4 Volume Accumulation Block - Follow Along!

[ckcrown84]

Follow Along! Here I am outlining the first 4 weeks of an 15 week program. You are welcome to follow along, post your workouts, and grow you bench press! I will 100% comment on any valid videos posted.

Below I will explain how the program works and what the upper movements are I am emphasizing.

6/15 Begins week 1 of a 15 week competition block. 4 of these weeks are going to be spent doing a volume accumulation block before drastically reducing volume in favor of more competition specific lifting (much heavier loads)

Note that the beginning of these pictured workouts is showing volumes in week 1. Typically the way I program is that as the 4 week mesocycle continues your volume will increase! This builds total volume and work capacity through the training block, which allows you to get more out of your workouts and recover better, while soundly applying the principle of overload and ensuring that you are progressively overloading your training.

So, what does this 4 week block look like?

Monday.PNG

[Picture 1] Monday


Strict Overhead Press. The goal here is pure strength, but we want to keep volume low and not lift so heavy we get beatup. For me an easy starting point is 165x5x3 and I will just add +5lbs a week until I start to feel banged up OR I get to be around week 10 of prep then this whole day will be eliminated to aid recovery and minimize fatigue.
Here is a video example of how these would look : https://youtu.be/8HbPPRkCoVE

Fyles, the goal here is to get some blood flow into the pecs and get a really nice pump. Think pump work, this will aid recovery from Saturdays workout.

Side Raises, just grow them shoulders bit by bit

Shrugs, self explanatory.

Wednesday.PNG

[Picture 2] Wednesday


Main Movement 6x6 with the Swiss Bar [these can be done with a straight bar].
These are done as powerful explosive reps with very little time between sets. Once warmed up 6x6 should be completed within 10 minutes. Period. Fast, and explosive. The goal here is muscular endurance and to illicit a hypertrophy response while simultaneously working an explosive component. These are more fatiguing than you may expect.

Below is a video of how a set of my 6x6 look:
https://youtu.be/laa3cLYVJKQ


Dips are a great strength developer, provided recovery isn't an issue I will start these off in the high rep range and as I get closer to competition these will look more like 2x5 with heavy loads. I need to buy a deep belt. Oddly the gym does not have one.

Saturday.PNG

[Picture 3] Saturday


Saturday you will notice that a lot of workouts are NA on this day. This just means they will be used later, but not right now.

Heavy 90% bench, this is my poor phrasing for "7/10 RPE" or "A bench that is heavy but smooth as butter." This will be performed every other week, so twice in this mesocycle. These should NOT be grinders, but used to keep you acclimated to heavy loads and keep us with a good understanding of where our relative strength is (relative in the sense that we are carrying a lot of extra fatigue in this block)
Video example here: https://youtu.be/zPui3wdiV9k

Competition Bench: This is done around 80% your max, I am prioritizing volume here so notice we are increasing sets every week keeping the load the same. The last week before dealod IF we are feeling great maybe go up 5lbs.

Close grip floor press: This is our hypertrophy movement on heavy day, it has the added benefit of working the same area most people fail their bench. Make sure you aren't bouncing your elbows off the floor when performing these. Keep them strict to keep them effective.

This is pretty fatiguing so after floor press you can do some light back and a little biceps but I would shut it down. Monday comes fast.

Follow along, post up! Hit me with any questions.

[ckcrown84]

Bump, who wants to participate in this !