My Shoulder Workout

I was asked the other day about my shoulder workout. So here it is. I train my shoulders as the very last workout of the week, usually fridays. I alternate between heavy weights and high-reps. And I usually have several exercises, 4 or 5 in total.

1st exercise is always a variation of the shoulderpress. I alternate between dumbbell shoulderpress, military press, and arnold press. I start out with the easy weights and finish with the heavy weights.

2nd exercise is dumbbell lateral raises or one of the exercises I didn't use for my first. Also here I start with the easy weights and finish with the heavy weights.

3rd exercise is either dumbbell lateral raises, bent over raises, cable laterals or machine press. High reps, 10-15 is what I go for.

4th exercise is just to wrap it up with reps. I alternate with several machines and dumbbells, machine presses, cables, front raises, one-arm presses etc.

A typical workout might look like this:

Dumbbell shoulder - 12x65lbs, 12x75lbs, 10x80lbs, 8x85lbs, 7x90lbs, 6x 95lbs, 5x100lbs
Military presses -  12x110lbs, 10x120lbs, 8x130lbs, 6x140lbs, 5x150lbs
Dumbbell laterals - 12x35lbs, 12x35lbs, 12x35lbs
Cable laterals - 12x35lbs, 12x35lbs, 12x35lbs
Plate frontraises - 12x55lbs, 12x55lbs, 12x55lbs

Dumbbell shoulderpress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXqiPOSqDsk
Military press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gobthqk48Gc
Arnold press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cElfPHTYBE
Machine press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaQ0ra0pK5I
Vertical push-ups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKK1HkBUyUo
Kettlebell laterals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2Kq9FRF1w
Upright rows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUtwGji8hTk
Cable laterals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km_wqhfOfiU
Bent over laterals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_00yTu2Qe_8

And some word of encouragement in the end: Never Give Up!

Volume or Intensity? What to choose?

This has been a debate for years. Should you choose volume or intensity in your training? If you go to popular lifting websites like T-nation, articles about the benefits of high volume training is to be found right next to articles telling you its useless to train like this. But do you have to choose, or can you do both? I use both high volume and low volume workouts, and I do both high intensity and low intensity workouts. Here is an overview:

Low/Low - This is a workout with low intensity and low volume. In other words, lighter weights, no forced reps, and a low number of sets and exercises. I rarely have these workouts, except when I am trying to learn new difficult exercises. Some of my olympic lifting workouts might be low/low.

Low/High - Low intensity and high volume. Here you have the typical hobby bodybuilder workout. Actually, low intensity is kind off misleading. It's more like medium intensity. You push yourself to failure, but not beyond. And you include very little intensity enhancing methods like cheats, drop set, superset and forced. But you have a high number of reps, sets and exercises. This workouts puts on mass with little risk of injuries and overtraining.

High/Low - This is the typical strength training workouts where you focus on getting stronger and not building mass. You do increase your musclesize here as well, but to really grow you need more volume training.The intensity is hard, to failure and beyond, while the number of reps, sets and exercises are low. I use the high/low method for my max load workouts, my olympic lifting workouts my explosive leg workouts and sometimes for my more technical workouts.

High/High - This is the superheavy bodybuilder workouts where you mainly focus on putting on some size. You use heavy weights, intensity enhancing methods like cheats, drop set, superset and forced, and you have many exercises, many sets and lots of reps. Intensity is to failure and beyond for most exercises. The upside; you get bigger! The downside its hard, you need a buddy there to support you, and you do have the risk of overtraining and injuries.

I have a good mix of low/high, high/low and high/high workouts. Normally I don't choose in advance, I decide when I have started my workout and got a feeling on how strong I am today. This is basicly what we call autoregulation. And trust me. It works as long as you keep pushing yourself forward towards your goals, in the gym, on the treadmill, on the track and in the streets. Below is a short sample from a high intensity and high volume  delts workout.

The overhead squat. Why would you punish yourself this way?

I love the overhead squat, and I really hate the overhead squat. The mastering of this difficult lift requires both strength, core, balance, timing, flexibility and nerve. At the same time it can be so frustrating and annoying. When you get down in the deep squatting position with a heavy bar overhead, you're walking a fine line between loosing your balance forward, thus having to drop the weight, and loosing your balance backwards, also dropping the weight. But when you get it right, the chain of force connecting thru your body, from your toes to your fingers, makes for some awesome lifts. The benefits of the overhead squat are many:

- Increases strength in your quads and glutes
- Vast recruiting of muscle fibres considering a relative small load
- Increase your speed and acceleration
- Strengthen the core and abdomen
- Improves timing and muscle control
- Improves balance
- Builds a good foundation for the olympic lifts

Here is how you do it: Stand behind the bar with a wide grip. Snatch the bar overhead in one, explosive movement, and let it rest on your extended arms, a little behind your ears. Tighten your abdominal muscles, lean forward just a little bit and squat down, keeping the bar just vertical of your feet at all times. Keep your posture at the bottom of the lift and extend in a strong, continous motion.

