Getting started with PLYOREPS

We are about to get started with PLYOREPS. Remember this is an extremely demanding way of training, but if you truly want results, it's the fastest way to get there. We'll take you thru all the steps to design your perfect workout routine to meet your needs.

STEP 1 - How many workout days?

First you have to decide how many days a week you want to lift weights. You can choose to do strength training 2,3,4, 5 or 6 days a week. I recommend keeping the number of days from 3 to 5 which provide enough volume and enough recovery. Every week must include at least on day of PLYOSTRENGTH training and one day of PLYOSIZE training. We'll get back to this later.

Two days a week:
Day one - Plyostrength fullbody
Day two - Plyosize upperbody

Three days a week:
Day one - Plyostrength fullbody
Day two - Plyosize chest, back and shoulders
Day three - Plyosize legs and arms

Four days a week:
Day one - Plyostrength upperbody
Day two - Plyostrength legs
Day three - Plyosize chest and back
Day four - Plyosize arms and shoulders

Five days a week:
Day one - Plyostrength upperbody
Day two - Plyostrength legs
Day three - Plyosize chest and biceps
Day four - Plyosize back and triceps
Day five - Plyosize shoulders and legs OR Plyopower workout

Six days a week:
Day one - Plyostrength upperbody
Day two - Plyostrength legs OR Plyopower workout
Day three - Plyosize chest
Day four - Plyosize back and biceps
Day five - Plyosize leg
Day six - Plyosize shoulders and triceps

Now that you have chosen how many days a week you will lift weights, the basic outline of your week has been made. All we have to to is fill in exercises. But first we have to see the differences between PLYOSTRENGTH and PLYOSIZE. This in a very important understanding to have when you are planning your workout.

PLYOSTRENGTH is workouts designed to make you stronger. To do this we use heavy weights, longer rests between sets, and a lower number of reps. We don't have too many exercises and basically work our way through the list of the big compound exercises. In plyostrength we don't use intensity enhancing techniques such as cheats, forced reps, half reps, drop sets etc. Obviously you also have some gains in size from this training, but that is not our main focus.

PLYOSIZE is workouts designed to increase musclesize and make you bigger. You will also get stronger from this type of routine, but our main goal here is adding pounds to the frame. In a plyosize workout we use several different exercises to target the muscle from different angles. We use lighter weights, more reps and more sets. And intensity enhancing techniques like cheats, forced reps, supersets, dropsets are an important part of plyosize workouts.

STEP 2 - Choosing your exercises?

A Plyostrength workout is pretty straight forward. You alternate between pushing and pulling exercises and you use all the basic exercises you allready know.

Plyostrength fullbody:
Full squats - 10x, 8x, 5x, 5x, 5x
Benchpress - 10x, 8x, 5x, 5x, 5x
Deadlift - 10x, 8x, 5x, 5x, 5x
Pulldown -  10x, 8x, 8x, 8x
Militarypress - 10x, 8x, 8x, 8x
Barbell row - 10x, 10x, 10x

Plyostrength upperbody
Benchpress - 10x, 8x, 5x, 5x, 5x
Pulldown -  10x, 8x, 8x, 8x

Militarypress - 10x, 8x, 8x, 8x

Barbell row - 10x, 10x, 10x

Incline dumbell press - 10x, 10x, 10x

Dumbbell pullover - 10x, 10x, 10x

Plyostrength legs

Full squats - 10x, 8x, 5x, 5x, 5x

Deadlift - 10x, 8x, 5x, 5x, 5x

Frontsquat - 10x, 8x, 8x, 8x

Legpress - 12x, 12x, 12x

Legcurl - 12x, 12x, 12x

A Plyosize workout, on the other hand, is all about choices and variation of exercises. Here there are few rules, but the rules we have are tough. In Plyosize there are 2-5 exercises for each musclegroup each workout. Lets say you are working chest and biceps, I would have probably four exercises on chest and two or even three exercises on biceps for that workout. The first exercises on each musclegroup are basic exercises where you build up your set from light weight until your last set where you lift to failure and beyond. The last exercises on each musclegroup is straight forward high-reps with a fixed resistance. Lets use a chest workout as an example:

For chest we have the following basic exercises: benchpress, incline benchpress, decline benchpress, dumbbell benchpress and dumbbell incline. My first two exercises on chest will always be from this list. Further more we have the following secondary exercises: flyes, cable flyes, pullover, machine press, machine flyes, dips, pushups, pec-dec, and many more... 

