040 : 008 Hypertrophy

For me, winter is a time for hypertrophy. It gets dark and I already want to sleep more, eat more food, and generally hunker down. There isn’t anything groundbreaking about the structure of this session, but I have been getting better at expressing the feeling that we are looking for. Hypertrophy training is the attempt to tell your body that the problem is that you don’t have enough muscle mass – that is a very specific problem, and it takes a little work and a whole lot of attention to communicate that effectively.

Awareness

2x5 single-leg off-box squats

2x5 pistol squats or pistol squat sits (lower onto a box that you can then stand back up from)

2x10m banded side shuffle on each side

2x5 slow back squat (5 second lower + 5 second raise)

2x5 explosive back squat (5 second lower +  raise as fast as technically possible)

2x5 regular pace back squats (feel free to play with what “regular” means, this type of practice taught me that I have better results with a slightly slower lower than I had been practicing) 

Rangefinding 

5x5 back squats, going up each time (keep rest relatively short, this is a workup – not the actual workout, so you should feel well prepared after this, NOT tired.)

Work

8-10 back squats every 2:00 for 8 rounds

Flow

Most strength days I open up with some awareness drills, mostly checking different aspects of hip and knee function and what angles feel good or less good. I have been using CARs a lot more as well, and teaching them but I don’t trust myself to coach people through them via the written word. The thing to remember when executing the first portion is that you should finish having a better idea of what you need to pay attention to, and feel wholly capable of doing it. 

For the rangefinding piece – it is exactly that. Get under some different weights so you can make an informed decision on the work portion. There is nothing magical about 5x5 – I just recommend it as a practice to work on estimating what a certain weight will feel like, check your work, make adjustments, and try again. If you get to a heavy weight faster than you thought, just move on to the work (and try and make better decisions next time) 

The goal for the work portion is 8-10 hard reps without much need to “reset” or pause between them, then rack the bar and wait for the timer to go again (assuming you set it to go off every 2:00 for 8 rounds) I had people keep a few plates handy in case they were terribly off but everyone seemed to get it. The rest here is the constant (and ideally the weight) and we are trying to max out your body’s ability to deal with metabolic waste more than absolute strength.