Strength and endurance – New kind of training regimen for three months

Hamstring injury still bothering

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the annoying hamstring injury. The situation hasn’t gotten much better, so quality mobility training has been impossible for the lower limbs. Because of this, I decided that I will devote the next few months to strength training because it doesn’t seem to provoke my hamstring problem much. Actually, it seems to do only good.

I got the idea for this when I came across ”Strength and endurance” online training organized by Athletica on social media. The coaching starts conviniently tomorrow. Things escalated quickly – and I applied to the course.

In this article, I go through a little bit about what my starting point and goals are. Let this two- or three-part series of articles also serve as an introduction to what kind of online coaching is this like. Please note that this is not paid advertising but my own honest opinion on the subject.

Bodyweight changes to barbell

In the past, my strength training has mainly consisted of bodyweight movements – of course with additional weight if necessary. With the upcoming training, I will jump ”out of my comfort zone” for a while and move to more traditional barbell exercises. This brings a nice variety, and in addition, I get valuable knowlodge about the periodization of strength and endurance training from professionals in the field – Tuomas Rytkönen and Mika Vuoriainen, whose experience in the subject is quite comprehensive. I believe that there will be decent results, if only I am able to live up to my expectations.

So what kind of training is it? The description of the course says:

”Strength and Endurance online training includes a three-month, precisely periodized and programmed training program based on background information, individually selected for each individual, as well as the support of a WhatsApp group maintained by Athletica’s exercise scientists and physical trainers during the training period.
 
The exercise programs combine the overall research evidence of combined strength and endurance training and Tuomas Rytkönen (LitM) and Mika Vuoriainen (LitM) 10 years of professional coaching experience in physical coaching that has produced systematically good results, from elite sports to goal-oriented fitness in both individual and team sports.

There are several different versions of the coaching training program, and the most suitable version for each is selected according to the goal emphasis, training background and training resources asked in the background information.”

The exercise program is therefore not completely individual, but selected according to my own goals. I wanted the training to be three times a week and the emphasis being on strength training. In practice, there are therefore three workouts per week: Strength training, endurance training and combination training.

Over the past year, my strength levels have decreased significantly, because the main focus in training has been on increasing mobility and flexibility. Very modest amounts of aerobic training especially during the past summer, because I have been in a hurry. With barbell, I haven’t really done any traditional movements in long time, except for the back squat. I haven’t done a set of bench press in probably ten years. So I’m a little nervous about what my starting level is for this coaching 😀

The training doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, but since the beginning of week is busy, I stole a day and did the initial tests for strength today. Below you can see my 1RM performance for those movements. It’s not pretty to look at 🙂

In the deadlift, I put 120 kg on the bar and it felt like – without a belt – it was quite enough. At least with my technique. Chinups are horrible to watch, but at this point the beauty of the performance is irrelevant. An additional weight of 37.5 kg was on the belt (total weight 103.6 kg). There was also nothing left to tell the children about the bench press: 80kg sharp. Of course, it is good to start making results from this.

I don’t dare to set very spesific goals at this point. The goals are primarily that I can finish the course with honor (because everyday life is busy now) and that I would increase the results in each area by at least a few percent.

Summation

I’m not giving up bodyweight training for anything – I really am not. Now I just feel that the time is right to try a little more traditional weight lifting and see what can be achieved in short three month time period with sensible programming.

The starting points aren’t too shabby, but on the other hand, what can you expect from this 66kg fishbone like myself.

Next week I will return to the topic with the Cooper’s test. I already have diarrhea because of it.