Thread: Is It Time To Move To A Split Routine?

Goals?

MAIN GOALS:
-->increase strength,
not too concerned with piling on the mass,
-->increasing my ability to take hits and dish them out,
i was also wondering about increasing my pace, as i assume squats and increased leg strength etc will only help me in sprint drills?
so would a focused leg day help this even more?

as i feel im not getting maximum benefit out of each workout with a full body, and maybe a split could be a better option???

help much appreciated

Fullbody or upper/lower seems suitable considering your goals. You need the frequency.

Running speed work: sprints, unilateral leg strength, plyometrics, olympic lifts (if possible)

thanks for the help, from doing some reading up on plyometrics, they seem really interesting and i think i could benefit majorly from them, and i have a few questions

i think i should maybe keep my mon/wed/fri full body workouts going or do you think i should

1. maybe do mon/fri full body weight lifting with wed plyometrics (i have sport specific training (ie.team training) on tues and thursdays(ball work, sprint drills,flexibility etc and a match on a sunday)

2.maybe simply mon-full body,fri-plyometrics, with wednesday as a rest day?

3. would mon-olympic lifts,fri-plyometrics be more benificial to me?

4.am i being ridiculous and doing too much(ie. not enough rest) i tend to go by how my body feels and at the min im feeling good.

5. would plyometrics help towards cardiovascular fitness?

6. does anyone know of any good resources that could help me make a good routine??

thanks for the time, and the help is much appreciated!!!

1/2/3/4: Plyometrics are about as taxing as speed work, depending on the intensity. You can put them on one day or spread them out over the week. I prefer some spread for athletes. Moderate your volume, because athletes tend to have very demanding programs.

5: not directly. They will help with speed/power/reactive speed. You can include them in a circuit/interval training session though, but you should select easy exercises for that. You don't want to do do 10ft. depth jumps in a tabata protocol (or at the end of a workout, for that matter).

6: this site. Maybe p-funk's blog.

ok thanks for the help witchblade, its really interesting stuff, what do you think of this:
im going to start off with a full body low intensity to get me going!

monday & friday: full body plyometric routine-

Exercise
Side-To-Side Jumps (10 reps,4sets)
Tuck Jumps (10 reps, 3 sets)
Catch And Throw Using Medicine Ball (10 reps, 3 sets)
Side-To-Side Rotations Using Medicine Ball (10 reps, 3 sets)

Wednesday:my normal full body weight routine(or this could be removed maybe)

tues and thursday:team training, sprint drills, ball work etc

any advice much appreciated

You're only doing 1 weight lifting day? I'd stick to 2 or 3.

The most important thing for the plyos is that you gradually build up the intensity and the speed. They should be sport-specific and progressed. Focus on speed rather than reps. See how far you can throw the medicine ball or how high you can jump.

Think about adding in some olympic lifts: Cleans, Deads and Snatches

Full body workouts CAN BE very challenging. I would do weights all three days but only do plyos on Monday and Friday

ok here is what ive come up with,

Monday:
Biceps And Back: 3 sets 12-10-8-6 reps
Bent over rows,pull ups,one arm-DB rows
curls
Lower Body Plyometric 3x10
Vertical Jumps
Tuck Jumps
Jump Up Onto Box (height approx. 10cm)
Drop Jump Off Box (add rebound jump to increase difficulty)

Wednesday:
chest,shoulders,triceps
Flat DB press
Incline bench press
military press
lat raises
CG bench press

Friday:
legs: 3 sets 12-10-8-6 reps
Squats, Deadlifts
im taking it easy on legs because i bike into work (10k) 5 days per week and have team training (ie sprint drills etc on tues thurs)keeping it to friday for extra leg recovery

Upper Plyometric 3x10

Overhead Throws with a Medicine Ball
Catch And Throw
Side-To-Side Rotation with Medicine Ball
Explosive Push-Ups
Explosive Dips

any advice much appreciated, i was thinking about starting to take creatine, to help my body with this increase in volume?? my diet is pretty much spot on, and im just maintaining at the minute

Looks good to me.

Maybe this is a type-o:

Jump Up Onto Box (height approx. 10cm) ...I woud use a taller box

set up needs a lot of work.

the amount and the timing of the plyos is essential, as is your own preparation to prerform these movements. You should think in blocks of training and first learn how to land properly before performing intense jumping movements.

AS well, your lifting is sub-obtimal for your goals and you are still thinking in body parts.

You are trying to train for to many things. Pick one goal. DO you want to be athletic or do you want to lift like a bb'er?

Your program looks like "I do bodybuilder type workouts, but I throw in plyos because I think they are cool and good for me."

