'll follow with one or two sets of a stretch-position movement and another one or two sets of a contracted-position exercise. The final contracted-position exercise is where we'll add a drop set, which is actually two sets in one.
Here's how our Tuesday full-POF quadriceps routine looks:
Midrange:
Squats 3 x 9, 7, 4
Stretch:
Sissy squats (on PowerTec squat machine) 1 x 9-12
Contracted:
Leg extensions 1 x 9-12
Leg extensions (drop set) 1 x 8, 5
Even though we aren't in the best shape of our lives as far as bodyfat, we're still staying at or below 10 percent. Once it comes time to get lean again, it shouldn't be too much of a heartache, and we should be able to see that the weight we've put on over the past few months was mostly muscle.
It's almost time to start shedding some bodyfat, so start visualizing your new bigger, leaner physique you'll unveil this summer.
For the complete ITRC Program 17, see the March '01 IRONMAN. For more on POF training go to www.ironmanmagazine.com
This special report was submitted by Jonathan Lawson
From the IRONMAN Training & Research Team
www.ironmanmagazine.com
The ITRC Training Newsletter is not intended as training advice for everyone. You must consult your physician before beginning any diet or training program. You may forward this email to as many friends as you want, but do not photocopy or reprint this report in any format without the written permission of the copyright holder.
——————————————————————–
All Content (c) Copyright 2001 IRONMAN Magazine
All Rights Reserved
You must be logged in to post a comment Login