Panel Discussion: Favorite Strength Training Circuits.
I want to see some of your favorite circuit training routines. A little background about your goal, strategy when building the routine, and how it fits into a periodisized program would be awesome.
Moderated by Brent Brookbush DPT, PT, MS, PES, CES, CSCS, ACSM H/FS
This Panel Discussion was originally posted on my facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/brent.brookbush - on August 7, 2010
Brent Brookbush Intergrated Stabilization Training-
Stability/Endurance
Low Intensity/High Rep day during Phase I training
Single-Leg Squat to Bilateral Cable Pull Down 10/10
Frontal Plane Step-Up to Balance to Bilateral Curl-to-Press 10/10
Transverse Plane Lunge to Balance to Cable Chest Press 10/10
Standing Bilateral Band Cobra to SL Balance to Calve Raise 10/10
This routine incorporates squat, step-up, and lunge patterns for the lower body, incorporates an exercise in each plane, all major upper body movement patterns are covered, the bilateral movements in the upper-body ensures 20 rep sets for a challenging endurance workout, the lower-body never stops - effectively increasing endurance. Getting through this routine 3 times is tough!!!
August 7, 2010 at 10:56am
Gabriel GdmFitness Martinez Here's a bodybuilding arm blaster workout I like to do.
Standing Dumbbell curls 12RM 202 tempo super set with trycep push down 10RM 202 tempo. 2 sets no rest.
Standing Ez curls 8RM with cheat finish. 202 tempo. (Lean forward at the end of the cheat to ensure maximum stress at the midpoint to end point of the movement) super set with straight bar push down 10RM. Take one full step back at the end of the movement and continue to press. This places more stress on the end range. 2sets no rest.
Concentration curl 12RM 232 tempo super set with half range triceps kick back. 12RM 232 tempo 2 sets no rest.
The workout should take 15min or less and leave you swolen like a melon! Yay.
August 7, 2010 at 11:38am
Gabriel GdmFitness Martinez I work arms specific to mass building because having nice arms and a six pack a trainer to me is the same as pressing your shirt and wearing your tie. There are lots of unimpressive looking trainers out there. Gym members are more fit! Uggghh… So I think we should all flex our fitness skills to the physical eye :-p
August 7, 2010 at 11:42am
Rolando Garcia 200 snatches with a 53lbs kb for time. As a martial artist, I keep my supplemental work simple.
If I don't have a kb, I use Pavel's 3-5 method, focusing mostly on dl's. I'm in a strength/mass phase right now, switching to a power phase later in the year with double kb's.
August 7, 2010 at 12:02pm
Brent Brookbush Hey Gabriel,
Nice arm blaster circuit… Not a big fan of arm work personally, but I'm not training for vanity or hypertrophy, as much as I am training for sports performance. I like how you kept the sets to 6 or less… more than 6 sets does not increase benifits, but does increase the risk of injury.
August 7, 2010 at 12:41pm
Brent Brookbush Rolando… Question… How long do you stay in a phase? 4-6 weeks is plenty of time to make gains and annihilate a program. If you switch every 4-6 weeks you can do 3 phases and start over in roughly 3 months. This will ensure that you do not lose any of the stability, strength, or power benefits you gained in the previous cycle.
August 7, 2010 at 12:42pm
Rolando Garcia Brent, it depends. If I'm seeing the intended training effect, I stay with a program. But if I stall, performance-wise, I switch out. It really depends. Ultimately, I'm looking at improvements in martial performance. If a heavier deadlift can help, I'll train for that. But if the pursuit of a heavier DL adversely affects my martial performance, I switch out.
August 7, 2010 at 12:49pm
Brent Brookbush Do you think a more systematic approach to performance enhancement training would be more beneficial?
August 7, 2010 at 12:53pm
Rolando Garcia Beneficial in terms of?
August 7, 2010 at 1:01pm
Brent Brookbush Long term gains in performance… Would you be a better athlete now if you adopted a systematic approach last year, 2 years ago, or even 5 years ago… If so… Get started :-)
August 7, 2010 at 1:09pm
Rolando Garcia This approach HAS given me long term benefits. It may not seem systematic to you, but that may be because you're coming froma different paradigm. :)
August 7, 2010 at 1:14pm
Gabriel GdmFitness Martinez That's cool info brent. I can cycle my mass phases like that. I do it because I just like big sausage vascular arms :p and I like that people think I'm a trainer/athlete/builder because of my body before I open my mouth haha. But I do incorporate other stuff into my training. My leg work is almost purely athletic. I find that a 15-30min workout works best not only to stimulate mass but to also prevent muscle breakdown especially from little screw ups In a diet. I.e. Friday night drinking. Its recovery based. I'm all about tissue recovery. From training to therapy and nutrition. So I can get the results I want FAST. Creatine, calcium, alpha lipoic acid, high dose epa dha, cinnamon, collagen/joint recovery shakes, arganine for circulation and uptake, anti imflamitory eating habits like avoiding dairy and beef, and saturated fats taking probiotics to and fiber to keep the colon from getting sick and bloated (most imflamitory and imune issues are colon related). Recover recover recover!
August 7, 2010 at 2:25pm
Brent Brookbush Hey Rolando,
Sorry if I implied that you were not systematic in your approach, my intent was to ask if you think you may have got better results from a scheduled perdiosized program. It sounds like you set goals around exercises, but if you worked for stability, strength, and power in a timed fashion could you have made larger gains in all aspects of your fitness, rather than improving performance at exercise or movement pattern at a time. Just food for thought.
August 7, 2010 at 8:25pm
Brent Brookbush Wow Gabriel,
Glad your focused on recovery. That is deffinately a ton of supplemenation, most of which I cannot make a comment on (not my speciality :-)) Keep up the hard work!!!
August 7, 2010 at 8:27pm
Gabriel GdmFitness Martinez Maybe he trains intuitively. I think boot camp type training, yoga stuff and explosive weights are good for martial arts. As well as the martial arts training itself. But that means what? RECOVERY! Lol
August 7, 2010 at 8:39pm
Gabriel GdmFitness Martinez How about four infinite sets of push ups. 60 second rest between sets. That's always fun :-D
August 8, 2010 at 12:28am
Mikal Payne Push-ups? dang! Anything but that. I'd rather do a timed hover
August 12, 2010 at 8:26am