I start out with benchpress. My 6 reps max is maybe 270 pounds. I would start out at 120 pounds and do 12 reps. Short rest and do 12 reps on 150. Short rest and do 10 on 180. A little longer rest and do 8 on 210. Stop just before failure, with maybe one more rep to go. For my second to last set I increase the load to 230 and do 7 reps in the same manner. Now my good friend walks over and I take a 3 minute rest. For my very last set I increase to 250 pounds and do as many reps as I can possibly squeeze out. My friend is helping me with two or three forced reps at the very end. This should really be beyond failure. After this I walk over to the dumbbell rack and do dumbbell incline the same way but with less warm-up sets. I do four sets of, 80, 85, 90 and 90 pounds before finish off with as many possible with the 100 pound dumbbells. You get the picture. Building up your set for your first two exercises. 

After this, I may do the cable flyes for three sets of 12 reps, before finishing off with three sets off dips. And I'm done with chest. I move on to biceps and build up my first set of barbell curls from smaller to larger weights. And in the very end I do three sets of 12 reps on the dumbbell curls and the preacher curls. If I'm doing this correctly i'm done in less then an hour. And this is a perfect Plyosize workout. 

The different ways to increase your reps on the last sets are as follows:

Cheats - Lifting with body momentum to be able to do a couple more. Typically used in barbell curls, seated rows, pulldown and military presses.

Forced reps - Having a friend help you to a couple more. Can be used on most exercises.

Drop-set - Reducing the load when you reach failure, thus beeing able to do some more reps.You can drop the load one or two times.

Super-set - Continue on with a similar exercise when you reach failure. An example of this is dips/push-ups

Eccentric load - Doing one or two more eccentric reps and having help on the concentric phase.

Here are the basic and secondary exercises for each muscle:

Chest Basic - benchpress, incline bench, decline bench, dumbbell benchpress, dumbbell incline.

Chest Secondary - flyes, cable flyes, pullover, machine press, machine flyes, dips, pushups, pec-dec, and many more...

Back Basic - chins, pulldown, barbell row, seated row, T-bar row

Back Secondary - machine pulldown, pullover, cable pullover, machine row, rack chins, cobra, dumbbell row, horizontal row, laying barbell row etc...

Shoulders Basic - standing military press, seated military press, dumbbell press, arnold press

Shoulders Secondary - lateral raises, cable laterals, frontraises, face pulls, bent over laterals, machine press, machine laterals, upright row and more...

Legs Basic - squats, front squat, stifflegged deadlift

Legs secondary - legpress, legcurls, legextension, hacksquat, bulgarian split, lunges, walking lunges, sissy squat, nordic hamstrings, dumbbell squats etc...

Biceps Basic - barbell curls, standing dumbbell curls

Biceps Secondary - seated dumbbells, preacher curls, dumbbell preacher curls, cable curls, double cable curls, machine curls, hammercurls, spider curls, 45 degree curls, reverse grip chins

Triceps Basic - frenchpress, narrow grip benchpress

Triceps Secondary: pushdown, one arm pushdown. rope pushdown, kick back, behind back triceps extension, jm-press, close grip pushups, dips and many more...

This was STEP 1 and STEP 2 of the Plyoathletic getting started guide. Stay tuned for STEP 3, finding the right load, STEP 4, periodization, STEP 5, sample routines, and STEP 6, Plyopower training. Later on we will also talk about the speed and endurance training.

Keep asking questions. It's in sharing knowledge we progress!!