The program needs to have a purpose.

thanks for the advice p-funk,
ok my main goal is becoming a better athlete and not a bodybuilder, i have been doing the "bodybuilder type workouts" to gain strength and have made good gains.
i feel i have a solid base to try and incorporate plyo`s, and the only reason i am incorporating them is to make me a better athlete.
the main reason i employed the two is to help improve both strength and explosiveness.

could you suggest any improvements or any resources that could point me in the right direction and allow me to learn and hone the program to something that would suit me better??

i will really focus on technique for the first few weeks to master the plyos before moving into high intensity workouts, and could you elaborate further on "blocks of training" ???

the help is much appreciated

some more info,
the sport im playing is gaelic football(similar to aussie rules)
it would mainly involve anaerobic exercise(short sprints and bursts of pace) and aerobic exercise to a lesser extent(being able to last a whole match(70 mins)

-it would involve vertical leaping to win the ball while under pressure
-it involves taking hard hits and dishing them out while still maintaining momentum and control
-involves alot of agility(sharp turning,pretty much all the time)
-therefore you need a good balance between strength,explosiveness and agility.

most of the common injuries would be on the lower joints, knees and ankles suffering alot.

we are currently have 4 weeks of pre season left, so most of the focus in team training(tues,thurs) is on improving fitness and and improving our ball work


so in terms of blocks of training i should be doing something like: (stolen from your blog, sorry!)
Day 1: Muscular Endurance
Day 2: Strength
Day 3: Power

i can see how this would be more beneficial rather than working body parts and plyo`s with no clear goal

Originally Posted by the_leprechaun

some more info,
the sport im playing is gaelic football(similar to aussie rules)
it would mainly involve anaerobic exercise(short sprints and bursts of pace) and aerobic exercise to a lesser extent(being able to last a whole match(70 mins)

-it would involve vertical leaping to win the ball while under pressure
-it involves taking hard hits and dishing them out while still maintaining momentum and control
-involves alot of agility(sharp turning,pretty much all the time)
-therefore you need a good balance between strength,explosiveness and agility.

most of the common injuries would be on the lower joints, knees and ankles suffering alot.

we are currently have 4 weeks of pre season left, so most of the focus in team training(tues,thurs) is on improving fitness and and improving our ball work


so in terms of blocks of training i should be doing something like: (stolen from your blog, sorry!)
Day 1: Muscular Endurance
Day 2: Strength
Day 3: Power

i can see how this would be more beneficial rather than working body parts and plyo`s with no clear goal

It sounds like you have done some research into your specific sport, which is great.

As far as me giving you specifics, it would be tough since i have never seen you lift, jump or perform an athletic movement. I can't specifically say what you should focus on because i know nothing about your current level of fitness.

As far as books go, there is a thread strated by Big G about what books people recommend. Several of the books i listed in that thread will have informatoin that you can use and would benefit you greaty.

Knowing that you have only a short time until the season starts, it probably wouldn't be the best to organize your training in a series of blocks since you don't have enough weeks to adequatly focus on specific adaptations. Having a program that strives to train several adaptations at one time (concurrent training or complex training) may serve to be better off in your situation. Just make sure that you don't overdo it in the weight room or with intensive work (like plyos, heavy lifting or very intense interval work as doing these through the week, on different days can blow you out. PLus, you are performing practice two times a week, which is very fatiguing and stimulating in and off itself). You probably would want to try and organize your most intensive stuff all on the same day and then on the off days, have less intensive stuff to help promote recovery and prevent overtraining and burn out.

Knowing what the common injury areas are will be helpful for you in setting up a pre-habilitation program that can be performed before you lift (or on a seperate day of training).

Knowing what you know about the energy systems being used will help you when setting up your conditioning as you can now adhere to sports specific work to rest intervals and train yourself to be ready for the season.

When setting up your program, think about all of these things and then don't just think about a generic set up or just one workout. Think about a specific time frame that this program is going to be run for. As well, know how to set up your training with regard to using the different set/rep/intensity ranges; maximum effort (strength work), dynamic effort (power/speed/rate of force development work), and repetitive effort (can be used for muscular endurance or trained at a slightly higher intensity (ie5-8 rep range) and not to failure and used for submaximal strength work). Know that the 1st two (and the second option of repetition work) are more intensive than the 1st option of repetition work. Knowing that, you can now plan which days of the week are going to be intesive training and which days of the week are going to be lighter/less intensive training.

hope that gives you some ideas.

patrick

thanks for the advice, ive ordered the 2 books by boyle, so hopefully they will give me a good grounding and then hopefully get to Zatsiorsky, in the mean time, while waiting for these and i know from there it will take me a while to get a grasp on what i need to be doing, could i simply set up a program going along the lines you have laid out until im better informed and able to make a better suited program, a 3 day per week workout

still using a full body routine(compound movements)
Squat
Deadlift
Bent over Row
Bench press
over head press

Day 1:maximum effort (strength work) (trying to lift as as heavy as possible ,3 x3-8 rep range)
Day 2:dynamic effort (go for 40-70% of my 1RM, focusing on explosive speed,6 sets of 2-3 reps, 40 secs break between sets)
Day 3:repetitive effort (going lighter again, 3 x15-25 reps)

since i have team training on tues & thurs, do you think it would be better to move my workout to the am of tues/thursday and then sat, creating high intensity days with training in the am & pm on tues/thurs (im assuming this would be considered concurrent training?) and then keeping mon/wed/fri as complete rest days, to help stop over training by spreading myself too thin over the week. Maybe incorporate some sort of flexibility/stretching program on these days(as i feel its something i need to work on).
im still a little confused on the time frames of the program, as i am used to just keep going with something until it stops working!?

any help much appreciated

do you lift with the team on tuesday and thursday, or are you going to be performing your own lifting at a different time of the day (or following practice)?

no, there is no team lifting, i would be performing it first thing in the morning (around 7.30am), then team training starts at 7.30pm, so 12 hours between each other, i keep well hydrated during the day and my diet is pretty much spot on, if that would play a big role on these high intensity days!