Training without Training

In strength training routines it's fairly common to do a program specifically tailored to improving one lift or one area of training. Often theses routines call for high intenstiy or a high volume of specific work on a certain area and often they are pretty effective at boosting personal bests.

The problem is that sometimes after you finish a high intensity deadlift routine or a high volume squat routine you enter a period where even looking at those exercises is enough to make you want ot leave the gym and because of that you may start to slide backwards!

One solution to this problem of temporary mental burnout is to avoid the exercise in question and focus on a variety of related exercises so that you can maintain your newfound strength or fitness gains but also maintain your enthusiasm for training.

As a quick example if you've just done a heavy deadlift routine and set a new personal best take 2- 4 weeks and focus on the following exercises

Partial deadlift pulls from above the knee
Power cleans or power snatches
Clean pulls with 50 - 70% of your best deadlift.
Good mornings
Kettlebell Swings

If you include a couple of those exercises in place of Deadlifts you may even find that you work on weak points in the deadlift and when you return to full deadlifts that your numbers jump up again!

Here is a short video from my training of some partial deadlifts.






Remember if you are interested in Olympic lifting or serious strength training, we are running a workshop on the 30th of November at Olympic park in Sydney!