Special Workouts - Stage 1

[GymBunny]

What is the point of the 2 special workouts at the end of stage 1? I know Lou says it will give us an idea of how far we have come since we started but am I wasting time doing these 2 workouts? I did the "as many reps as possible" thing for workout A yesterday and I don't feel it at all today. I was getting used to feeling sore at least somewhere after each workout.

Also, how many reps were you all able to do for each exercise? And how much weight were you using (supposed to be starting weight I think)?

I will do the B exercises tomorrow if you all tell me I should, otherwise, I'm gonna move into stage 2.

[GymBunny]

Squats - Bar + 20 lbs - 35 reps
Push ups - Smith Machine Level 7 (~60 degrees) - 50 reps
Seated Row - 75 lbs - 23 reps
Step ups - 2x15lbs - 50 reps (25 each side)
Prone Jacknife - 15 reps

I ended up doing 3 sets of the Jacknifes because I could only do 15 in one set. I am very interested to see how others did with this workout.

[vasha]

Mostly the purpose is to show you how much you have improved by doing as many reps as you can with the weights that you started the program with. If you remember back to your first workouts, you should recall that by rep 15 you were struggling to get through. By the end of Stage 1, most ppl find that the can easily do twice as many ore more reps (30+ before reaching the struggling feeling).

For myself, I was able to do about 40 reps with about 75% more weight (ex: starting at 40lbs on row, up to 70lbs at the last normal workout of stage 1) for most of the excercises.

There are some other posts about the special workouts, you might want to do a search to see what others have said.

[LancelotsLover]

I remember thinking the special workouts were a bit of a waste, but I did go through them (at least, most of it). It was interesting to see how much more I could do with the starting weights, but I got bored with doing so many reps, and many exercises I just stopped even though I knew I could do more. I, like you, was anxious to get to stage 2. Here's what I did for the AMRAPs, blurbs taken from my log:

Workout A:

"Squat: bar only/50
Push Ups: 45degree/25
Rows: 40/60
Step Ups: 12.5/15 each leg
Jackknives: Tuck/20

By the time I got to step ups I was ready to fall down with exhaustion, so I admit I didn't even really give it a go. Almost stopped at 8 reps with second leg, but forced myself to do the 15. Still hate these; don't feel I've improved at all."

And Workout B:

"Decided to do a modified, sort of strange workout today. Did AMRAP workout B, but skipped lunges and ball crunches. I don't really care to see how many lunges I can do at 12.5 pounds, or how many ball crunches (a lot, I know). I wanted to save some energy to try out some of the moves in stage 2A. I was surprised to see how many deadlifts and lat pulldowns I could do at my starting weights, though. I did 65 lbs. on DL, 30 reps, could have done some more, but was getting bored with them so I stopped. Same with lats; did 60 reps at 50 lbs. and stopped with quite a few more in me. But DB shoulder presses were different; used 10 lbs. and got to 28, was losing form, shrugging with the reps at the end, and could MAYBE, POSSIBLY have done 1 more. "

[GymBunny]

Thanks for the response. I did search some of the old threads and I did see how many people were not very fond of the AMRAP special workouts. Today, I was supposed to do AMRAP-B and decided against it. Instead I did a complete repeat of my 8th B workout. I hit a PR with the wide-grip lat pulldown so I am very pleased.

[LancelotsLover]

Yeah, we can see our progress without the AMRAPs, just by how much our weights increase. Yay! on the PR.