042 : 019 Functional Bodybuilding 2

Session #002

‘Complimentary’

Breathing ramp up

Warm-up

Then...

Work to a heavy 5 x wide-grip bench press to the neck (guillotine press) *perform 5 x chin-up between each set

Then @ 60-70% of the above perform 10 min block of:

8-12 x guillotine press
12-15 x band distracted barbell bicep curls

10 min block of:

8-12 x chest support dumbbell row 12-15 x laying barbell tricep extension

Then..

EMOM 10

-10-15 cal ski or row
- Max dumbbell high pulls in remainder of each minute

Then...

Perform your 1/2 your bodyweight (in kilograms) in dips in as few sets as possible, each rep to have a 5-6 second eccentric and explosive concentric: end a set when these constraints cannot be met and rest for 15-20 deep breaths.

The Ramp Up

3 rounds of-
5 x Triangle breathing 7:7:7:0 20 x Power breathing 1:0:1:0 1 x Full inhale
1 x Max hold
1 x Full exhale
1 x Max hold

I’ll repeat my words from last week, as they’ll be pertinent across this phase:
You may think that what your breath is or isn’t doing may is entirely redundant in the context of a ‘bodybuilding’ session, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Asides from the fact that a functional breathing pattern will help to maintain a balance of blood gases that will help you to keep going for longer, ultimately contributing to all the major factors necessary for hypertrophy, if not simply progressive overload alone; the breath also gives you a subtle but powerful ‘in road’ to connecting with your body, as well as somewhere concrete to lay your attention when things start to get a bit spicy, and your mind is liable to start spiralling out. So get familiar with that connection here. Dial in.

Inhale, focus on filling from the bottom up; use your nose an breathe deep into the bottom of your trunk and lower back, before working your way up into your chest and then your upper back.

Your rib cage should expand in all directions. For power breathing execute a quick but full and powerful inhale through your nose, then simply open your mouth wide and ‘dump’ the air out on the exhale. Get into a quick rhythm. After 20 reps perform 1 final full inhale through the nose, filling your trunk, and then hold. Pay attention to air hunger cues— little tremors, swallowing, fidgeting. Before they get too strong, perform a long exhale under control through your nose, completely emptying the tank, then hold until you feel strong air hunger. Return to triangle breathing and repeat for 3 rounds.

Complimentary Supersets

I’ll keep this far briefer than last week, but I truly appreciate you if you took the time to read it. Thank you.

This week we’re looking at ‘complimentary supersets’, as well as ‘density blocks’. In a similar vein to last week’s ‘antagonistic supersets’, complimentary supersets trade on the principle of reciprocal inhibition, as well as the common sense notion that alternating muscle groups allows for more optimal recovery, whilst still packing in the work. Complimentary supersets cranks this latter idea up a notch, by combining a large compound movement with an opposing, but mechanically easier movement, that causes far less central fatigue. This allows you to recover between bouts of your ‘big’ lift, whilst working in some far less taxing ‘accessory’ work. Or in bodybuilding parlance ‘a smaller muscle group’. Here we’re pairing chest and biceps, and back and triceps. But other options might be shoulders and biceps (large push, small pull), quads and abs, hamstrings and calves.

Work to a heavy 5 guillotine press, this is essentially a wide-grip bench press wherein you lower the bar to the top of your chest. This is more taxing on your shoulders, and if you have issues in this area, lower the bar to wherever is comfortable/ won’t aggravate any niggles, but what it does is allow for a huge stretch of the pec muscles. You’re at a mechanical disadvantage, so you won’t be able to go as heavy as a regular bench, but on the novelty<stimulus continuum, this one is still pretty good. Once you’ve found your 5rm, strip to a weight that you think you could perform around 15 reps with ( but no more than 20) and start your density block: simply working back and forth between 10-12 reps of guillotine press (avoiding failure in the initial few sets) and band distracted curls: For these, grab yourself an olympic bar, loop a thin-medium resistance band around the centre and anchor the band on a low point, take a few step back so that when you curl, the band stretches at around a 45 degree angle to the ground, this will create an additional line of resistance to gravity that will keep a degree of resistance on your biceps throughout the entire range of motion. This is good. Work back and forward resting according to your ‘athletic potential’ as Charles Staley, the originator of ‘density training’ once put it. Nowadays we’d call these an AMRAP, so work and rest skilfully in order to achieve as many reps as possible.

Rest as necessary and repeat the protocol with chest supported dumbbell rows (lay prone on a bench set a 45 degrees, row your dumbbells from hanging slightly in front of your shoulders in a smooth arc up towards your hips; squeeze hard at the top retracting your shoulder blades, lower slowly and allow your scapula to move freely at the bottom), and laying tricep extensions. You can use whatever tricep exercise you prefer it, just keep it single-joint and low-rent in terms of central fatigue.

The progression model we would employ here is very simple: repeat blocks verbatim across the weeks, once you increase your rep ‘score’ for any given movement by 20% from baseline, add 5-10% more load (or whatever’s practical) and establish a new baseline to beat.

The Conditioning

Very, very simple. Row or Ski (if you only have an air bike, go arms only and half the cals, this could be very fun, so even if you have a ski/row, maybe try this anyway...) aiming for a calorie target that you know will allow you stay around the 30 sec mark for the entire piece. Don’t sell yourself short though. As soon as you’re done, hop off, grab a light set of dumbbells and perform as many strict dumbbell high pulls as possible in the remainder. If you have to use a bit of body English later on in each set, don’t sweat it, but make sure you MUSCLE them up, get a good

squeeze at the top and slow down the eccentric as much as possible. These should burn, but they shouldn’t get you anymore gassed than the ski/row, make sense?