My Spring Semester Workout Plan

Here is my current workout plan for the upcoming spring semester. Notice I don't include any upper body. That is because I am following a gymnastic rountine that I bought online. I am not going to post that routine, because I believe that would be breaking their terms and conditions. It includes some leg work, but it is kind of easy and I will keep it to a minimum (at least during my 20 rep squat cycle).

20 rep squat cycle

Week 1: 

Day1: test 5rm squat+3rm clean

Day2: test 20 rep high bar squat+3rm deadlift

Week 2:

Day1: 3x5 squat+3pc (5 front squat reps per set)

Day2: 1x20 squat+1x5 dead lift

Week 3

Day1: 3x5 squat+3pc (5 front squat reps per set)

Day2: 1x20 squat+1x5 dead lift

Week 4

Day1: 3x5 squat+3pc (5 front squat reps per set)

Day2: 1x20 squat+1x5 dead lift

Week 5

Day1: 3x5 squat+3pc (5 front squat reps per set)

Day2: 1x20 squat+1x5 dead lift

Week 6

Day1: 3x5 squat+3pc (5 front squat reps per set)

Day2: 1x20 squat+1x5 dead lift

Week 7: deload: half volume-same weight

Day1: 3x3 squat+2pc (3 front squat reps per set)

Day2: 1x10 squat+1x2-3 deadlift

New cycle! Heavier weight+less volume

Week 8

Day1: test 5rm squat+3rm clean

Day2: test 5rm front squat+3rm dead lift

Week 9

Day1: 3x5 back squat+3x3pc

Day2: 3x8 front squat+1x5 deadlift

Week 10

Day1: 3x5 back squat+3x3pc

Day2: 3x8 front squat+1x5 deadlift

Week 11

Day1: 3x5 back squat+3x3pc

Day2: 3x8 front squat+1x5 deadlift

Week 12: deload: half volume-same weight

Day1: 3x3 back squat+2x2pc

Day2: 3x4 front squat+1x2-3 deadlift

Week 13

Day1: 3x5 back squat+3x3pc

Day2: 3x8 front squat+1x5 deadlift

Week 14

Day1: 3x5 back squat+3x3pc

Day2: 3x8 front squat+1x5 deadlift

Week 15

Day1: 3x5 back squat+3x3pc

Day2: 3x8 front squat+1x5 deadlift

Week 16

Day1: test back squat+test power clean

Day2: test front squat+test deadlift

Progressions:

Back squat-low bar: +5 lbs a week. Drop 5-10 lbs after deload week.

Back squat-high bar (20r): +5-10 lbs once able to do complete.

Power cleans: +5 pounds a week. Drop 2.5-7.5 after deload week. Only add 2.5lbs a week once you stall out.

Front squats: +5 (or 10, if movement is becoming easier) lbs a week. Drop 5-10 lbs after deload week.

Deadlifts: +10 lbs a week, drop 10-15 lbs after deload. If you stall, only add 5 a week.

Goals:

Back squat: 20 rep: 225... 5 rep: 315

Power clean: over bodyweight (175?)

Front squat: 225x5 to 8 reps (bum to ground)

Deadlift: 405x1-5

Recovery: 

Eat a crap ton of healthy food. Also drink at least 1 liter of milk a day. 1 cheat day per week (can drink less milk and eat whatever the heck I want).

Foam roll/use a lacrosse ball daily.

Stretch whenever you're bored.

Sleep 7-8 hours a night. Don't procrastinate studying, or you'll lose some of this sleep. Less sleep=less recovery=higher chance of injury=lower chance of improving.

Conditioning:

20 rep squats and my gymnastic rountine will keep me in shape until it's nicer out. After that I will be doing hill sprints, strongman conditioning and helping coach the track team (which I will join in on some of the drills) so I'll be quite conditioned.

I will also be working manual labor 30-35 hours a week. That gives me a little bit of aerobic conditioning. 

Fun Calorie Fact!

Fun fact: a whole little ceasers pizza is almost as high in calories as a gallon of whole milk.

.....How many slices did you have?

BMI is not always useful...

When using a BMI calulator, a BMI of 18.50 or lower is considered under weight. A BMI of 18.50 to 25.00 is considered normal. A BMI from 25.00 to 30.00 is considered overweight. Finally, a BMI over 30 is considered obese.

BMI: Body Max Index. Pretty much a way to calulate if you're over, normal or under weight. If you're underweight on the BMI scale, that's bad no matter what. Eat some food and lift some weights. Where the BMI calulator becomes in accurate is when it says you're overweight. Why? Because it used weight and height... not fat percentage. Fat percentage is a much better way to tell if someone is overweight, because it literally tells you how much of your body is made up of fat.

