Well, I am three workouts into the Maximum Strength program and I can honestly say it’s absolutely kicking my ass. The first exercise of each day is the main strength exercise of the day and they have been as follows:
Workout 1: 5 sets of 4 box squats at 345 lbs. Workout 2: 5 sets of 4 bench presses at 225 lbs. (drop to 215 for last two sets) Workout 3: 4 sets of 6 front squats at 225 lbs.
That’s probably heavier than I’ve ever lifted for a stretch. It’s very different when you are timing your rest periods, because then you really need to drop weight from set to set. With this program you need to rest long enough to be able to lift the same amount from set to set and it has a very different feel to it. My rest times have probably been between four and five minutes. That’s a lot longer than the one to two minutes I am used to, but I seem to really be feeling these workouts more. I suppose I’ll get more used to that as I go along.
I also think I really understand now when I hear all of the top trainers saying that they never design their own workout programs. I think following this program has really given me an understanding of a different way to train that I couldn’t have gotten by myself. I don’t think I would have had the ability to write a program for myself that would have pushed me this hard. Last week I read an excellent blog post by Tom Venuto that you can read here. He wrote initially about Oprah and her weight troubles, but he brought it around to how if you make yourself accountable to other people than you can really push yourself harder. When you do a program written for you you do feel a certain accountability to whoever wrote the program.
Anyway, that’s about all I have to say right now. I’ll hit the gym again tomorrow and keep going from there. I leave you with our buddy Rezazadeh front squatting 617 lbs. Dude is a little strong.
Mitch Rothbardt www.mitchrothbardttraining.com (coming soon)
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