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Well, there’s no easy way to put it- I ended up having to withdraw from the planned Spartan 10k Race at the end of October. So, my 25-week plan came to an end without much to say about it. There were no injuries or anything like that. In fact, training was going reasonably well since my last update. The reason I had to drop out was purely due to personal circumstances.
That said, I can report that the training plan itself was doing it’s job. I gained strength, improved my conditioning, and overall felt really good- save for regular tiredness and soreness.
What I Learned
The biggest lesson was simply one of time and recovery management. I was putting so much into the number of movements and sets during the strength days, that I was leaving myself a razor thin margin of error for conditioning work, too. In all, I survived it, but it wasn’t fun, and not something I think I would try again.
Once I knew I was going to back out, I dropped the Saturday “relay day.” This saved a bunch of energy for me, which I put towards more of a “bro day” to do whatever I wanted.
Were I to build out a plan like this again, I think I would keep the strength days more minimal and focused rather than also trying to include a lot of volume.
While I like Andy Baker’s programming, I grew tired of the waved loading. If I went for a heavy single rep of deadlift and failed, I wouldn’t get another crack at it for a month. The utility of heavy singles aside, I don’t think I’m quite at the level where I need that much of a run up between really heavy working sets.
What I’m Doing Now
Since we’re now in the Fall/Winter arc, my emphasis shifted to more of a balanced strength & hypertrophy program. In particular, I’m [mostly] following Paul Horn’s Radically Simple Muscle program for four days per week. I say “mostly” because I’m adding just a touch of extra volume akin to his other excellent book, Radically Simple Muscle.
These workouts are simpler to program because it’s effectively a heavy day and a light day for each movment.
- Monday: Heavy Overhead Press
- Tuesday: Heavy Squat
- Thursday: Heavy Bench Press
- Saturday: Heavy Deadlift
What constitutes “heavy?” The goal is working up to a single top set within the 3-5 repetition range. If you hit 5 reps, then add weight for the next week until you can hit 5 reps again. Following each top set is a back off set of 6-8 reps with slightly lighter weight on the same movement.
Each day has a corresponding light version of the other day’s movement. So heavy overhead press also includes a light bench press. Heavy squat day includes a light deadlift. And so on. While Paul suggests doing the same movement, I chose Andy Baker’s route and actually use lighter variations of the heavy movement done for high reps (8-12) on these days. The exception being overhead press, which is still just the standard OHP but for high reps.
So it looks like this:
- Monday: Heavy Overhead Press / Low Incline Close Grip Bench Press
- Tuesday: Heavy Squat / Romanian Deadlift
- Thursday: Heavy Bench Press / Light Overhead Press
- Saturday: Heavy Deadlift / SSB Hatfield Squats
There are other movements in there, such as dips, lateral raises, triceps work, and chin ups on the upper body days. On the lower body days, I also include calf raises, hip thrusts, curls, and t-bar rows.
For conditioning work, it’s a simple split of 30 minutes Zone 2 on Wednesdays using the C2 Bike Erg, and Echo Bike sprint repeats on Fridays.
Results So Far
I am very much enjoying this program. I don’t know why it took so long for me to implement Paul’s program given how positively I felt about it when I first read it. It works, and I’ve hit several new strength personal records since starting it in the middle of October.
The plan is to keep this up through the end of the year and see where it takes me. Overall, though, I’m a big fan of this program’s structure- so another shout out to Paul Horn for creating it.
With that said, I probably won’t be reporting on this again- as nobody really cares about my workout programs on the main site. I do plan on updating the fitness assessments in the near future, though.