Incase you do not believe me when I say the BMI is in accurate, let me give you an example: I weigh 168-169 now. I am 5 feet 8 inches. My BMI is 25.62... Which is considered overweight. I can see my abs, crank out around 20 pull ups and dead lift double my body weight. As you can see, I am not overweight... but my BMI tells me I am.

So if you're a muscular, lean girl or guy, stop using the BMI calulator. It's not useful to you.

For All you 'Busy' People.

Today I decided to plan out my study hours for each week. 10 hours for lecture and 6 for lab. Making 16 hours total. I have 3 hour in class for lecture and 2 hours in class for lab. So add 5 hours to that. That totals 21 hours.

I also work 33 hours a week.

Now, I know sleep is very important (improves health, boosts recovery, helps solidify studying, etc), so I like to sleep 7-8 hours every night. I'll say 8 because usually it's takes me 30ish minutes to fall asleep. 8x7=56. 

Let's add in workouts! Each workout takes about 1 hour. I workout 3 days a week, plus 10 minutes of mobility everyday. (I'll say 6 days a week for simplicity). Total fitness work: 4 hours of my week. 

I also try to fit in 30 minutes of Bible time a day. (I'll do 6 days a week for simplicity and because I usually miss one a week anyway), so 3 hours a week.

I have some chores as well, but they usually intermixed with eating, so I'll combine these... I'd guess about 2-3 hours a day. I'll multiply but 2.5 as any average, and take round up because I eat a lot(3750-4500 calories a day): 2.5x7=17.5=18.

I also try to have friends, but time with them varies and most of it is spent on Sundays, so won't factor that in. I also like to spend a little time researching fitness stuff, to improve my knowlegde and skill, but that varies as well.

I like to take the Lord's day off of studying and working out, so that makes me have to cram more in my week days.

Last thing: driving: I drive about 45 minutes a day. Everyday. 0.75x7=5 (rounded down).

Now let's add it all together!

21+33+56+4+3+18+5=140. That's about 20 hours a day, 135/7=20. 24h-20=4 extra hours.

Now, let's factor in Sunday. 140-(8 hours of sleep+30 minutes of bible time+2.5 hours of eating/chores+0.75 hours of driving)= 128.25 hours. 128.25/6=21.4 (rounded). 24h-21.4h=2.6 extra hours.

You see, the point of this is not to brag how I'm so busy and you all should feel lame for not being busy. I actually have 2.6 hours of time I could waste, or spend productively on projects or spend on self maintenance, or prayer/relaxation or just talking with friends... everyday, not including Sundays. That's about 15.5 hours a week (not including Sunday). 

 Holy cow, what could you do with 15 hours of free time? A lot, right? What I'm trying to say is, even if you 're really busy, you probably have time do what you want to do. Just rid yourself of time drainers (aka: Facebook, YouTube, TV, etc)... Or limit them, a lot. I still have over 15 hours of theoretical 'free time', while I workout more than the average person, leave Sunday aside for friends and God, work a lot, sleep a lot, study a lot and eat a lot. 

So, what is your excuse? Why can't you workout? Why can't your read your Bible? Why can't you eat enough? Why can't you sleep enough? Why can't you study enough? It probably is not because you are too busy. You just waste your time on nonsense things. I know I do, and my grades have suffered from it... but I am still maintaining a B, because I revamped my studying and my priorities before I fell into a unsadisifying and depressing grade of C or below.

You're busy, but you got time. 

Weight Gain

I have always had trouble gaining any weight. I could gain 3-5 pounds, but stall out. It was annoying. That has changed. I gained 7 pounds in about 3 months. 4 of which were in the past month. Granted, there was a little fat gained, I'm sure most of it was muscle, due to my increases in strength.

How did I gain this weight? I'll tell you.

First, I ate a lot. No, I mean a lot. Some teenage guys think they eat a lot, but don't count calories. I counted my calories for a month once and found out I was only eating 2900-3200 calories a day. A calculator said I burned 3000-3500 a day. No wonder I couldn't gain weight, I thought I was eating more than I was burning, I was wrong. You claim you can't eat more? Just really eat a ton every meal! Some guys eat a ton on one meal, once I started eating a ton each meal, I noticed my gains came faster.

Sadly, some of us can't really eat enough to gain weight because we literally feel like barfing. Solution: drink 0.5-1 gallon of WHOLE milk everyday. This is what I do, because I now burn 3500-4000 calories a day. Drinking that much milk adds 1200-2400 calories to your daily intake. Pretty cool. A little fat gain will happen. Abs aren't even that cool, take a chill pill and drink your milk.

Oh, and don't you dare believe that you can have McDonalds, Buger King and Oreos and except to gain muscle. Eat healthy, eat a ton. Don't let eating healthy control your life. You don't need altra-organic food. You know what is healthy, now go eat a lot of it... oh, and make sure you're getting carbs, fat, protein and some micronutrients. Don't cut out any of them!

