It is a new week and new blog and I have looked to mix up my traditional straight sets weightlifting program for a while.
The yesterday I was over at bodybuilding.com and came across two very interesting articles by Jim Stoppani in the workout section. He had made two posts about giant sets and “the Hundreds” routine.
I have previously done some crossfit and “the hundreds routine” is similar to crossfit. So I decided that for the next four days I will go along with this crazy 1000 reps(repetitions) a day concept.
The benefit of hundreds training is that by doing a (ridiculously) long set you recruit the two major types of muscle fibers. At the beginning of the set you will be working the slow-twitching fibers thoroughly before the fast-twitching fibers are taking over somewhere halfway through the set. In many ways this work out should help my muscles develop and grow.
I will be following Stoppani’s set up in terms of four days work out, going heavy, light, light, heavy, but I will prioritize working my back, which makes it sort of like a giant set.
So today’s set up looked like this:
100 reps of:
- Bench Press
- Deadlift
- Latpulldown
- Squats
- Dumbbell shoulder press
- Barbell shrugs
- Cable overhead triceps press
- Biceps Curl
- Seated Row (I know I know, it should have been placed earlier en the program)
- Lateral sidelifts.
The work out started out fine with the bench press, as a woman I normally hit the bench press a bit more than I should so lifting at 50% of my 10rep max did tire me out but judging the other exercises I should have felt the burn much earlier on.
What the hundres are good for, is to point out your weak points, and I experienced this during the deadlifts. My lower back was burning (not hurting) after 45 reps. To put it this way: I really needed the lateral pulldown after finishing a hundred deadlifts.
Putting a 100 squats and a 100 deadlifts in the same program at the same day was probably a bad idea,. I managed to do a 100 squats, but towards the end I was afraid my form was slipping as I got pain in my knee. The pain did go away once I put the bar away and got a brief rest though.
The rest of the exercises went by alright, the deadlifts and the squats were definitely the hardest. And I am also glad I put seated cable row that late in my program because it gave my lower back time to rest.
As of now I am fairly positive that I can make it through three more days of a 1000 reps a day. and I look forward to tomorrows work out, I will complete it one lift at a time.
If you want to check out Stoppani’s “the hundreds routine” you can -click here- and if you want to review his giant sets program -click- here-.
