A Deeper Look At My 2013 Peaking Program - Upper Body

Time for a quick run through of my upper body training for my peaking phase.

Now I haven't actually done the same training for upper body as I have lower body. In the 21 weeks I have done 6 - 7 cycles of Jim Wendlers 531 for bench press and chin ups. I started with military presses too but something was happening in my shoulder so I dropped them out for a bit.

It's all about the lower body for me so it's strength and nothing else really for upper body but for this peaking phase, as the lower body stuff is a lot lighter then other phases I have included more then the previous 21 weeks.

I am following what is called Prilepin's Chart which is a study done on 1000 odd Olympic weightlifters from Russia which depicts the optimal sets, reps and % load to increase strength. This makes planning your training pretty because it's all sub maximal  loads, with the aim to stay well away from failure as you can.

Here's how the chart looks:

55 - 70% load - 3 to 6 sets and reps per exercise - optimal rep number 24 - total rep range 18 - 30

70 - 80% load - 3 to 6 sets and reps per exercise - optimal rep number 18 - total rep range 12 - 24

80 - 90% - 2 to 4 sets per exercise - optimal rep number 15 - total rep range 10 - 20

90% + - 1 to 2 sets per exercise - optimal rep number 4 - total reps 10

So if you're lifting in the 70 - 80% range then for 70% you'd aim for the higher end of the volume table (18 - 24 total reps) then aim for the lower end as you work up towards 80% (12 - 18 total reps). How you break up the sets and reps is up to you. If you're feeling pretty good then you can aim for the lower set / higher rep end with 4 x 6 or if you're feeling a little sluggish from a tiring work week you can do 4 x 3.

For my training I'm doing 2 upper body sessions a week.

Session 1 see's me do military press and bench press at the low end of the total reps - 6 x 3. Session 2 I do the opposite and go for the higher end (5 x 6). Both days use the same weight which increases each week.

I haven't actually seen it done like this before so I'm trying this out but I'll need to be careful when I get to the heavier weeks how the twice a week thing goes with pretty good volume over the week.

I'm doing twice a week mainly because of my very low frequency and volume I've used for upper body since September and now that I have the chance I'm looking to improve my work capacity in the arly weeks of this.

All up it's 11 weeks all planned out until I reach the heavy load and low volume but I should be able to get through without missing a rep.

During session 1 chin ups are still rolling with 531 with a max that has been reset from my testing a few weeks ago (+40kgs x 2 reps). Session 2 I'm doing 10 x 5 mechanical drop sets for pull ups, semi supinated pull ups and chin ups. What happens here is that I do sets of 5 for pull ups until I can't then I move to semi supinated pull ups for sets of 5 until I can't and finish with chin ups if I'm still going. So each time I will do 50 total reps, it just depends how many sets of each particular variation I total.

For rowing I'm doing 8 x 8 mechanical drop sets for inverted rows during session 1 and session 2 I'm just doing some cable rows for traditional sets and reps.

Core is trained on both upper body days and 1 lower body day using gymnastic type moves that I'm trying to progressing through but having 80% of my bodyweight in my arse and thighs makes leverage exercises a terrible option but I'm persisting - hey better then 400 crunches - and an exercise I'm pretty sure I've invented, the station rotation I call it (I'll post a video later this week) which is a great name!!

So there it, my training for the next 3 and a half weeks (already 1 and half weeks into this). Let me know what you;re doing for your training via the comments section or Facebook.