Strength Lab: Enter the Matrix

I am not a personal trainer (certified or otherwise) and I have no professional fitness training. Consult a doctor before engaging in an exercise program and follow my actions at your own risk.

I had a chance to think about Strength Training lately.  I haven’t had a chance to do it, but for the purposes of this post (and not beyond that), it’s the thought that counts.  With my fitness ADD, I’d like to try something new; no problem... people post workout routines every day, I’m sure I could find something cool; in fact I do every day, sometimes I pin them to my Pinterest Board.
I would, however, like to exercise my own creativity and knowledge and try to make something original that suits me, my needs and goals.

Here are some important considerations:


Doing functional movements tends to mean exercises that recruit multiple muscle groups at the same time rather than complete isolation.  A push-up works your chest, but also your shoulders and triceps.  So do most exercises that resemble a “Pushing” motion, and following that logic, I could divide my exercises by muscle groups as:

  1. Chest - a.k.a Push, includes shoulders and triceps
  2. Back - a.k.a Pull, includes biceps and trapezius
  3. Legs

I figure these would cover 95% of the exercises I would like to do.  In terms of goals/benefits to be achieved by strength training:

  1. Power/Strength.  The raw force I can instantaneously generate... fast twitch muscles. Hopefully I increase the bang for my buck I get out of each stroke, pedal revolution, or stride.
  2. Core/Balance.  Being able to do load bearing/resistance using my (mostly) own body for support means being able to recruit more from my core while I’m swimming/biking/running.
  3. Endurance.  Being able to hold a pose, or do lots of reps for a long time.  Lighter load, more reps.

Now take the red pill with me... and step into... THE MATRIX (workout)!




Matrix: 1.) a rectangular array of numbers, symbols or expressions
2.) a mold for casting letters

If I arrange the muscle groups as columns and the strength types as rows, I get a Matrix, with different exercises to fill in according to how they fit the criteria of the rows and columns.  Let’s take a look with what I came up with so far:

Chest/PushLegsBack/Pull
Core/BalanceBosu PushupsSingle Leg Squats with Toe Touch
Single-Leg Bent-Over Rear Shoulder Flys
Power/StrengthBench PressDumbell/Goblet Squats Pull-ups
EndurancePushupsWall Sit with Medicine Ball SqueezeBand Rows


Already some questions/challenges: There seems to be a bit of overlap between Core/Balance and Endurance - some of the exercises could easily trade rows.  Furthermore, What order should I do them in?  I figured I shouldn’t start with the heaviest and allow myself to get a little more warmed up, so I didn’t put Power in the first row.  I also don’t really like the idea of two upper body exercises back-to-back.  Even though push-pull complement each other, I think some of the secondary muscles might object to the abuse.  I’m looking at you, shoulders.  So I think I’ll do them left to right, top to bottom, same as you’re probably reading the table.. I mean, matrix.  Finally, how many reps and how much weight (for non-bodyweight exercises)?  That’s where the experimentation starts... To the lab!

Plan A was to get up early and run through these in my basement; the kids have been sleeping a little better, so I thought a 5AM or so wake-up was feasible.  Well, I forgot to set the alarm and ended up having to soothe the Lightning Kid at 5 and 5:30 anyway.  

At the office gym,I don’t have time for full lunchtime workouts on Thursdays, but I figured I could manage once through before having to eat and go to a meeting.  Here’s how it worked out.

Chest/PushLegsBack/Pull
Core/BalanceBosu Pushups
20 reps
Single Leg Squats with Toe Touch
10 reps per leg
Single-Leg Bent-Over Rear Shoulder Flys
10 reps per leg with 12lb dumbbells
Power/StrengthBench Press
12 reps 30lb dumbbells
Squat
10 reps with 30lb dumbbells on shoulders
Pull-ups
1 full pull-up, 8 reps of negative phase*
EndurancePushups
For 1 minute (36 reps)
Wall Sit with Medicine Ball Squeeze
For 1 minute
Band Rows
For 1 minute


Notes:

Not including the warm-up, getting through the circuit took me 14-15 minutes with the only rest between stations being the time it took to get setup with the right equipment. Not a long workout, but I want this thing to be scaleable; if I want a longer workout, I can work my way through the matrix/table again.  I’ll be looking for different exercises to drop into the various slots, either from workout to workout or even within the workout (from circuit to circuit).  Any suggestions for  that meet the Core/Balance | Power/Strength | Endurance vs. Chest/Push | Legs | Back/Pull intersection criteria? REMEMBER: NO MACHINES! You know what the machines did in the Matrix...

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