An Effective, Yet Simple Strength and Conditioning Program

[Carlos Castellanos]

Hi Everyone. I am really interested in using this program, I have a really dumb question though, When it says:

Monday
Squat – Weight lifted x 5 reps x 3 sets, sets across
Press – 5x3, sets across
Chins/Pull-ups – 3 sets of as many reps as possible

Are you alternating exercises between sets, or are you completing all the sets before you move on to the next exercise? The reason I ask is if there is a weight difference between squat and press, arent you increasing rest between exercise by swapping plates and such? Does that matter?

Thx for any replies

[Tim Nakashima]

You should be able to get through the strength portion in 1 hour. If you're also doing a metcon, might have to do that later.

[Erik Cisler]

I'm trying to make this program fit around a weekly organized basketball game on Thursday nights.

If I push everything up a day, meaning my first lifting day is Sunday, and my deadlift day is Thursday (followed by a nighttime hour-long ball game, as my conditioning, I suppose), do you think that would work?

[Eric Montgomery]

Sure, M/Tu/Th/F can easily be shifted to Su/M/W/Th. Your body doesn't know days of the week, it just knows it wants two or three days between squats and two days to recover from deadlift day.

[Tim Nakashima]

I think the b-ball might cause you to stall earlier than planned due to lack of recovery when the going gets tough... but maybe not.

[Jason R O'Dell]

So like I said I'm going to give this program a shot for the cold months. Question though, do you think I should give it a try for a set time period or until I can't make linear gains anymore and then move on to something intermediate (provided i have time)? What has everyone else done?

[Eric Montgomery]

You're a big guy--you should be able to ride out linear gains well past the 305x5x3 we discussed for this 6 week block. No sense in switching to an intermediate program til you need it.

[James White]

Originally Posted by Jason R O'Dell

So like I said I'm going to give this program a shot for the cold months. Question though, do you think I should give it a try for a set time period or until I can't make linear gains anymore and then move on to something intermediate (provided i have time)? What has everyone else done?

In case you missed my numbers, using the sets & reps in the program, I hit:

Squat: 365 (no resets)
Press: 170 (first failure at 175)
Bench: 245 (no resets)
Deadlift: 425 (no resets)

I've always been a heavier guy and this was my first time with a real strength program (didn't play sports when I was younger) and I'm SURE I could get much bigger numbers if I stuck with the program. However, I reached my short term strength goals (1RM of 400# squat & 500# DL), and need to lean out some for my job, so I'm back to focusing on metcon and a program with much slower strength gains (Wendler's 5/3/1).

Really depends on your goals/needs.

[Jason R O'Dell]

Originally Posted by James White

Really depends on your goals/needs.

Yeah you're right. My goal right now is getting stronger while not going further in the tank with my already bad conditioning.
I want to get to a strong respectable strength level during the cold months and then when it gets warmer just maintain strength and ramp up the conditioning to get ready for rugby in August.

[Erik Cisler]

Originally Posted by Eric Montgomery

Sure, M/Tu/Th/F can easily be shifted to Su/M/W/Th. Your body doesn't know days of the week, it just knows it wants two or three days between squats and two days to recover from deadlift day.

Ah, yeah - my primary concern is whether basketball will take away from recovery. Two empty days should be enough time.

Given that it comes after deadlifting, the real problem might be my basketball suffering.