Q2, P4 Overview

Q2 Themes: Fat Loss, Muscle Definition, Beach Season #1 and Summer Sports

P4 Theme: Strength (get stronger)

Total DB Load = 20-40%BW (strong days / white); 15-35%BW (fast days / gray)

P4: 4 Week phase, 1 week off

P5: 3 Week phase, 0 week off

P6: 4 Week phase, 0 week off

*cool schedule feature: Phase 7 is a 3 week phase with 1 week off.

**this means you'll train 10 weeks straight after April vacation leading up to the 4th of July.

Q1 was about getting your body to move fast while we returned to basics and did simpler movements and focused on getting you to feel healthier, get your body feel healthier and prepare you to participate in fun spring activities.

This quarter and the remaining quarters of the year, we're going to shift our focus to becoming more, doing more and getting stronger. We'll be increasing DB Loads, exercise skill levels and the amount of work we do in the workouts. Don't worry. I am also considering and planning for the days you don't feel like training hard, when your body doesn't feel good or if you've lost momentum. There will be easy entry points no matter what time of year it is or what day. Just show up.

So this means we'll be reintroducing strong days and fast days. Strong days are the days we'll use heavier weights, do more challenging movements and try to accomplish more quality work in our 60minutes. We'll try to overreach. Fast days will be our recovery days, when we'll use lighter DB Loads, do easier exercise levels and unload and do less total work in our 60minutes, while also maybe stretching & rolling more during the workout while other people are training hard.

The idea is to push it when we feel rested, strong and energized and to back off and go easier when we feel under rested, beat up and tired.

The ultimate goals for this idea is to help you to not miss workouts, so you can more easily be consistent. Here's the beauty. It doesn't matter whether I'm teaching a strong day (white) or a fast day (gray), if you print out the workout card. Whatever day you're on you can do that. Let's say you missed A#1 and I'm teaching A#2. You just do A#1. Simple. I'll still coach the workout the same, you'll just use a different load recommendation. I think this worked out real well last year. Plus if you think you can go multiple strong days in a row or you need multiple light and fast days in a row, you can do that.

*Coach's Note: don't abuse this philosophy. You still have to get better. You're not going to get better if you only do light and fast workouts. At some point you'll start to regress and lose ground. And if you only do strong workouts, you might become strong, but you might become strong and slow vs. strong and fast or you might not be letting your body recover enough, making you more vulnerable to an injury. Listen to your body. Rest only as much as needed and no more.

If you've ever shown up even though you were tired, you may have heard me suggest going lighter or doing less sets/rounds/time/weight/level. This is that idea, built into the program. Again, it's a way to help you be more consistent, so you can more easily achieve your goals. It's also, I believe where the industry is heading. You used to see Tom Brady not throw during the week because his arm is tired. Or you'd see Gronk, not practice during the week because his body is beat up. They both however play on game day because they're recovered. You see Al Horford of the Celtics not play the 2nd night of back to back games. Or you might see Chris Sale or Nathan Evoldi skip a start as the Red Sox season progresses to help them recover for the post season. This preserves them to play for the long haul. Sprinters take days off if their bodies don't feel good. You see businesses give mental health days. It's the future. Grinding through will always have it's place, but this isn't it. You could work 12-15 hour days, but if your performance drops the last 4,6 or 8 hours, then maybe you're better off getting rest and coming back and doing 2 or 3 or more times the work in less hours.

In any event, I think about this stuff so you don't have too. Keep sharing your feedback when I solicit it and I'll keep thinking about it and problem solving.

Wall & Bench

We'll be using the walls again for shoulder flexion and side planks and benches for 1-leg bridges, 2-leg bridges and rear foot elevated split squats. It may be a good idea to upgrade your home gym by adding an adjustable and portable bench to your workout space. The bench I have was designed for condo / apt / studio living, because it was sturdy and easily foldable to store under a bed or in a closet. Having a dedicated space like I do now, I could invest in a more heavy duty bench and I've thought about it. If you want help, text, email, call or ask before or after class times and I'd be happy to help you build out your home gym.

The side planks will really help to target your obliques, multifidus and quadrates lumburom (as well as glute medius, lats, rotator cuff, peroneals, lateral quad, ...) which can help give you line delineation on your abdominal wall and help to reduce low back, knee and shoulder discomfort.

Side planks are an isometric contraction. Isometric contractions traditionally build muscle strength & muscle mass, but usually lead to a decrease in muscle circumference. This means instead of increasing your waistline it decreases it, while making it stronger and more springy. If you eat until you're content, no longer hungry and/or satisfied most of the time, you'll help to stop expanding your waist line and start to draw it back in. Planks and practicing these hunger & fullness cues can help change your waist line to reduce low back, knee & shoulder pain and increase performance for life and sports.

The Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats (RFE Split Squats or RFESS) will stretch out your quads and hip flexors which will make your knees and back feel better, plus help you to be stronger with sprinting, cutting, stopping and jumping. And it'll help give you the tear drop muscles above your knees.

The Foot / Feet Elevated (FE) 1-Leg and 2-Leg Bridges, will help to work your posterior chain through a greater range of motion. This will you build muscle and strength in your glutes, hamstrings and calves, helping to make your more resilient to injuries (knee, low back & shoulder) and better conditioned to perform in strength and explosive related tasks like sprinting, jumping and playing sports.

