ULTRA HIGH REP TRAINING

[John Strangeway]

Great article! Gave me horrible flashbacks of post surgery though.

I used Jon Hereth as my PT since he’s into strength training and we had trained for strongman (this was pre-highland games). After my 4th surgery he made me a high rep routine as lifting heavy was dodgy. 50 reps of everything, so single leg work was 100 reps. I hate cardio and always joked anything over 5 reps was cardio, so that was torture!

The protocol was basically use a weight for as many sets as it took to get 50 total reps. When I got 50 without stopping I could add weight and start again.

One of the exercises was kettlebell suitcase carries for 5 minutes. I loved farmers carry , it was my best event due to my grip, so I actually liked these. I worked up to a 60lb kettlebell walk for 5 minutes.

Push-ups I sucked at, I could never break 30 non stop, so was always 30,20.

Walking lunges were the worst!

I will say there are benefits to high rep work, it tests your mental strength for sure!

I am not brave enough to do it again! It was an experience but I don’t see myself doing reps above 10 for a long time lol

[John Strangeway]

These are the progressions I came up with to program my workouts.

The one on the left is 20 workouts to go from 5×10 reps to 1×50. If I couldn’t hit the desired reps in the set I just repeated it next workout.

The one on the right is for the carries, going from 5 sets of one minute to 1 set of 5 minutes.

Progression

[Thom Van Vleck]

Walking lunges! When I first started weight training my uncle gave me a workout that included those. I was all gung ho so I would do everything 100%. I did three sets of walking lunges with dumbbells across the gym and back. I remember when I got done my inner thigh started pulling. Then the next thing you know I’m on the floor trying to stretch out one leg then the other as I went back and forth. The next day getting up from a sitting position was a killer.

As for the 1×50 I like Jon but that sounds torturous. My Uncle put me on a leg press workout. He said that 100 reps on the leg press equaled 20 reps on the squat. He only allowed leg presses when I was in a heavy back cycle as doing heavy pulls and squats put too much on the back. He would allow the leg presses for 4 weeks and then back to squats. Each week you added 50lbs and you had to do them non stop. Torture!

Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-Rounder

[John Strangeway]

1 x 50 was terrible, aint gonna lie.
That’s a good idea about the heavy squats and pulls. I’m 40 now and I’m starting to see why advanced lifters say you shouldn’t DL every week.

[KCSTRONGMAN]

When I was in college, I did a routine where I did a week of 5×15 on every exercise. Not sure if it did me any good, as I was 19 and just about anything would have worked, but I was swole up like a tick after those sessions. Good articles Thom. I also agree with your stretching on. I just never seem to keep my stretching routine consitant, though.

I'm the lyrical Jesse James

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