There are multitudes of ways to approach strength training. Those who believe in a high degree of adaptive specificity will tend to organize their workouts into specific training blocks. Each block would last three to four weeks and would focus on just one type of training that the body would be required to adapt to. For example, you would start with a training block that focuses on conditioning by emphasizing higher reps in the 10 to 12 rep range for each exercise. Hypertrophy would be the emphasis of the next block by focusing on the 6 to 8 rep range for three weeks. Strength and power would be the emphasis of the third block by focusing on the 3 to 5 rep range for three weeks. A complete contrast to this would be integrated workouts.
Integrated Workouts
Integrated workouts consist of several types of training within the same workout. For example, after doing a few easy warm up sets that are 30% or less of your single rep max, you could start your workout by emphasizing explosive rep speed for a few sets as follows:
Set 1: Do 5 reps @ 50% of your single rep max.
Set 2: Do 4 reps @ 55%
Set 3: Do 3 reps @ 60%
The next three sets would consist of working your way up to heavier weights with single reps until you reach about 85% of your single rep max to emphasize strength. An example of this is shown below:
Set 4: Do 1 rep @ 70% of your single rep max
Set 5: Do 1 rep @ 80% of your single rep max
Set 6: Do 1 rep @ 85% of your single rep max
After completing the explosive rep speed and heavy singles portion of the workout, you can do a heavy set of five reps to emphasize intensity.
Set 7: Do 5 reps @ 80% of your single rep max
The workout would end with some back off sets by decreasing the weight and doing 4 sets of 6 reps for sets 8 – 11 (shown below). The purpose of the last four sets would be to add sufficient volume to the workout.
Set 8: Do 6 reps @ 70%
Set 9: Do 6 reps @ 70%
Set 10: Do 6 reps @ 70%
Set 11: Do 6 reps @ 70%
If you follow the workout carefully, you can see that it is divided into four parts and contains four training qualities including:
- Explosive rep speed work
- Heavy lifting for strength development
- Intensity training for strength and hypertrophy
- Volume training to emphasize hypertrophy
Integrated workouts can be used according to your preference. You could use the integrated routine listed in this article for squats and bench presses once per week. When doing a second workout each week, you can shift the emphasis to just one training quality whether it be speed, strength, intensity, or volume. By using integrated workouts on a regular basis, you never ignore a specific training quality long enough to lose the positive adaptations that it produces. Many bodybuilders use integrated workouts on a regular basis to develop tremendous size and strength.
The book, Strength To The Max And Beyond is based on integrated workouts, however, the workouts are varied in order to rotate the emphasize from one training quality to another from workout to workout. If you are interested in this type of training, you may find the book helpful. Best of training to you.
