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Questions from yesterday

Care to explain the difference between the strength phase and the power/peaking phase?


generally, the strength phase is all about lifting heavy and recruiting maximum amounts of motor units. In the power/peaking phase, you are actually going to work on moving a lighter weight faster. So, for example, 60% of your 1 repetition max, lifting it as fast as you possibly can. Power= work/time. You want to move as quickly as possible and display optimal power. Things like olympic lifts or plyometrics can be very effective for this. The phases are really dependant on your goals. I think everyone should do a little bit of power work (I like medicine ball stuff). I don't push people to limit strength though in the strength phase (unless they are training for a powerlifting or olympic lifting meet). Typically, the highest intensity I will go up to with a general population client is a 5RM. With athletes we will work up to triples and occasionally a 1RM (but that is rare).


This next question is a noob question but please answer anyway, when moving from one phase to another, a typical increase in weights used would be about 5 ~ 10 pounds maybe? Am I right?

It will be a little more than that. If we took those rep zones and applied some weihgt to it using percentages, it would be a little more than 10lbs (roughly). For example:

If we have a bench press of 200lbs. My 12 rep maximum (RM) with that wieght would be
140lbs (70% of 200). My 8RM would be 160lbs (80% of 200). So that is about a 15-20lbs difference between phases. It is going to be individual for everyone though.

I'm taking a 2 week break from the gym due to that nagging pain in my shoulder, hopefully I can learn something useful in the meantime to apply at the gym.

Nagging pains suck. While you are taking a break and icing your shoulder, be sure to review your program over the past 6-8 weeks and see if you had some errors which are causing that pain. Whenever I get pains or my clients get pains, I look at the program and evaluate it and figure what I may have done (or not done) to cause that pain. Then fix the problem. Good luck.

Patrick

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. Also, thanks for your advice at the end of your post. I'll review my progress while giving my body two weeks to rest. I'll also take into account the new info you've given me in your last two posts.
That nagging shoulder pain, I got it about 5 years ago, dunno how, I can't remember.
I did some painting of walls in my house recently, and now its back and its getting in the way of my workouts. I have been pushing very hard the last week or so and have made some significant muscle gain, but as a result, that nagging pain is now constant + bothersome. So I'm gonna give it some time to rest/heal.

Once again, thanks for all the info. Great blog. :)

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