Laree had earlier asked for some workout routines from the twice-a-week/once-a-week people. Well, I'm one of those people, at least part of the time. Other times my training is completely different in frequency, sets, exercise selection, etc.

I'll do this 'once-a-week' training cycle, 2 or 3 times throughout the training year for a maximum of 6 weeks at a time. It's a good change of intensity, frequency and volume. I use a limited selection of some basic, compound exercises.

The focus of this routine is intensity, muscle failure, strict form, a slow controlled eccentric movement, an abbreviated workout and adequate rest. Intensity and form are learned experiences and at the end of the 6 weeks I'm more reacquainted with both.

This routine isn't necessarily something that I would follow on a continuous basis, but I've found it to be a beneficial change both physically and mentally.

Here's my 'once-a-week' routine:

I personally choose to do no cardio warmup beforehand, no matter what weight training routine I'm following. I do 2 submaximal warmup sets before each lift at half of the total workset rep count. Then it's one workset for each exercise to concentric and static muscle failure, in other words even though the weight stops moving, I keep pushing until it slowly starts coming back down. Reaching static failure can seem like an eternity!

I rest long enough so that I can give each exercise my all out effort. For rep speed I use approximately a 2/6 tempo, 2 seconds concentric (lifting), 6 seconds eccentric (lowering). I try to maintain constant muscle tension with no pauses or lockouts during the rep movement. This isn't easy and you may find that you're working with less weight than those around you for the same exercise. Exercise your body, not your ego!

Squat (Spotters used) 1 x 12
Stiff Leg DeadLift 1 x 12
Weighted Dip 1 x 8
Weighted Chin 1 x 8
Weighted Crunch 1 x 12

I finish with 10 minutes of cardio to maintain cardiovascular health. The cardio I do is a little different than the standard lower intensity, longer duration 'fat burn zone' cardio or interval training.

3 minute warmup
3 full continuous minutes @ 85% max HR
4 minute cooldown

I'm done, I leave and forget about it until next week's workout.

Charles

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