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| John Grimek showing an eager crowd how to do the military press at an exhibition many years ago. The military press is a great exercise for football players and other athletes. |
Hail to the Dinosaurs!
Three quick notes and then we'll talk iron -
as in, talk about what my buddy Frank and
I should have done for an in-season weight
training program when we were playing
football during our freshman year in high
school.
1. The Feb Dino Files
The February issue of The Dinosaur Files
is out - and the Dinos are loving it.
Go here to grab your copy - and if you
need back issues beginning with October
of last year, grab them as well. You'll want
the complete set:
http://www.brookskubik.com/dinosaur-files-february2018pdf.html
2. The End of the Road
We have just seven copies of Strength,
Muscle and Power left - and they're going
fast.
I'm not going a reprinting any time soon,
and perhaps not ever - so if you want a
copy, grab it now:
http://www.brookskubik.com/strength_muscle_power.html
3. Flooding in Louisville
Many of you have asked if we're okay after
all the rain and the flooding here in Louis-
ville.
The answer is - we are dry and fine - the
only rough part was on Saturday night,
when there was a really wild storm and
the driveway flooded - and some water
got into the garage. But no biggie.
We have friends who have been hit very
hard - and there are parts of town that
have seen massive flooding - the worst
in 50 years. We're all hoping it's over
now, although more rain is in the fore-
cast for later in the week.
Anyhow, thanks for asking!
4. What We Should Have Done
Yesterday I described some over the top
workouts that my buddy Frank and I took
while we were playing high school foot-
ball.
The coaches didn't have any kind of in-
season weight training program, so we
thought we would set up our own.
And since I was reading Arthur Jones'
articles and training bulletins, I decided
we should do "train to failure" workouts.
In other words, maximum effort training.
Real blood and guts stuff.
Well, it didn't work.
Not on top of 2 1/2 hour football practices
that finished with plenty of wind-sprints
and hard conditioning drills.
We overtrained and burned out almost
immediately.
Looking back on it, we should have done
things much differently.
We should have done things much less
aggressively.
We should have settled on two workouts
a week.
We should have done one workout after
the game on Saturday - or on Sunday,
the day after the game.
We should have been content to maintain
our strength and use the workouts to help
us recover from the hard hitting in the
games and in practice.
And the workouts should have been fast
and short. Twenty or thirty minutes max.
Something like this:
Workout No. 1
1. Power clean 5 x 3 or 5/4/3/2/1
2. Squat 5 x 5
3. Chins or pull-ups 3 x 6-8
Workout No. 2
1. Military press 5 x 3 or 5/4/3/2/1
2. Clean grip high pull 5 x 3 or 5/4/3/2/1
3. Bench press 5 x 5 or 5/4/3/2/1
I would have included neck work on
the list, but we did lots of neck training
in our practices (bridges and buddy iso-
metrics).
And note - those are not "work up to
your one rep max" workouts.
The top weight in the 5/4/3/2/1 progression
should have been 90% of our true one rep
max.
And the same for everything else - the
top weights should have been manageable,
not maximum.
In other words, use the weight work to help
stay strong and to work out the dings and
dents from the football battles - and then
get back into really hard training in the off
season.
Of course, I'm speaking from the perspective
of a 61-year old who's been doing this stuff
for a very long time and has learned a little
bit about overtraining and over-enthusiasm.
If I could go back in time and hand this
program to 14-year old Brooks, would he
have followed it?
Probably not - because the 14-year old kid
would have thought the program was TDE
("Too Darn Easy" and TNC ("Totally Not
Cool").
And besides - it wasn't like anything he read
about in the muscle magazines!
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. Remember to grab this month's issue of
The Dinosaur Files:
http://www.brookskubik.com/dinosaur-files-february2018pdf.html
P.S. 2. My other books and courses are
right here at Dino Headquarters - including
links to my PDF courses and my Kindle
books:
Hard-copy and PDF
http://www.brookskubik.com/products.html
Kindle
http://www.brookskubik.com/kindle.html
P.S. 4. Thought for the Day:
"There's a time and a place for every-
thing - and that applies to your strength
training workouts."
- Brooks Kubik
BEFORE YOU LEAVE . . .
We have more than 25 Dinosaur Training books and courses in the Kindle
bookstore - here are several of them - head on over and take a look at the others:
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