Beginner's (noob) questions thread 2

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Right now I am doing nothing except BJJ and Muay Thai. So I am trying to implement something to help me. Really the thing that I cant seem to understand is if I should be working on my strength along with my conditioning. The plan I was thinking of doing is training 3 days a week, running 2 days a week, lifting 1 day a week, and rest 1 day.
 
What are your goals? Plan on competing in BJJ or Muay Thai or just doing them for fitness, enjoyment, etc? If your planning on competing or ultimately fighting at an amateur or professional level, I would suggest training more than 3 days per week with BJJ and Muay Thai. If not, then I would look at lifting 2-3 days a week and training 3 days a week. You can mix running in on any of those other days.
 
I do plan on competing in MMA and BJJ. Right now I can only make it to the MMA gym 3 days a week. I feel like 3 is a lot at this point and I am trying to increase on my strength and conditioning right now.
 
Lazar28 said:
I do plan on competing in MMA and BJJ. Right now I can only make it to the MMA gym 3 days a week. I feel like 3 is a lot at this point and I am trying to increase on my strength and conditioning right now.
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Learned that the best way to increase conditioning for BJJ or Muay Thai is to do more rolling, pad work, and sparring. If you can only get there those times, then fill the other time with lifting and running to improve overall fitness. Any friends from your gym that you could train with outside of class?
 
I've been doing Practical Programming Novice Program for about 6 weeks. I stalled on my squat for the 2nd time yesterday. I was making 5lb increases per workout, stalled 2 weeks ago at 275lbs (1st set only 4 reps). Dropped to 250, worked back up and stalled again on 280lb (2nd set, only 3 reps). Should I bother dropping again, or switch to something more advanced?

I'm 155lbs, so I'm proud of my numbers, but was hoping to milk my n00b gains for longer.

All my other lifts have gone up steadily (OHP and bench are still 5 lbs, deadlift is 10lb).

I'll put up a form check once it's done loading to youtube.
 
Denoginizer said:
I've been doing Practical Programming Novice Program for about 6 weeks. I stalled on my squat for the 2nd time yesterday. I was making 5lb increases per workout, stalled 2 weeks ago at 275lbs (1st set only 4 reps). Dropped to 250, worked back up and stalled again on 280lb (2nd set, only 3 reps). Should I bother dropping again, or switch to something more advanced?

I'm 155lbs, so I'm proud of my numbers, but was hoping to milk my n00b gains for longer.

All my other lifts have gone up steadily (OHP and bench are still 5 lbs, deadlift is 10lb).

I'll put up a form check once it's done loading to youtube.
Click to expand...

Eat more. Take longer rests between sets. You started too heavy if you're stalling already after just 6 weeks, you're supposed to start light.
 
Denoginizer said:
I've been doing Practical Programming Novice Program for about 6 weeks. I stalled on my squat for the 2nd time yesterday. I was making 5lb increases per workout, stalled 2 weeks ago at 275lbs (1st set only 4 reps). Dropped to 250, worked back up and stalled again on 280lb (2nd set, only 3 reps). Should I bother dropping again, or switch to something more advanced?

I'm 155lbs, so I'm proud of my numbers, but was hoping to milk my n00b gains for longer.

All my other lifts have gone up steadily (OHP and bench are still 5 lbs, deadlift is 10lb).

I'll put up a form check once it's done loading to youtube.
Click to expand...

How many times did you fail 275 before you dropped back to 250? You should attempt the weight at least 3 times (i.e. 3 different lifting sessions) before you deload.

How long do you rest between sets? If your rest periods are short you will benefit from taking more time but if you are already resting 5-6 minutes another few minutes probably won't help.
 
Thanks for the quick answers guys.

I'm resting 4-5 minutes between sets. Sometimes I'll warm up the next exercise (only with the bar though). I'll try 280 again tomorrow, but what if I fail before the 3rd set? Should I pick a lower weight just to get 3 sets in?

Here's a form check from last week. Only the last 2 reps are really visible, I had to ask a random guy in the gym to film it (was pretty awkward):

I saw immediately that my arch was gone, so I really focused on the arch over the last 3 sessions. Also, I butt-wink a little bit. I've been trying to stretch for that. (also, first embed ftw!)
 
Denoginizer said:
Thanks for the quick answers guys.

