For the last several months my training program revolves around squats. Mostly Shaf's ladders, or sets of four on easy days. On other days training is not structured at all at this stage. Sometimes I will do dips, sometimes chiuns, presses and so on. My main problem is lack of time. Australian health care works on the basis of 10 hour days, and when traveling is included, I spend up to 12 hours or more away from home every working day. At the end there is very little time to take away from my family, as well as not much enthusiasm for training. Hence such an abbreviated program.
What's interesting though,. this lack of time and training volume doesn't seem to be a big problem. I am progressing with my squatting quite well and should reach my goal of 105 kg by the middle of December (hopefully). I am also in fairly decent shape and feel reasonably fit.
When a conversation deviates to fitness, it seems most people believe that in order to stay fit you have to train often and long hours. More is probably better until some point. On the other hand, less is better than nothing, and you don't need twenty exercises to cover all the muscle groups. Sure, doing only squat will lead to some imbalances. On the other hand, not much is required to compensate for the lack of variety, and minimalist program I am doing seems to work quite well.
In hospital tea rooms some of my colleagues react with interest to the adverts of fitness contraptions (they usually promise more training effect than the previous one, usually advertised fifteen minutes ago on the same channel). When I ask then how many pushups they can do, they usually come up with objections that pushups "don't work the traps, the calves..." and so on. The end result of this attitude is that these guys end up doing nothing at all.
Never mind others. I have always been convinced - and my latest training experience confirms it - that squat is the king of exercise. (Deadlift is probably too, but I just prefer the squat). For now, squatting couple of times per week and supplementing it with random stuff has been working well for me.
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Girevoy Sport info: methodology of training and sharing my own modest experience and observations.
2 comments:
Eugene have just been reading some of your comments and I note your fondness for squats but also your reference to back pain. Have you done hip thrusts? Have you heard of them. I need a THR and what they have done for me to eliminate back pain is incredible. I could explain but if you go to Brett Contreras - The glute guys website and also look at Erich Cressey you might get some new ideas.
Hi,
Maxwell's observations seem apt for a guy like you who wants to squat but may be creating ongoing problems in doing so see: http://www.maxwellsc.com/blog.cfm?blogID=70
hope you find something of use.
cheers.
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