Second, I lifted. I lift 3 days a week. Full body workouts, big movements. Squats, dead lifts, overhead press, bench/weighted dips, rows and pull ups are ALL you need for gaining mass. I personally squat 2-3 days a week, deadlift 1-2 days a week, overhead press 1-2 days a week, dips 1-2 days a week, rows 2-3 days a week and pull ups 1 day a week. I mix up the reps and the weight... not the exercises. Stick to them! 

Thirdly, I cut back on conditioning and stress. Conditioning is important, but don't overkill it. My body couldn't handle hill sprints 2-3 days a week while working a manual labor job 30-35 hours a week. If you don't work a physically tasking job, sprints 2-3 days a week is fine. Maybe add in 3-7 hours of walking a week. I walk about 30, and gained weight.

For stress: just do what has to be done. Don't worry about what you can't control. 

Finally, I slept. When your work your body wicked hard, sleep is needed. Sadly, I could not always get 8 hours. College does that to ya. Try your best to get 7-9 hours. It helps you work, study and workout. Just make it a darn habit... sorry, but if you want better health and better gain, you're going to have to reduce your late night parties. 

German Hang

This is me holding a German Hang. It's an elbow prehab exercise for back levers, iron cross, planche and other high elbow stress exercises. It also stretches the pec minor, pec major and anterior deltoid. 

Warning: slowly work into this exercise. It's very stressful on the elbow joint (that's how it prepares it), and can put quite the stretch on your chest/deltoids if you are tight.

Have fun!

Cool. I didn't know how flexible my shoulders were!

Become Awesome.

This does not make you awesome:

1. Facebook. You spend too much time on there, and it's not very useful or awesome. Everyone Facebooks and doesn't do much. How lame.
2. YouTube. Watching videos of funny things is funny, not productive, satisfying or thought provoking. Go read something and get smarter.
3. Arguing about chores. Dude, really? You could probably do those chores in less time than you spent arguing. Also, everyone will love it if you just do them (eventually your wife will really love it!).
4. Reading *insert useless thing here* articles just for the sake of reading it. Man, you are really putting the "pro" in procrastination. Do some homework or handstands and be cool.
5. Self pity. Man, life is rough. Know what? Everyone has a rough life. Get over it. People pass away, work is hard, injuries happen, homework needs to be done and waking up happens everyday. 
6. Angry thoughts. You know you have them. Be more loving in your thoughts, it just may transfer to the rest of life. Now that's awesome.
7. Watching TV. What do you gain from watching TV? Short time entertainment? Pah! Read, stretch, think about life. Too hard? Oh well. Life is rough. (see #5)
8. Wimping out. Don't think you can finish your workout? Find out. Take on some life challege. That's cool too. No one is awesome for being a wimp.
9. Texting. Yeah. Yeah, you. The one texting when you could be: studying, reading your bible, doing chores, having a real conversation, playing frisbee or doing handstands. Whoa, all of the sudden, texting sounds lame.
10. Letting others define you. Man, who defines you? Other men? I hope not.  Things that should define you: the scriptures, hardworker, your goals and maybe someone you aspire to be like (better be someone awesome).




Things that make you awesome: 


1. Working hard. Know what? I'm tired of the whole belief people of that "everyone is special no matter what". I'm gonna be harsh: No, you're not a super special person. Know how to become unusually special? Work friggin' hard.
2. Sleeping. Whoa. What? Yeah, I said it. Sleeping. When I say sleeping, I mean sleep correctly. Pulling all nighters, sleeping for 12 hours one day and sleeping 4 the next is not awesome. That's bad for you. Sleep 6 to 9 hours a night. Preferably 7-8.
3. Being kind. If you think always being the big, mean, tough guy is awesome, think again. Being tough is cool, but being a tough man who is also kind, is pretty darn epic.
4. Being deciplined. Don't eat 34 cookies and do your homework eveyday. Simple. Be consistent with this... it takes decipline, duh.
5. Workout. Being strong, fit and flexible is awesome. If you say otherwise, you probably aren't awesome.
6. Study the Bible. You study your textbooks, your workout program, your for-fun books... why not study the most important book in the world, too?
7. Use common sense. Really. I mean it. Don't party all night, don't jump out of buildings, don't get drunk, don't run red lights, don't juggle flaming knives, don't eat mcdonalds...etc. You know. Common sense stuff.
8. Work on deep relationships. I don't just mean with your spouse. If you're a guy, get some great guy friends. If you're a girl, get great girl friends. Why same gender? Because you don't want to risk hurting someone because they thought you "liked" them, also, they can probably understand you better. Trust me on this one. (This one is probably the hardest)
9. Get a job. Jobs make money. Money buys food and house. Having a house and food is awesome. The end. Fun fact: you can work and do college. It's harder, but that's a good challenge.
10. Challege yourself. You know what is lame? Being unchallenged. Ask any athlete: "What's more fun: playing against a complete newbie or someone of the same skill level as them?" If they are truthful and awesome, they'll tell you the person of the same skill level. Same goes for life: what's more fun: a job that doesn't challenge you in the least bit, or a job that challenges you to be a better person. Better yet: would a class where you know everything already, be more fun and productive or a class in which you are challeged? The answer seems obvious to me.

