Hail to the Dinosaurs!
I had a great workout the other night
and I thought I'd tell you about it.
It's another abbreviated workout. Two
exercises.
I start with a good ten or fifteen
minute warm-up, so I'm loose and
limber and ready to go. The warm-up
includes five minutes of Indian club
work to loosen my shoulders and upper
back. Tommy Kono suggested this to me,
and it works great.
Next, I did split style snatches. I
started with the empty bar and added
weight on each set and worked up to
a heavy lift. Not my max, but heavy.
Then I did the split clean and split
jerk.
Once again, I did singles. And once
again, I started light and worked up
to a heavy weight.
And that was it.
It's a great workout for anyone, but
it's especially good for older trainees.
It's fast, fun and low volume -- and
low volume means you don't end up sore
and stiff and aching, and you don't take
a week or two to recover from your
workout.
Recovery is critical. If you don't recover
from your workouts, you don't gain. Worse
than that, you develop chronic inflammation.
Instead of getting bigger and stronger, you
just get tight and stiff. Not good.
So train hard, and train heavy, but train
smart. Stay within the limits of your
recovery ability.
For those who don't do Olympic lifting, try
this two-exercise workout:
1. Military press or push press
2. Squat or front squat
That was one of Paul Anderson's workouts, so
it comes with quite a pedigree.
Or try this:
1. Dumbbell presses or alternate dumbbell
presses
2. Bent-legged deadlift or Trap Bar Deadlift
And yes, if time and energy permit, you can
add some gut, grip and neck work.
As far as sets and reps go -- you can do a
series of progressively heavier singles, or
do fives, triples or doubles. They're all
good. They all work.
Now, I know a two exercise workout doesn't
sound very exciting or very high tech, and
I know that everyone else is doing workouts
that include every exercise under the sun.
That's fine.
Let the other folks do the everything under
the sun stuff. In the meantime, YOU focus
on getting results. And abbreviated training
is the way to get results.
As always, thanks for reading and have a great
day. If you train today, make it a good one!
Yours in strength,
Brooks Kubik
P.S. 1. You can use abbreviated training in
your dumbbell workouts -- or in your bodyweight
workouts. See Dinosaur Dumbbell Training and
Dinosaur Bodyweight Training for details:
http://brookskubik.com/dinosaur_dumbbelltraining.html
http://www.brookskubik.com/dinosaur_bodyweight.html
P.S. 2. I cover other abbreviated workouts in
Dinosaur Training, Gray Hair and Black Iron,
Chalk and Sweat, Strength, Muscle and Power
and my Dinosaur training courses. You can find
them right here at Dino Headquarters:
http://www.brookskubik.com/products.html
P.S. 3. Thought for the Day: "Why train more
and gain less when you can train less and gain
more?" -- Brooks Kubik
