Which Training Plan is better?

[Luigi]

My goal right now is strength and muscle hypertrophy and I am doing only very very basic body conditioning exercises as I am in the military.

These are my max reps for the exercises:

20 push ups

8 pull ups

14 parallel bars dips

8 chin ups

80 crunches

40 flutter kicks

All are done slowly and in proper form.

So I have devised 2 program and I am wondering which would be better for my goal.

The first program:

3x10 push ups

3x4 pull ups

3x7 dips

3x4 chin ups

3x40 crunches

3x20 flutter kicks

This program would be worked 5 days a week with weekends off and spread over 5 weeks with the addition of 1 set every week ultimately cumulating to 7 sets at the last week. 1 min rest between each set.

The second program:

10x3 push ups

10x3 pull ups

10x3 dips

10x3 chin ups

10x20 crunches

10x10 flutter kicks

This program would be worked 5 days a week with weekends off and spread over 5 weeks, remaining the same through out. 1 min rest between each set.

Thanks a lot. Any inputs would be much appreciated.

[Guest Vinstorr]

The second one is better.

[George Launchbury]

Hi Luigi,

The first program wouldn't be too bad for (sarcoplasmic) hypertrophy where you would be building up volume of higher rep exercises. Be careful that you don't add volume too quickly (i.e. total reps/work) as you might increase your risk of overuse injury, etc.

Re: the second program - for strength you need to be doing 5x3 (for example) of an exercise difficult enough that you cannot manage any more. Therefore doing 10x3 pushups, when you can do 20 in one set already is going to have minimal impact. It should be more that you would elevate your feet, or use rings, etc, until you have found an exercise variation you will struggle to do for 5x3.

You might start off managing 3,3,2,2,1 and maybe use a target of 5x3 as an indication that you need to move to a slightly harder variant. Don't train to failure with strength work. Never start a rep you're not sure you can finish. When you hit a plateau, failing to improve for a couple of sessions - take a few sessions (a week?) off hard training, start a little behind where you were before you stopped, and start building up again.

I would also drop the crunches in favour of something a little more strength-based, such as ab-wheel rollouts or hanging leg lifts?

Regards,

George.

[Luigi]

Thanks a bunch Vinstorr and George.

George can you please elaborate on why hanging leg lifts are a strength based exercise while crunches are not when both train the core?

Thanks again.

[George Launchbury]

Of course.

Unless you are doing weighted crunches, they're way too easy to be a strength exercise. Also they isolate the abs, which is a quality rarely found in functional/athletic strength.

Regards,

George.

[Ari]

Crunches are just a bad idea. They increase mobility in the lumbar spine (you don't want this) and can even screw up your posture by conditioning your body to be in the crunch position, similarly to how our modern lifestyles condition us to be in the sat-at-desk position. If you have to do them, at least do reverse crunches.

If you really want to train your core, do gymnastics strength elements and heavy squats, deadlifts and the olympic lifts.