We are at the end of the second ADVANCED block week. Again, we sum up what we have learned during the last week:
Day 57: Advanced technique #2
Day 58: Exercise and fuild intake
Day 59: Sports nutrition and supplements. Do you need them?
Day 60: The immune system
Day 61: Alcohol and its harm
Day 62: Muscle cramps
Day 63: Competition as a reason to keep going
A new week means a new techinque but before that:
Advanced techniques: a way to make exercises harder and bring diversity into the programme. Those who feel that standard technique is enough may go on as usual.
We have come to a conclusion that the ADVANCED block should be more diverse and it has to be diverse with a purpose to alleviate your mental tiredness and monotony of our circuits and, at the same time, to improve the final results for all participants.
To achieve this we will expand our new much-lauded feature of introducing new techniques from one day (as in the previous edition) to seven.
Before we start and get down the fourth week technique we want to share some valuable knowledge again:
(1) the ADVANCED block circuits remain the same: pull-ups, push-ups, squats and lunges. But you do the exercises applying new techniques except for lunges. You can do them as you wish, with the old or new technique. Then you rest for 30-60 seconds and do another round.
(2) We cannot advise you on the number of repetitions. You have to be able to assess your strength on your own but we will tell you how hard the new technique is in comparison to the traditional one.
(3) If you fail to perform the necessary repetitions during any exercise then your circuits are done for a day. After that perform the following static holds at the point of maximum tension:
- for pull-ups do a flexed hang (at the top);
- for push-ups hold position in the middle of the movement;
- for squats hold your thighs parallel to the ground;
- for lunges hold at the lowest point but do not touch the ground.
This capping is introduced to let you recover in 24 hours, to let you go on with training every day. If you miscalculated your reps this capping will protect you from overtraining. At least we hope so.
(4) If, at any moment, you start thinking that a new technique is too tiring, you can always fall back to the old style. You can also switch old and new techniques throughout the week. There is room for improvisation, since we do not have enough statistics for the ADVANCED block to set our recommendations in stone.
For this week we suggest: unstable repetitions.
The idea behind this technique is to involve more minor stabilising muscles into work and create more load for core and abs at the moments where you need to keep your balance. It is easier to show on the video than in words. There is a video for push-ups:
The same principle applies to pull-ups, squats and lunges:
