High Frequency Training 1/24/17 (26 days in)

Checking in to talk a bit more about where high frequency/high intensity/low volume has taken me. Here is where I'm at...

Day 1
Zercher Squat: 315x1
Pullups: BWx10 (shoulder injury, real pain in the ass)

Day 26
Zercher Squat: 465x1 (reverse band tension used)
(Only 7 days in) Dips: BW+55x1 (added 100lbs of band tension)
Pullups: BW+80x1

I have not taken measurements unfortunately. My legs have been getting unruly big. My back and arms have not seen the same amount of growth, but it is only recently I've really been able to push my upper body.

Pros: 
- All the things I like to be up are up
Sex drive, energy, excitement for things in and out of the gym (this one is my favorite)
- Difficult to do, easy to maintain
Minor tweaks like daily volume to accommodate for sleep and diet are manageable

Cons:
- Doing the same thing every day gets stale
This is to be expected. I'm about ready to change out zercher squats for rack pulls

Running list of things I've learned:
- As Broz stated, 'the way you feel is a lie.' Soreness is not a reason to skip a workout

- Stretching every day is mandatory
This goes hand in hand with prehab work. Make time for it or get injured
My typical day is 22min lifting, 5-10min conditioning, and 10min stretching

- Conditioning isn't mandatory, but you really fucking should
You will build work capacity by lifting every day, but it is going to be work capacity for low volume stuff. Getting your heart rate up a few times a week (running, HIIT, etc) is not going to take away from your lifting. Rather it's going to add to your gas tank in and out of the gym.

High Frequency Training Part Deux

I've taken a dive back into high frequency training. Just like last time, I fucking looooooove it. My workouts are quick, heavy, productive, and leave me excited and fresh to hit it the next day. More than anything, it frees me from the constant reconfiguration of sets and reps. At the end of the day, that shit never really brought me much in terms of weight progression or expedited my size/lean goals.

Right now, here is the way I'm approaching things.
- Lower body movement
- Upper body minor pulling movement
- Upper body pressing movement

The rules for picking a movement is that it must be loadable over a long period of time (2 week minimum). Preferably, I should be able to use band tension to make the exercise harder and easier (to extend the length in time each movement can be utilized).

For the last 18 days, I've been following:
- Zercher Squat
- BW Pullups
- Dips

Each day involves working up to a top set (1-5 reps depending on the load). I may stop there or do a few additional backoff sets. The emphasis on each backoff set is that they must be explosive, but sets/reps doesn't really matter.

Each day should look like:
- lifting <25 min for all working sets
- conditioning 5-10 min, not every day
- stretching 5-10 min
- each subsequent day, increase the weight by 5-20lbs

Right now, movement progression looks like this:
- Zercher Squat > Rack Pull > Front Squat > High Pulls
- Dips > OHP

Zercher Squat/Front Squat/Dips/OHP
- Black band added resistance
- Blue band added resistance
- No added resistance
- Blue band assistance
- Black band assistance
Rack Pull
- Black band added resistance
- Blue band added resistance
- No added resistance
- Snatch grip, regular grip, sumo grip
- Start on pin 2, end on pin 5
High Pulls
- Snatch grip
- Clean grip

Example Workout (from this morning):

- Zercher Squat 385x1x3 (black band assistance)

- Zercher Squat 280x5x1 (no resistance, for speed), super set with BW Pullups

- Dips Black Band Added Resistance, +15lbs x1x3

- Dips Blue Band Added Resistance, +15lbs x1x5

- Dips +15lbs, x1x5

- Dips BWx5

Backoff zercher sets used 1min rest after pullups were performed

All dip sets were performed 30 seconds after one another

Lift like everyone else, look like everyone else

I feel the program hopper demons on my back. I hurt my shoulder doing too much assistance work, then brutilized it more by not backing off on my heavy work. Every fucking time this happens I go back to my giant one note file full of programming ideas from the last 8 years. Most of them are light clones of each other. Few have produced results. None have worked consistently more than once (this is the most baffling part...I've been unable to return to something that worked before).

I'm fucking done with programs. They've brought me nothing but angst and cognitive dissonance on whether I'm doing something helpful of harmful. I'll tell you what has worked...
- heavy fucking Partials (all rep ranges)
- high frequency training, low volume and exercise choice

I was looking back to one of Bugenhagen's youtube videos when I heard something that rang true.

"Lift like everyone else to look like everyone else"

Eric goes on to talk about the problems most people have is a lack of intensity, not whether they were doing 3x6-8 instead of 3x10. Oh, was your common ass rep scheme the problem, or are you the problem? Ding ding I'm the problem.

The last time I ventured into instinctive high frequency, high intensity, and low volume training I hit 2 lifetime lifting goals withing 2 weeks. Goals that I had no idea how I was going to reach with my regular progression. Goals that I can now hit on a shitty day with little prep. What's more is this type of training is fun as hell. Burn through a movement and juice it for all it's worth, the switch to a different movement or make the same movement easier (and keep adding weight).

I'm pumped as shit. I don't want to lift to look like everyone else. At best, I've lifted to look slightly better than everyone else, and that is a huge waste of time. Game on.