Posts Tagged ‘periodization’

My training has been Kettlebell & weight vest based for about five years. Now I have torn my tendons in my shoulder I am strongly urged to return to conventional bodybuilding.

This will mean selling my vests, kettlebells and clubbells and returning to the gym.

Back to dumbells, barbells and machines for 2017. I’m going to do it & my focus for cardio will be indoor rowing & outdoor cycling.

It will mean isolation training and a four or five day split routine. No more functional training. No more full body workouts. No more crossfit style workouts.

Call it periodization if you want but I am going to totally change how I train this coming new year.

Kettlebell based training is overtraining for the shoulders. Weight vests just make it worse. It was fun but its time for me to return to that which is best.

Healthy bodybuilding and cardio.

…But I’m about four months into healing this injury now. In another 2 months I will be able to comfortably rack & press the KB’s again with light weight. I can rack the 16kg now with my injured shoulder without pain.

Its a difficult decision that would be much easier if there was a nearby gym I really like. But there is not.

If I do continue with the KB’s and vests there will be some big changes safety wise. This will mean adding shoulder braces, slowly building up to greater weights and much more attention to joint health. There does not seem to be any safe way to put a heavy and awkward vest on or off.

Time will tell & this injury is so inconvenient that a repeat is definitely not acceptable.

Isometrics should not be revisited – Its should be done everyday.

Way back at the age of 16 I was actually anorexic at six stone & close to my current height of 5ft 11in. I had a bad drug & booze problem so when I cleaned my act up I took up bodybuilding.

My first ever course was – You guessed it “Charles Atlas” Dynamic tension isometrics. I followed that up with the Dan Lurie course & barbells but kept up with the isometrics.

Well it’s not hard to double in body weight when you are that skinny & that is exactly what I did from six to twelve stone in six months.

Those were tough times for me but by the time I was 19 my head was straight & I was on the right path in life.

However at some point I ditched the Isometrics. Bummer.

It’s a bummer because Isometrics are just as important as Isotonics and back in the sixties they were probably considered more important.

You see the initial research revealed a 5% weekly gain in strength from isometric exercise. That’s compounding so just google up a compounding interest calculator & you can see what it will do for you.

Say for me one arm pressing my 70lb kettlebell – I should be able to press 114lb after a ten week cycle.

Heres a good calculator http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calculator.htm

Now that’s respectable but if I do another ten week cycle & get the same progress it calculates to 185lbs and that is phenomenal.

A 5% compounding weekly gain is the absolute max you could wish for but even 2% per week non compounding is a decent gain over 10 weeks. I’m sure that if you have never trained isometrics or have not done so seriously in a long time, and you put super effort into it, you will get the top results on your first cycle.

Isometrics are best done daily – every day of the week. Keep them within the hormonal window 40 – 90 minutes.

Now you wont continue to get a 5% increase for eternity. You can expect that for 6-10 weeks only.

You need to use periodization with your isometrics. Should you just do isometrics on a 2 months on 2 months off cycle? Or can you cycle static & dynamic isometrics?

The static isometric cycle would be low duration high intensity – dynamic long duration lower intensity, I am referring to the actual isometric contractions.

The static isometric cycle would coincide with a strength or power focussed isotonic cycle.

In this way you should be able to do isometric training every day of the year. Isometrics also compliments & accelerates flexibility – just study the Thomas Kurz material for full programs.

Your dynamic isometrics can include Harry Wang’s Dynamic Strength style training & Sanchin, even bodybuilding posing routines. You would do this stuff while cutting and doing more muscular endurance type isotonics.

So it seems to be a two month cycle can be introduced give or take.

During those dynamic periods cardiovascular and muscular endurance can be enhanced and fat can be burned off. During the static phase massive strength gains can be made.

I’m going to give it a serious shot.