Week 11 –

World Championships 2016, Romania.

Accept advice from everyone, but don’t apply everything you learn from anyone.

Max-General Strength – Fall 2015

Another piece from the 2015 training season. Reviewed and approved by Thunder Bay’s finest, Paul Hemsworth. It was a real pleasure working with Paul while I was on the NDC. Not only is he a true expert and professional in the strength and conditioning world, but also one of the most intelligent and sincere people I know… Cheers, Paul – thanks for educating and tolerating me for all those years.

I think strength training should be kept simple. Primary exercises should be consistent and familiar, and the dosage and supplementary exercises modified according to the bigger-picture of your program and how you feel on the day.

There were a few seasons where I was overwhelmed by the programs prescribed by strength coaches. It’d have like 3 different workouts, which you’d cycle through in order – all with different exercises, and then 3 or 4 progressions of each workout, plus a fairly elaborate warm-up routine and, in my case, a plethora of corrective exercises.

Just trying to figure out what I was supposed to do was exhausting. And because of all the variation, it became difficult to gauge progress.

By paring down the strength program, time at the gym was more efficient, there was more continuity, it was easier to gauge progress and feel workout-to-workout, and it gave space to make more acute changes on a given day.

This iteration of the program was more or less what I did from October 2015 through the rest of the race season. Run to gym and do a dynamic joint prep for warm up, max-oriented exercise followed by a plyometric/explosive component – full recoveries, then usually do some core after with cooldown, foam roll, jog home.

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Next post Tuesday.