An Ideal Workout Scheme

I've got some significant advantages this year. I'm self-employed, at a gym. So I can set my own schedule, which means I get a full night's sleep every night, and I'm at the gym almost every day. As such I can set myself up with an ideal workout program.

Odds are that none of my readers can implement a program like this. That's fine. By explaining what ideal is we can look at it as a thought experiment and also take the achievable parts and implement them where doable.

What's Ideal?

First we need to establish what ideal we are looking for since ideal is necessarily based on objectives. The plan I'm about to describe is not ideal for a marathon runner or a tennis player. The objective I wanted to work on is maximum strength as a foundation for developing sport specific characteristics. As such the plan is a modified powerlifting routine.

Powerlifting is competition in Deadlift, Squat and Bench Press. Our basic, core movements with a program geared towards the highest strength possible - that is the highest 1RM. I also wanted to include the Olympic lifts because, as a(n actual) power athlete, I need those characteristics as well. (Powerlifting is not actually maximum power, the Olympic lifts do that. And competition in the Oly lifts is called weightlifting, even though it's not actually the most weight - go figure.)

The only real omission in powerlifting is a dynamic back exercise, since the deadlift is basically isometric for the spinal erectors and upper back. There are also overhead movements missing, though the bench does work those muscles and the overhead lifts from the Oly lifts cover that reasonably well. Therefore, my plan added these components in.

The plan

The plan's outline comes from this blog post by Greg Robbins over at Eric Cressey's blog.

• Monday - Squat High
• Tuesday - Deadlift Low
• Wednesday - Bench High
• Thursday - Squat Low
• Friday - Deadlift High
• Saturday - Bench Low

The days are divided up by our core exercises, so that we get two days of each, which is a lot of training volume. More volume gets us technical training as well as gains in weight moved. This plan keeps the same muscle group from being used maximally two days in a row e.g. my back is relevant for the squat but not maximally like it is for the deadlift.

There are two days between each day of a core exercise, which is sufficient recovery time.

There are no two days in a row of High intensity, thereby allowing me to recover in a whole body sense and not just in a muscle specific sense.

The heavy days have a warm-up portion for the main exercise as well as the maximal lifts. These are submax and help me dial in my technique as well as utilizing post-activation potentiation. The linked article describes this component.

Category	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
	Squat High	DL Low	Bench High	Squat Low	DL High	Bench Mid
Warm-up			Planks	1-Leg Stability	Turkish Parts	Planks
Prep	Box Jump	Turkish Get-up	Heavy Throw	Single Leg Box	Broad Jump	Yoga Push-up
Oly	Clean	Snatch High	Landmine Snatch	Clean and Jerk	Snatch Low	Landmine Jerk
Main Warm-up	Squat Warm-up		Bench Warm-up		DL Warm-up	Incline Bench
Main	Squat High	Deadlift Low	Bench High	Squat Low	Deadlift High	Bench Mid
Accessory	Step-up		1-arm Bench	Split Squat	1-arm Row	Lat Pulldown
	Suitcase Carry	RDL	Wrist Circuit	OH Squat	SLDL	Pallof
Prehab		YTI - Scapula	Ext. Rot.			Wrist Ext/Flex

* Squats are Front Squats - of course.

What else is going on

All of this is in addition to the regular training that I undertake. So there is the conditioning at the beginning of each of my classes, which includes some velocity-power work and more of the trunk stability components.

Plus, of course, there is all my technical training with the sword. Altogether I was getting about 12-14 hours a week of intense training. Plus the walking to and from work (a kilometer each way) and to any other place since I don't own a car. And going out dancing periodically. It's a lot.

Actually, it was too much to start with.

The down side

I overtrained. I felt like I'd done too much lifting to get technical training in as well, so my swordwork was decreasing. I recognized it fairly early and made adjustments. I removed some exercises (which is already reflected above). And I reduced the volume on others. I hit a sustainable point though. It just took some trial and error.

Applying it to your own case

Well, now how does this apply to you? Many ideas are possible. Here are a few ways:

• First you can arrange your schedule around the core lifts instead of body parts or some such. You do Deadlift, Squat and Bench every time for a 3-day schedule but each day there is a most important, most intense lift.
• You can run a 4-day program with Deadlift and Bench one day, and Squat and Pullup another. It's still more.
• Perhaps this just motivates you to do a Powerlifting program for the early phases of your periodization.
• Just put more sets in for the core lifts, at submax intensities, to get the technical training time under the bar. 

There are lots of other possibilities and I'd love to hear your thoughts, too.

Conclusion

I encourage you to put a lot of thought into what you could be doing to maximize your training. 

Geeking Out - Part 3: Estimating Calories Burned

This is the third part (part 1, part 2) of my series on geeking out about your exercise. Geeking out about your exercise isn't necessary. But it can help you become and remain motivated and it can help you achieve your goals.

METs

The simplest way of estimating calories burned in exercise is what's known as METs which stands for metabolic equivalents. At rest a person is at 1 MET. Exercise will be some multiple of this amount.

1 MET is approximately 1 calorie per hour per kilogram of bodyweight. I weigh about 85 kilos right  now, so I burn about 85 calories per hour doing nothing.

Martial arts training, like HEMA, is going to be 5-8 METs. Most of the training is going to be around 6 METs, and using that as a baseline value is a reasonable estimate. While high-intensity training or sparring can get up to 10 METs, this is typically alternated with rest periods so over the course of an hour it will average out to something lower - like 6 METs.

At 6 METs, 1 hour of HEMA would be 85x6 = 510 calories. This is consistent with my own values from my heart rate monitor.

The Compendium(pdf) is a resource that estimates METs for a very wide range of activities. This can then be used to help you estimate calories for all of your exercise and fitness endeavors.

Conclusion

Lot's of different methods exist for estimating calorie expenditure in exercise - apps and online calculators and so on. But for something unusual like HEMA there aren't such resources. As such a heart rate monitor or METs estimate are your best tools.