I'm resting 4-5 minutes between sets. Sometimes I'll warm up the next exercise (only with the bar though). I'll try 280 again tomorrow, but what if I fail before the 3rd set? Should I pick a lower weight just to get 3 sets in?

Here's a form check from last week. Only the last 2 reps are really visible, I had to ask a random guy in the gym to film it (was pretty awkward):

I saw immediately that my arch was gone, so I really focused on the arch over the last 3 sessions. Also, I butt-wink a little bit. I've been trying to stretch for that. (also, first embed ftw!)
Click to expand...


Can you clarify what you mean about warming up?

That looked that low bar cues with high bar position. Looked like you came off of your heels on at least a couple reps. With the bar higher, you need an upright torso, the forward lean is compounded by have the weight over your toes-ish rather than over the heels/mid foot.
 
Aleks Sytsevich said:
Can you clarify what you mean about warming up?

That looked that low bar cues with high bar position. Looked like you came off of your heels on at least a couple reps. With the bar higher, you need an upright torso, the forward lean is compounded by have the weight over your toes-ish rather than over the heels/mid foot.
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By warming up I just mean my warm-up sets. So if I have bench after squats, in between my squat sets I'll do 5 warm-up reps bench-pressing with just the bar.

Yeah, sometimes I feel myself come up on my toes. That's caused by too much forward lean? I find if I stay too upright, my knees go really far forward, like past my toes.
 
Denoginizer said:
By warming up I just mean my warm-up sets. So if I have bench after squats, in between my squat sets I'll do 5 warm-up reps bench-pressing with just the bar.
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I would recomend doing more warming up, 40, 60 and 80% of your work sets.

Yeah, sometimes I feel myself come up on my toes. That's caused by too much forward lean? I find if I stay too upright, my knees go really far forward, like past my toes.
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That's what a high bar squat normally looks like, knees (while still tracking properly) will go past your toes, upright torso, breaking at knees and hips in relative unison. Your heels still need to be on the floor.
 
Aleks Sytsevich said:
I would recomend doing more warming up, 40, 60 and 80% of your work sets.



That's what a high bar squat normally looks like, knees (while still tracking properly) will go past your toes, upright torso, breaking at knees and hips in relative unison. Your heels still need to be on the floor.
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Oh for sure. I just meant that I only do the bar when it's during rest for another exercise. My squat warm-up is typically:
45x2x5
135x1x4
225x1x3

Okay, I'll focus on that tomorrow, keeping upright with a good arch. Thanks!
 
Right now my training only consist of bench,squat,deadlift and pull-up but im wondering if it would be better to do bench and deadlift one day and the other day squat and pull-up or bench and squat and the other day deadlift and pull-up?
 
ShidokanJudo said:
Right now my training only consist of bench,squat,deadlift and pull-up but im wondering if it would be better to do bench and deadlift one day and the other day squat and pull-up or bench and squat and the other day deadlift and pull-up?
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it would be best to follow an actual program. Are you just doing a "bunch of stuff" with the above movements?
 
What would you consider as active recovery duration for a light run?

I squat heavy(for me) once a week and I have the option of doing a 30 minutes LISS session before or after that day. Concerns for before are: won't be able to squat optimally, for after: won't recover properly.

I know that if I keep at it, my work capacity will increase and either choice will be ok. But since I have shit cardio, anything above a ten minute jog will make me slightly tired.

Of course, the correct answer is to just ease in the LISS so that it doesn't interfere with my squats either way, but I just wanted your opinion on active recovery.
 
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Ok so right now I am about to start a heavy endurance phase but I want to maintain strength how do I go about doing that? I was think running 3 days a week while lifting 1 day a week bench, deadlift, and squat in addition to my mma training. How is that?
 
Lazar28 said:
Ok so right now I am about to start a heavy endurance phase but I want to maintain strength how do I go about doing that? I was think running 3 days a week while lifting 1 day a week bench, deadlift, and squat in addition to my mma training. How is that?
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I worked a 2-day 5/3/1 around my 5K training. I actually gained strength during this time. I ran a BBB template. Look into the 5/3/1 2 day split. But someone else could chime in here if they disagree...
 
I feel like 2 days may be too much especially 5/3/1 when I am simply trying to maintain while increasing my aerobic endurance.
 
Actually never mind I didn't really understand the 5/3/1. That actually seems like a good idea to supplement my running. Thanks dude.
 
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