Sample upper and lower body strength routines

In my last post, I provided an overview of my current training split and gave you a brief, but intense sample routine to improve your conditioning. Below are examples of workouts I use on my upper and lower body days. Again, those are separate days right now, per my training split:

Saturday - conditioning
Sunday - strength / power, upper body
Monday - rest / active recovery
Tuesday - strength / power, lower body
Wednesday - conditioning
Thursday - strength / power, upper body
Friday - rest / active recovery

While conditioning days are really focused on getting the heart rate up, I'm not exactly lallygagging on strength / power days. Each pair of exercises is performed as a superset (one exercise immediate after the other, with no rest between) and then I rest approximately 30 seconds between supersets. For now, let's focus on two options for how you group your supersets (there are more, but we'll get into that down the road).

• Option 1 - pick two "opposing" movements, such us upper body pushing (for instance, overhead press or chest press) and upper body pulling (such us pullupus or rows). If you choose this option, it's best to pair exercises that are working in the same plane. So, you would pair overhead presses with pullups and chest presses with rows.
• Option 2 - use your second exercise in each superset is really meant as an "active recovery" which, in this case, means I'm using different muscles than the primary ones being trained in the first exercise. For me, that usually means some ab or posterior chain work - gotta do it anyway, might as well get it done efficiently!

Typically, I go with Option 1 on upper body days and Option 2 on lower body days. OK, on to the samples...

Upper body sample routine:

3 rounds...
1A) 1-arm db press x 4-8 reps
1B) pullup x max reps

rest 60 seconds after completing all three rounds

3 rounds...
2A) db floor press x 6-8 reps
2B) bent over db row x 6-8 reps

rest 60 seconds after completing all three rounds

2 rounds...
3A) cheat curl x 4-8 reps
3B) db shrug x 8-12 reps

2 rounds...
4) 60-second banana (just hold the banana position for 60 seconds, don't do the rocking)


Lower body sample routine

3 rounds...
1A) sandbag Zercher squat (you can also use a barbell, log, keg, whatever) x 8-12 reps
1B) hanging knee raises x max reps (make sure to get that butt up!)

rest 60 seconds

3 rounds...
2A) deadlifts (use a dumbbell, barbell, sandbag, your kid, whatever) x 4-8 reps
2B) kneeling cable crunches x 10-15 reps

rest 60 seconds

2-3 rounds...
3A) some type of hip mobility movement x 10-12 reps
3B) db swings x 10-12 reps

In what should now come as no surprise, you should get through these routines (including warm up!) in 30 minutes or so.

No excuses,

Jesse