Planning My Next Phase

Catch-Up

I battle with my perfectionist nature by writing my first blog post before I have most of the nuts and bolts of my page set up, but I need to get some of my thoughts out there.

Today is the first day in the last week of MusclePharm's Get Swole program. In retrospect, I have gotten quite a bit bigger and much stronger during this 16-week program, but I'm excited to transition into a higher-intensity, lower-volume program for awhile. I've been feeling the fatigue both mentally and physically and I think it's hurt my discipline somewhat, especially on the weekends.

My diet hasn't been great, probably 75% effective; or every three days I'm responsible, one day I'm irresponsible.

I also haven't been great about doing cardio or stretching. And very little focus has been applied to my problem areas (hip flexibility, foot pain, rotator cuffs, lower-back, etc). 

So while I've gotten great results with this program, I know my behavior overall hasn't been a recipe for success, so I'm going to do some things differently in the next phase.

My Next Phase

First, I'm going to select a lower-volume workout program that won't overstress my central nervous system. I figure that will help a lot with my discipline because I won't have to push through so many hard reps each day. Also, because the intensity will be high, I will only have to work each muscle group once per week.

Coupled with the fact that I'll be adding morning workouts into the mix, I should be able to include cardio and yoga into my routine without having to stack this "extra" work after a 90-minute lifting session, which there is a 0% chance of happening consistently.

I think my workout is going to be Dorian Yates' Blood & Guts 6-Week Trainer, which I found on BodyBuilding.com's website. It consists of a 4-day split routine. The first day is Chest & Biceps. The second is Back. The third day is Rest. The fourth is Deltoids and Triceps and the fifth is Legs.

What's elegant about this program is that it is super High Intensity Training (HIT), so I won't be performing 5 sets of several exercises. Rather, I'll have one to two warmup sets followed by one set to complete exhaustion, using rest-pauses if necessary to brutalize the working muscle in one all-out set.

Because the workouts are shorter, I can work out in the mornings and increase availability in my evenings for additional work when appropriate. It also comes with 3 scheduled non-lifting days. Between these two factors, I should be able to incorporate more cardio and yoga into my routine.

So this is what I think my schedule will look like:

Sunday: Yoga and HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) Cardio
Monday:  Fasted SSC (Steady State Cardio) and Chest & Biceps
Tuesday: Back and Yoga
Wednesday: HIIT Cardio
Thursday: Delts & Traps and Yoga
Friday: Legs
Saturday: Yoga and SSC

I'll be doing Yoga at LA Fitness for now, but will probably switch to a more flexible (yes, that's a pun) studio down the road, when my "skills" improve.

Side Notes 

It's funny how my knowledge base has evolved over the past 7 months. I always did research before starting a program because I believe knowledge is power, but now I'm more strategic when I choose a program. Now that I know what works for me and what doesn't, I can try mixing things up to find what works best for me. I can always come back to volume training later...