Athletic Pendulum

[Buk]

Summer is upon us, and I want it all: strength, speed, explosiveness. So I have been considering switching to an athletic pendulum program with 3 cycles: Max Strength, Strength-Speed, and Speed-Strength. I would like to hear what the pros have to say about their take on this type of training for athletic improvements. I would also love to have my initial program design reamed, laughed at, cretiqued, balanced, tweaked, and commented on.

Me

[*]26 years old[*]5'11"[*]210 lbs[*]15% body fat (thereabouts)[*]semi-pro beach volleyball player[*]approximate maxes
[*]Bench _______205[*]Full Squat __265[*]Deadlift ____265 grip limited[*]Goodmorning _200[*]Snatch ______150[*]Clean _______200[*]Jerk ________200[/list][/list]
Formatted workout here Pendulum training


Pendulum Training - Athletic Focus
3 phase pendulum
Max Strength
Strength-Speed
Speed-Strength

Max Strength
80-90% load on strength exercises
2 minute rest

Lower Body A
Upper Body A
Rest
Lower Body B
Upper Body B
Rest

Lower Body A - Max Strength
Squat 5x3-5
GM 4x4-6
Step-up 4x4-6
GHR 4x4-6

Upper Body A - Max Strength
Deadlift 5x3-5
Bench 4x4-6
Pullup 4x4-6
OH Press 4x4-6

Lower Body B - Max Strength
Squat 5x3-5
GM 4x4-6
Step-up 4x4-6
GHR 4x4-6

Upper Body B - Max Strength
Bench 5x3-5
Row 4x4-6
Dips 4x4-6
Roman Chair 3x8-10


Strength-Speed
45-65% load on strength exercises
70-80% load on olympic exercises
2 minute rest

Lower Body A
Upper Body A
Rest
Lower Body B
Upper Body B
Rest

Lower Body A - Strength-Speed
Snatch 15 reps
Box Squat 4x3-5
Pullthrough 4x4-6

Upper Body A - Strength-Speed
Push Press 4x3-5
Row 4x4-6
Bench 4x4-6
Plyo pullup 4x4-6

Lower Body B - Strength-Speed
Clean 15 reps
Step-up 4x4-6
Squat Jumps 4x5-10

Upper Body B - Strength-Speed
Power Shrug 4x3-5
Dips 4x4-6
Rev Hyper 4x6-8
Plyo Pushups 4x4-6


Speed-Strength
70-80% load on olympic exercises
15-30% load on balistic exercises
2 minute rest

Full Body A
Rest
Full Body B
Rest
Full Body C
Rest

Full Body A - Speed-Strength
Snatch 20 reps
Bench complex 4x3-5
Chest Throws complex 4x6-8
Box Jumps 3x8
Kip-ups 3x8

Full Body B - Speed-Strength
Push Jerk 20 reps
Squat complex 4x3-5
Reactive Squat complex 4x6-8
Ball Slams 3x8
Start Throws 3x8

Full Body C - Speed-Strength
Clean 20 reps
DL complex 4x3-5
Rev Hyper complex 4x6-8
Plyo Pushups 3x8
Rim Jumps 3x10

[Buk]

No opinions at all? Maybe I shoud have mentioned that my other 2 options were:

• 5 day split working each body part with 75 sets.
• (S)uper HIT with a single set 1RM for each body part 3 days a week.

What does it take to get some knowledge of the experts?

[cuvermodel]

I only have a few moments before I have to take off and I will try to reply it more detail later on when I have time, but by glancing through it I saw one thing I don't really like to see. It's your high rep oly lifting. The purpose of olympic lifting is to gain explosiveness and your form WILL break down with too many reps, personally I've never really gone over 5 reps on an oly lift. If you want to do that many total reps, increase your sets. In my opinion there isn't a lot to gain from high rep oly lifting, but if you give me your reasoning maybe I can learn something?

Hope that helps a little, and I'll try to be back latert to respond in more detail and hopefully someone else will too. You gotta keep in mind on these....more difficult to answer questions, (it's much harder to answer your question than, "will incline benches hit my inner chest enough?") sometimes people lack the time and they plan on getting back to it and forget. I assure you it's nothing agasint you!

[Buk]

I know everyone is busy and I thank you for your time. I was just trying to give myself a little bump and add some humor. Those other 2 topics seemed to get about 30 replies, but some good info came out of them.

And you are right a 20 rep set of snatches would be miserable. I just didn't even consider reading it like that because it was so 'out there.' For the O-lifting I specified the reps and just do it as a cluster or in as many sets and rest as necessary. Last week on the Strength-Speed week I did 5 sets of 3 for all of the O-lifting, and today I did 4 sets of 5 snatches with 60% load. The Speed-Strength is supposed to read 60-70% load on Olympic lifts, and they will all be the power version that week.

Thank you.

[dos]

I have seen these high rep Oly-style lifts in another certain "guru's" training plan. The reality is that there is zero rationale for doing high rep 'explosive' lifts such as the Oly lifts as they will be neither explosive nor will there be near enough load to try to rapidly produce force with so why do them? If you want to add Oly -style lifts into your program for the conditioning effect, try doing multiple combination lifts ( Hey Alwyn....a little plug for our talk at the clinic this weekend ) This will add volume without compromising the power. Take care!

[Buk]

I wish I could still edit that post. I am not doing high rep olympic lifts. I am doing 15 to 20 reps with a load of 60-80% 1RM over a period of 10 to 20 minutes, resting as needed. I would like to hear about your multiple combination lifts(are these like the bear), I could use some more ideas for my gpp workouts.

Thank you and enjoy your weekend.