Here is a short video of me doing some overhead squats:

Making those guns bigger

Arms are a hard musclegroup to build. It is hard to increase the volume of training without getting the problems of overtraining. After all the arms are involved in most exercises for the upper body anyway. So maybe you should not use volume training on your arms.

Well, I like the volume training, and I like training arms. My arm training consists of several exercises done in a non-strict way. This reduces the stress on my elbow joint and forearms and makes it possible for me to keep up the volume without the overtrainingissues and the injuries. Here is a typical biceps workout:

Dumbell curls - 12, 12, 10, 10 and 8 reps
EZ Curls - 12, 12, 10 and 8 reps
Double cable - 12, 12, 10 and 10 reps
Seated cable or machine - 10, 10, and 10 reps

Here is a short video:

Hard running and easy lifting

The other day I did some easy lifting and some hard running on the treadmill. 30 minutes of interval training. I like the short intense intervals and today I did it like this. 10 minutes of warm-up. 10 minutes of 45/15, 10 minutes of 30/30 and 5 minutes of 15/15.

45/15 is a method of running hard for 45 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, then repeat. 30/30 is running for 30 seconds and resting for 30 seconds. Every minute we increase the speed 0.2 km/hour (0.12 mph). Started out on 16 km/h (10 mph) and finished on 21 km/h (13 mph).

A hard hard start on the 2011 running regime...

The Pecs routine

One of my readers asked my about chest training and how I work my pecs with different exercises. The chest is undoubtedly one of the favorite body parts among many  athletes because it gives the body a dramatic athletic impression. I try to work my pecs in several different angels, with various load and reps, and even with various speed. My fastest chest exercise is the Plyo push-up and my slowest exercise is probably the superslow dips.

Due to a shoulder injury in the rotator cuff muscle group, I can not perform all my regular Chest exercises at the moment. The routine I do is also not fixed. I do switch between exercises all the time, but here is the Plyo Blueprint of chest training. Link to video of the exercises is located below.

1st exercise is always the benchpress, decline benchpress or the incline dumbbell press. I do swith between them regularly. I try to do about 4-6 reps in my heaviest set on the first exercise. I also do several warm-up sets with gradually increasing load until my final set to failure and beyond.

2nd exercise is usually one of the same exercises mentioned above. As told I alternate which exercises I do first and second. My rep range is a little higher for my second exercise, and I do about 8-10 reps

3rd exercise is always a flyes movement. I alternate between dumbbell flyes, cable flyes, machine flyes, and incline cable flyes. Rep range is about 10-12

4th exercise is another press, but with less load and higher reps. I often do push-ups, Plyo push-ups, dips or machine chestpresses  with drop set. Reps is between 12 and 20 for my fourth exercise.

A chest workout might look something like this:

Decline benchpress - 12x190lbs, 10x210lbs, 8x230lbs, 6x250lbs, 4x270lbs
Incline dumbell press - 12x80lbs, 10x90lbs, 8x100lbs, 8x100lbs
Cable flyes - 12x100lbs, 12x100lbs, 12x100lbs
Dips+push-ups - 10+10, 8+10, 8+8, 8+6 (every set to failure)

Decline benchpress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTrGrEPQzs4
Incline benchpress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWPNnxwL0Ak
Incline dumbbell press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekZ86fUJk_c
Cable flyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaCwbLan5v0
Dumbbell flyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRzcFheMUQ
Kettlebell flyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bMF4tPdDks
Machine flyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIhHVVnq39w
Machine press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCK_ZzIbdkk
Dips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjCUFl5hY4E
Plyo push-ups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Yl-UpoDfk
ROM push-ups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ8bUz9myRM
Decline push-ups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GocHnUPeyQ0

And here a sample from yesterdays workout:

More fat in your food to gain weight

If you struggle to gain weight, one simple solution is to add some more fat in your diet. When I'm bulking up, I try to have at least 1200 calories from fat in my diet. Try to avoid saturated fat, and avoid fat together with refined sugar.

A simple way to pull this off is to have an oil&juice shake. Have about 13 fl oz (0,4 liters) of orange juice in a bottle together with 3.5 fl oz (0,1 liters) of vegetable oil, and shake the bottle thoroughly. the taste is actually pretty good, and the drink gives you about a 1000 calories.

My HardCORE Ab routine

One of my readers asked me about my ab routine the other day. The truth is that I rarely train my abs. I just happen to have some abs due to genetic coincidences and all the rock climbing I did in early years. My abs are still worked regularly in static movements such as chins, squats etc.

When I do work my abs, however, I usually work them in a combination of the following exercises:

Reverse crunches on a crunchboard : 10-15 reps/3 sets
Redcord crunches : 15-20 reps/3 sets
Kneeling cable crunches : 15-20 reps/3 sets
Bench crunches : 20-30 reps/3 sets

I love the reverse crunches because of the intenseness of the exercise and the easy way of adjusting the resistance from easy to certain death (try the 80 degrees board with ankleweights and send me a video. I'll post it here on my blog) Remember that the abdominal part of the exercise is the rounding of the back, not the hipjoint movement. I also like the intensity of the redcord crunches. Roll up as tight as you can get and straighten out in a controlled manner. The kneeling cable crunches is my favorite exercises to better isolate the abs. Just squeeze and try to make every single repetition as intense as possible. Believe me, when you get familiar with the exercises, you will feel the burn.

