Monday, March 2, 2009

Barbell Only Workout!

There is something to be said about the elegance of simplicity, and the most bare bone basic pieces of equipment someone should have for their home gym is a 300lb. olympic barbell set. From various deadlifts and pulls from the floor, to bent over rowing, to overhead pressing, to heavy cheat curls, super high rep front and back squats (after cleaning the weight), lunges, etc, etc the possibilities are endless!

Add in some bodyweight movements and you have yourself a complete strength and conditioning program right there in your basement or garage! Here's a real simple bare bones barbell only workout - you don't need fancy equipment or the best of the best to get results!

warm up:
you want your warm up to act not only as a means to injury prevention and priming your nervous system, but as a way to slowly drive up your GPP.

for this particular workout, we are going to use a barbell complex (moving from one movement to the next w/out putting the bar down).

1. deadlift x 6
2. romanian deadlift x 6
3. barbell row x 6
4. muscle snatch x 6
5. overhead press x 6
6. back squat x 6
7. reverse lunge x 6
8. goodmorning x 6

using just an empty bar, go through this complex for 2-3 sets

now on to the main session...

a) clean and press/push press 3x5. Using a fairly heavy weight, you do a clean (from the hang) and a press or push press on every rep. 3 sets of 5 reps would be good here, but dont be afraid to hit up some higher rep sets for extra conditioning!

you would next do an upperbody push and pull superset, where we would do our pushing movement first and then immediately go to your pulling movement. Only after the superset has been completed, would you rest for 45-90 seconds and then repeat the process.

b1) Push Up Variation 3xmax reps. There are tons of push up variations, so pick one thats difficult!. For advanced trainees, the handstand push up would be an excellenet choice!

b2) Bent Over Barbell Row 3x8-12. Go hard and heavy on these bad boys!

c) Snatch Grip Deadlifts 5x5 w/30-45 seconds rest. After a few warm up sets to get up to your working weight, these would be done by themselves with emphasis on perfect form, but using very short rest periods to get tremendous power endurance effect.

lastly, you would conclude the session with a finisher of a super high rep bodyweight leg matrix and high rep barbell shrugs to kick up our lactic acid through the roof!

d1) The Leg Matrix x 2 sets
1. squats x 24
2. lunges x 24
3. split squat jumps x 24
4. squat jumps x 24

d2) barbell shrugs 2x15-25

And there you have it! This is just one workout of many variations you could do,
but hopefully this gave you some insight into how simple your workouts can be to get results!

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