Chops & Lifts

Chops, Lifts, Anti-Rotation Presses and Push Pull Presses are great exercises to resist trunk & pillar motion while moving in diagonal flexion, diagonal extension, sagittal plane pressing & pulling. These exercises plug energy leaks so you can better transfer force from the ground through your core and to your upper body and back. They're fun, challenging and have a great aesthetic affect. They're also very difficult to do in our minimalist program. You might see tubing with handles hanging from my lally column in the background of my home gym. I program these with private clients and they are a staple when I and my clients have access to cable columns, functional trainers, pulley's and tubing / bands with door anchors or wall mounted anchors.

In any event, I tried to bring these back both in the gym and virtually for the health, aesthetic, performance and fun related benefits.

Density Circuits

Every phase our conditioning is a density circuit in which you try to accomplish the most work possible in the time you have. Each week, ideally you'll improve and do a little more work than you did the previous week. This holds true with our Core Circuits (A1/A2), our Power Circuits (B1/B2/B3) and again with our conditioning circuits (E-Series) this phase. You'll have 3minutes for our core and power circuits to do as much work as possible (Goal = 1 round in week 1, 1.5 rounds in week 2, 2 rounds in week 3 and 2.5 rounds in week 4) and 4 minutes for conditioning.

I decided not to increase reps each week and instead take the time saved from efficiency and allow you to use it to try to get +1's, +2's or an extra round. Completing more work will provide instant feedback that you got better, it'll increase your work capacity, stamina, aerobic endurance, anaerobic endurance, strength endurance and strength, which will all contribute to increase performance in sport and life.

Strength Circuits

We're going to focus on 6 reps this quarter, while increasing the intensity and density of the circuits each phase. In phase 4 we'll do a strict 3-1-1, 5 count tempo (down, 2, 3, hold, up) for a total of 6 reps in 30 seconds, followed by a 15 sec rest (30:15's). We'll do 3 total rounds or 18 total reps. This will be a gradual introduction to increased loads and skill levels and help to strengthen your muscles during the eccentric and lowering portion, where you can gain the most strength and help to build up more tissue resilience.

Then we'll stick with 6 reps the rest of the quarter and transition from timed intervals like (30:15) to density circuits lasting 6+minutes. Once we take away the controlled tempo, you'll be able to move as fast as possible with each exercise. Initially this will result in more sets and rounds done in the same amount of total work time as phase 4, but then as you get stronger, you'll try heavier loads and higher skill levels, which will require more rest between sets and exercises. That's normal.

Exercises

MB's are now 2-arm chest throws and diagonal chops from 1-arm chest throws and side throws.

Plyometrics are now linear hops and lateral skaters from tuck jumps and lateral hops.

Cleans & Snatches are now go at your own pace for reps vs. 1 rep every 4 seconds. There also paired with not 1, but 2 exercises, so instead of holding the weights and resting 10 seconds until the next set, you can put the weights down and do 2 other exercises while your nervous system actively rests.

4pt. Stability gets broken up and different parts get put in different places. Bent Knee Side Planks are now Straight Leg Side Planks against the wall. Front planks are now high plank reaches. Backside bridges are now FE 1-Leg Bridges and Nordic Curl Progressions.

Split Squats are now Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats.

DB High Plank Rows are now Seated X-Band Rows.

Straight Leg TRX Rows are now Feet Elevated TRX Rows.

DB Offset Stance RDL's are now DB Single Leg Dead Lifts.

Feet Elevated Push Ups w/ March @ Top are now FE Band Push Ups.

Pullovers Remain. I'm looking for a substitute and I'm considering how I could put in a rehab protocol for those who haven't passed overhead clearance exercises like (wall slides and alternating shoulder flexion).

Overhead Presses progress from alternating, 1-arm at a time last quarter to 2-arms at a time this quarter.

Alternating Shoulder Flexion replaces Floor / Wall Slides as are level 1 - mobility exercise / assessment and clearance movement for overhead exercises.

Lateral Squats / Lunges and FE 1-Leg Bridges are new this quarter. They doesn't take an exercise's place, but become exercises we had space to add.

2-Hip : 1-Knee returns for the rest of the year. This thought process is that because humans tend to sit too much, their back side gets atrophied and de-activated, resulting in knee, low back and shoulder related injuries. Choosing a 2:1, hip:knee ratio, plus having a 1:1, 1-leg hip:1-leg knee exercises help contribute to this injury reduction while promoting performance enhancement.

Conditioning

We've swapped out the at home exercises from last phase and brought in different one's. These have the same do anywhere, no equipment, functional training, mobility circuit emphasis. Do as many rounds in 4 minutes as you can.

Lateral Squats + Lateral Bear Crawls replace Steal Turns + Linear Hand Fires.

Reverse Lunges to Reach OH + Inchworms replace OH Reverse Lunges + Lateral Hand Fires.

Spider March Kick Throughs + Hands Free Push Ups replace Sprinter Starts + Cariocas.

Stretches 

Stay the same. They're great stretches. They work. They're simple. You don't have to think. You can focus on cooling down. If I ever think it's time to sub in new stretches or if I learn something more effective, I'll consider it.

Partner Exercises in The Gym

We're going to Test Bringing Back Nordic Curl Progressions and Band Relays. I texted regular evening attendees and they were 100% open to partner exercises.