Six at Six

A few years ago I read about a routine that was supposed to help increase strength. As an athlete my goal isn't size and extra mass, but rather strength. Now there will be some extra mass for the strength, but you can train and target more growth for the same strength or as a runner and cyclist, I'd rather have the strength with out the extra mass.

So the routine I've done in the past (and it's been effective) is six sets of six reps at the same weight with a 2 minute rest after each set. Once you can do all 6 sets with 6 reps then you increase the weight for the next time this exercise is done (every other Monday is my plan right now). If you can't do all 6 reps on a set, then you bump the weight down 10 lbs for the remaining sets. O yeah - this is a routine that I use on the Bench. I did 6 sets with 6 reps with 7 on my last set, so next time I will bump it up 10 lbs to 195 and expect I'll probably be there for a couple times.

The rest of the Monday routine with the weights was much like putting in a good days work. After 10 weeks my body would have adjusted and stopped being challenged if I hadn't been modifying the routine and increasing the weights to keep it challenging. So a couple of the exercises were done with increased weight, some with reps at 3 (not able to do 1 more) and others with reps at 20 (where I could have still done more). The bottom line: To continue to see improvement you have to continue to Work. Even the warm up exercises are getting a bit more challenging as time progresses. I could feel it for the rest of the day: and for me I know that means I've worked myself well.

At lunch I started to ride my bike on the trainer - and did so for 20 minutes until I had a blowout. Bummer. There's little excuse for that other than user error. I use high pressure tires and think I put in a little more pressure than normal on my trainer (still 20 PSI lower than what I run on the road). I also cranked the trainer resistance wheel up to the tire a little tighter than in the past. So, the combination of those two decisions likely caused my flat. I guess it's a good lesson to have at the start of the garage training season.

I'm still kicking around the Body Fat challenge (thanks JH - 'CyclingDude'). It would require me to take my nutrition to the next level - which would be a good thing, but not sure I can right now. I'm considering it. Along those lines I weighed myself this morning and took the water and fat %'s and logged them. We'll see if there ends up being a graph here at some point in the future.

I hope you who read this are having good health (as much as it depends on you) and might even have some plans that are being worked out towards even better health and fitness!