failure question/help?

[pact]

here's my background, im 24, 6'3" 200lbs and finished up four years of div1 hockey, so i'm training to play pro next year. i'd like to put on a little more size but a lot of strength, my fear is that i've been training too much like a bodybuilder and not enough for an athlete/strength gain. i've trained for about 7 years and i base all my lifting days on compounds such as squats, deads, benches etc. i've gotten all my workout info from this site and i just read Serious Strength Training by Bompa and Cornacchia. This is where i'm confused. first of all i've been doing chest and tri', back and bi's, legs, each on their own days once per week, with shoulders spotted in somewhere. from my reading it seems i should alternate between a chest and back exercise and so on so my muscles are rested (this is a change i'm not used to) and also it seems that i should NOT go to failure since that is for bodybuilding and i won't have enough energy for my next set. Can someone be gracious enough to lead me in the proper direction as to whether or not i should be going to failure, how many bodyparts per workout, and how many sets and reps i need to most help with me adding about 10 lbs of lbm and gaining maximal strength to play pro next year. i have 5 months till season starts.
thanks a lot
pact

 

[Arioch]

Go to www.elitefts.com

Read everything there. Twice.

Do not train to failure unless you get buried on a maximal effort lift.

 

[Grantsdu]

I have read some articles that said it you don't HURT after your done lifting that you didn't help anything then I have read some articles that said don't go to failure so I don't really know. I guess both may be good for a period of time. I'm not an expert though. I would try both and see which one you liked the best. try one for 2 weeks and switch, it never hurts to swith up rutienes anyway!!

 

[Lumberg]

You shouldn't think of building strength and size as being at opposite ends of the spectrum. Your goals and those of a bodybuilder are very close as far as what you want your body composition to look like. You definitely do not want to train like a powerlifter because you will be skating, checking, shooting, and passing (basically playing your heart out) for minutes at a time over the course of about 2 1/2 hours, several days a week, not trying to squat as much weight as possible for one rep only once every few months.

That said, I am also a firm believer that the only way you get stronger and get more muscle endurance, and more importantly monitor your progress, is to go to failure. Maybe not on every single exercise every single workout, but close.

The main thing is that after several weeks of balls-to-the wall training, you have to take a week or so off so your system can recover.

Because the harder you push your muscle, the more it's going to have to adapt. In bodybuilders, the adaptation takes the form of hypertrophy. In your case, you want it to take the form of strength gains. Both are very closely related.

That being said, explosive movements are very important in hockey. Things like hip drive and leg speed are as crucial if not more crucial than in football. That said, I think a lot of the principles of football training can apply to you.

To develop explosiveness, you want to do olympic movements such as cleans and snatches. The more you can power clean, for example, the more explosion you are going to bring with you the next time you check a guy into the boards. It's just as much about training your nervous system to recruit as many muscle fibers at once as it is about brute strength.

Plyomwtric drills should also be a staple of your training regimen, for the exact same reason.

As far as how many reps to do, low reps will use more fast-twitch muscle fibers, which is what you'll need. However bulking up is good because that extra muscle serves as an extra bruising force as well as a good insurance against injury. High reps will also help build up your lactic acid tolerance, which is good.

One good plan might be to do a full routine of low-to-mid reps and then do several "burn out" sets to failure at the end of your workouts.

Just some ideas to keep in mind,

JC

 

[powerlifterjay]

Good answers guys. I will make mine really simple.

When you do your workouts in one workout have your reps range from 2 to 15. Not going to negative failure on any. Positive failure is what i call my way. I go with in 1 rep of failure. Where i knwo 1 more rep will not be succesful.. It may not bury me, but i will need help and when i train i like zero help.

 

[bigokie]

Putting on weight

Lot's of good ideas. One of the most proven methods to gain size and strength is 20 rep squats. Not exactly a westside routine but I have used it to gain size in the past, 6 weeks on this will probably give you the size you want, if you work hard. Then after these six weeks I would switch to a westside routine using bands for squats to help your explosiveness. Good Luck on your tryouts.

 

[b fold the truth]

Food and intensity. You can not go wrong if you do both of these properly.

B True

 

[pact]

thanks for all the input guys!!
pact

 

[Prometheus]

I've been lifting a long time, and my best size gains occurred after I shifted my focus 100% to PL, and specifically to Westside methods, by far.

I've read that doing extremely slow eccentrics (10-15 seconds) is best for hypertrophy. personally I found that doing those gives me an incredible "pump" but the size gains are only temporary.

I never go to failure (intentionally, anyway ), and only go above 8 reps on anything with very light weight, for recovery/flexibility purposes.

just my 2 cents

 

[Sergeant]

If you train to failure and also workout for hockey you will end up overtraining unless you are using a lot of "GOOOOD" supplements. If you don't train constantly to failure you can better plan your workouts and your chances of getting hurt are lower. "Supplements" or not I would not train going to failure for a lot of sets.