We’ve mentioned in class the last week that we will rotating into a different block of squat work. Going forward for the next 12 weeks we will be focusing predominately on Single Leg work on Monday’s. Something we have certainly made a part of our Monday programming in the past but not the dominant force. With this block we’ll be looking one to strengthen up your legs in a uni-lateral fashion which will hopefully help work out some in-balances, but also this will give your body a break by stepping back from the heavy loading, at least in terms of squatting for a little bit.

Through this block you will have 3 strength oriented pieces on Monday that will look like this….

1 – Base:

This is our large mover and building block movement for the 12 weeks. We are still looking for you guys to load heavy for the movement we are doing. This movement and rep scheme will not change for the 12 week cycle. The rep scheme will be 5 sets of 4. We will be doing a linear periodization for this movement, the first day will basically look to build to an 80-90% effort and then each week we will build on this until failure. So your first weeks sets might look like this…

Week 1 – 135, 145, 155, 165, 175

From there each week we will be doing either a 2.5lb increase (if your sets average under 100lbs), and a 5lb increase (if your sets average over 100lbs). So week 2, 3, 4, and so on would look like this.

Week 2 – 140, 150, 160, 170, 180

Week 3 – 145, 155, 165, 175, 185

Week 4 – 150, 160, 170, 180, 190, and so on.

Over 12 weeks, 11 weights jumps, this will give some substantial room to tack on some weight. Given we’ve never done a linear periodization with single leg work, and this will be “new” to everyone, I think it will work well. If you’re not able to progress for the entire 12 weeks, you might then start working to bring up your lower set weights instead of the top end. After say 8 weeks, and the above example, the individual would be at.

Week 8 – 170, 180, 190, 200, 210

For week 9 if the individual truly feel like they’re tapped out, and can’t push any higher than the goal would be to work to bring the bottom sets up. So for this individual the last 4 weeks might look like this.

Week 9 – 175, 180, 190, 200, 210

Week 10 – 180, 185, 190, 200, 210

Week 11 – 180, 185, 195, 200, 210

Week 12 – 185, 190, 195, 200, 210

There are obviously a few different ways to approach this if you max out and aren’t comfortable going heavier before the 12 weeks is done, but that would be one manner where you would keep your top end the same and start bringing up the bottom sets.

2 – Builder:

This is meant to be a complement movement to the base. The Base will be worked in a 12 week cycle. The Builder will be a 4 week cycle, honing in on a movement for 4 weeks, looking to get more comfortable and stronger with it. So we will go through 3 different builder movements over the course of the 12 weeks. All of these will paired with some sort of tempo. Instead of reading tempo in the traditional strength training methodology, which confuses many, or tempos will be read as such…

Initiation – Transition – Return

These are the 3 phases of any movement that isn’t being thrown. There is an initiation phase, a transition where the movement changes direction, and a return to the start position. For our first “Builder” movement for instance we will be using a tempo of 3-0-1. This would mean 3 seconds Down/Intiation, no pause at the Transition, and a 1 second Return back to the top of the movement. 

3 – Accessory

Lastly we will have an Accessory movement to round out the strength session. This will rotate weekly and we will hit 12 different accessory movements over the course of the 12 weeks.

We hope this provides you with something a little new and different, and we also believe that you will get a lot out of focusing on a large amount of uni-lateraly work over the course of the next 12 weeks. While you won’t have any heavy squatting going on the next 12 weeks, you very may well find yourself coming back significantly stronger with your bi-lateral squat movements.

– Jade + Dani