Below is a short video of me doing highreps on these exercises. What is your favorite ab exercise? Leave a comment and I'll try it myself :-)

My Idols...

During the years I have seen many impressing athletes perform, and some of them I continue to admire even to this day. Others I have discovered in recent years. Either way they provide me with motivation to keep working or they amaze me with how far you can push yourselves. Here are some of them:

Joe Eigo is a gymnast and stuntman who has developed his own style of street gymastics. He has worked as a stuntman for Jackie Chan in several movies. I just love the way he moves and experiment with movements. Watch this youtube video and try the same:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dde8aMKtImk


Hannibal is another streetathlete who does more fitness and bodybuildingstyle movements. His moves is simply amazing and he in my opinion has an fantastic physic. Watch and learn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfsTKfUT-RQ

Yuri van Gelder ia a dutch gymnast and a ring expert. He does his ring gymnastics in an incredibly strong and controlled manner. And his muscularity is great considering he never lift weights. Cool!! Watch some shirtless interview here and you'll get the point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_LN0xPaiyE

Markus Ruhl is a german bodybuilder who is known for his extreme freaky physic. He might not be the best looking bodybuilder, but I like the true bodybuilders to look freaky. And Markus looks like ha has been made in clay, by a group of teenagers who has just read to many comic books. Ha is known for a huge number of fans when ha appears on stage. Watch and enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyhzyakD378

Usain Bolt is the fastest man ever. And he wins by such margins it will go down in history as some of the best performances ever. He surely lives up to his nickname "The Lightning Bolt". Watch and learn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u18_-87Pb6U

Naim Suleymanoglu was the first person to clean and jerk three times his own bodyweight. I just try to imagine doing 1,5 times my own weight. Naim was nicknamed "Pocket Hercules" and won three olympic gold medals over a period of 12 years. Here his final lift from Atlanta Olympics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8cNX0c3YqQ

Just keep training! You WILL get there!

Back 2 the basics with military presses

I love shoulder workouts. It's not too hard and you get that awesome sensation of muscles growing right there and then. You should always include military presses. They're a great exercise for general mass and strength. Cause of a rotator cuff injury, I use a narrow grip. And I do my military presses after 4 sets of Arnold press. To keep the intensity I like including cheats at the end. At first I do as many reps possibly in a controlled, non-explosiv manner, then throws in 2 cheats. Why stop when you have enough strength to keep working, just not enough to lift strict? The body is just not designed to isolate movements. Thats not the way biomechanics work. Anyway, I also did some lateral raises with dumbells and cables and a drop set in the hammer. Here is a short video:

My New Year's Resolutions

Well, I kinda have to have some... Here they go:

1) Squat 440 pounds
2) Deadlift 550 pounds
3) Start running with Vibram Five Fingers on a regular basis
4) Start with ab training
5) Take my vitamins on a daily basis

What's your New Years Resolutions?

Doing some squats and jump squats yesterday

According to researchers in New Zealand, doing some jump squats after 3 sets of heavy squats can increase your testosterone level for some time. Well, I like having increased testosterone, and jump squats is an important exercise in plyoathletic training. So here we go. 3 sets of heavy squatting 300, 320 and 350 pounds followed by some 200 pounds jumps. Finished of with supersets of leg ext and leg curls. Here is a video:

About the author

The founder and author of PLYOATHLETICS.COM is a well known norwegian strength training coach by the name of Ståle Selnes Bjørkestøl. He grew up in the small town of Kristiansand, on the south coast of Norway, where he at early age found an interest in training and physical development. He performed numerous sports with good results, but never really had the hunger for victories and triumphs that make true champions. Ståle's goal was to gain the knowledge on how to make champions and gold medalists, not to become one himself.

He spent some time in the US, becoming familiar with the true American sports and principals of training, and studied sports at the Norwegian School of Sports Science and the University of Agder. In his first year at the university sport studies ha amazed his teachers by having the fastest 40 yards sprint of the entire student body of 75 athletes, while also having the highest VO2max of the same group. His VO2max of 84, and 100 meter sprint of 12 seconds was a rare combination for a student at that time. The answer to this can be found in the plyoathletic way of training which Ståle had been doing for some time.


Ståle now works as a Personal Trainer in the best gym in Norway. At a daily basis he trains and inspires people to gain muscles, lose weight, perform at their best, reshape their bodies and become true champions in their own lifes. He also teaches at the Norwegian School of Sports Science, and is a popular speaker at Fitness conventions and seminars in Norway.

During the years Ståle has performed sports such as athletics, gymnastics, rock climbing, soccer, cycling and long distance running. His days as a top athlete are past him, but now, at the age of 31, and the bodyweight of 200 pounds, he can still run a 10k in less the 40 minutes, deadlift 500 pounds, complete 30 chins, and do a perfect standing forward somersault. All thanks to the plyoathletic ways of training.

Read more about his progress during 11 years of training here:
http://plyoathletics.blogspot.com/2011/01/11-years-of-progress-with-plyoathletic.html

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