Thinking

Man, I am going to have to do a lot of thinking after these 9 weeks are over.

I have a lot of paths I could go down with my training. Here's what I know for sure:

1) I am going to keep a tighter eye on my diet, so that I can get bigger and stronger without getting fatter.

2) I am going to keep in some moderate cardio, and keep at least the "assistance exercise" portion of my workouts timed, so that I keep my heart rate up and keep my body fat down/ gpp up.

3) I need to push myself, hard, if I want to achieve the goals I have set for myself.

But aside from those things, I really could go a few ways with my training and diet. Most importantly, I need to decide what to do with my training: I've been thinking of a lot of things... For example, my "doubletime 5/3/1" idea. Also, this bench program I just found by eric spoto. Plus, my deadlift back work extravaganza, and my arms.... All those things. But what I am thinking tonight... my programming is getting awfully complicated. What if I just simplified, hard?

I'm thinking a very simple 4-day split. Max effort lower, upper, rep effort lower, upper. Essentially, monday I go heavy on squats. Doesn't matter if it's a 10, 3, 5, 2, 8, 1, whatever. Work up to a heavy set however I want. Really push myself, and really take advantage of good days to try and hit PR's. After that, simply do whatever assistance work I need to - basically hammer my quads, posterior chain, and back. Upper body, same deal. Heavy bench, whatever that means, REALLY push myself, even to failure. Then, assistance work to hammer my upper body - rowing, strict pressing, arms, pullups, pushups, whatever. Then, Thursday will be rep work, plain and simple. Submaximal weights for lots of reps, don't push to failure. Use it to build tons of muscle and perfect speed and form. Then again, hammer the assistance exercises - quads and backside. And again, same deal on upper body day. Hammer reps on my bench, then as much of whatever assistance work as I need.

Wednesday and Saturday I will just do some light cardio, plus whatever stretching/ lifting I want.

I think this could work great. It lets me go by feel a little more, which is dangerous but also potentially the best way to get bigger and stronger without overtraining, under-reaching, etc. And it's not complicated! I don;t need to plan cycles, know EXACTLY when I am doing whatever, blah blah blah. As long as I am committed to going into the gym and working hard 99% of the time, I will get better! I will hammer heavy work and rep work (aka how you get stronger lol), and can go by feel! If I am having an awesome monday - boom, work up to a new PR squat! If I feel great one week... go ahead and train hard 6 days. Or, if I feel beat up I will go higher reps on monday and light ass weight on thursday for speed work, and that week will be a sort of deload. Could be really great.

Anyways, I am faced with some tough decisions. What do I choose? If I decide to go this new route, do I start right away, or finish out these 9 weeks and then start? I don't know. A HUGE part of me just wants to start anew tomorrow. Maybe I will. Lets keep at it.