These are challenges that I put on myself. I feel like a lot of people could relate, hence why I put it on here.

Become Strong

I really love strength training. Anyone who knows me, knows that. Why do I love it? There are many reasons. Jim Wendler put it well: Train to be awesome. 

There is so much more to it. It gives me confidence: If I feel like I am failing at everything (school, friendships, time management, work, etc), I can train and feel way more confident. Pretty much, it puts me into this mind set: if I can training for this long, for this hard and become capable of the feats I do in the gym, I do anything. If I can lift double my body weight off the floor, I can get a B on my exam. If I can train for hours to become as strong as I am, I can study hours for that exam so that I am knowledgeble enough to rock that exam.

It makes me more knowledgable. I am planning on going into the physical therapy field. I want to know how to lift things properly so I can stay healthy. Guess how I do that? I research a ton of information, and experient on myself. It helps me to understand how the body reacts to certain things.

It just a ton of stinkin' fun. If you lift how I lift, you'll likely become an addict to iron. Lifting heavy stuff rocks. Movement in and of itself is fun. Movement with heavy things (or in a difficult way, such as gymnastics) is even more fun. If your training isn't fun, you're doing it wrong or have the wrong mind set. (Hint: I've yet to find anyone who actually enjoys treadmills and ellipticals. Hit the weights.)

It makes me strong. Duh, it's strength training. Being strong not only rock is sports, injury prevention, a looks (if you care about looks), it also helps you help people. Helping people has got to be one of the most sadisfiying things out there...especially if they return the favor with pie... but for real, if you're helping someone who is moving, being strong sure helps. If you're helping someone get some wood ready for the winter, being strong helps. If you're going to do anything physically taxing, being strong helps.

Now, on to a more serious note. As many of you know, I had a rough senior year of high school. I had several friends pass away within 6 months. There were also a few personal things going on that I don't care to share. To sum it up: it was hard. I had plenty of friends and family to support me and a great God to talk to and seek wisdom through... but God also gave me strength training. Strength training taught me to push through things, even if they sucked. It taught me you don't get anywhere by sitting there wishing you could had done better: you have to get up and do it. Dominate it. That could be your emotions, your life struggles, your stress, your anxiety, your school or just your stinkin' workout. Training teaches you to persevere, even when the going gets rough.

You know what? To me, it sounds like strength training make you strong. Not only physically, but emotionally and mentally. Now, become strong.

The Problem, and Fix to Strength Training

The problem with strength training is that it takes time to do. Conditioning is easy to fit in. All you need is 30-90 seconds of rest for 4-6 hardcore intervals each lasting 10-60 seconds, and you're done. With real strength training you need 2-5 minutes of rest per set. 3 to 10 minutes once you get really heavy. Less rest turns the workout into more conditioning and less strength. In my opinion, when you get around 200-250 pounds on the squat and/or the dead lift (135-175 for girls), you should be resting at least 3 minutes (no more than 5). If you're doing a 10-12 sets 3x squat, 3x upper body pull, 3x upper body, 1-3x pull from floor (dead lift, power clean, etc), resting 3 minutes will be 30-36 minutes. Add a 10 minute warm up, a 5-10 minute cool down and 10-15 minutes for the time during your exercises, that's a 55-71 minute workout... and that's with only 4 exercises. I usually do 5 (because I add a gymnastic static hold). That's a lot of time, and we're busy people. So how do we get around this road block?

To fix the problem we do a strength version of circuit training. Circuit training is when you combine 2-3 exercises back to back, usually with little to no rest. We need rest to properly train strength, so we will increase the rest, but we will need less than normal strength training because we are linking exercises. I like 2 minutes of rest per combination. Let me show you what I mean with a sample workout:

Linked:

3x5 squat

3x5-8 row or pull up

Rest 2 minutes per set.

Linked:

3x5-8 overhead press

3x3 power clean

Rest 2 minutes per set.

With the squat and row, it'd look like this:

5 squats

Rest 2 minutes

5-8 rows

Rest 2 minutes

5 squats

Rest 2 minutes

8 rows

Rest 2 minutes

5 squats

Rest 2 minutes

8 rows

Do you see what happened there? You actually got 4 minutes of rest per set of each exercise. Granted, this is not as ideal as full our resting for 3-5 minutes, but it sure can yield better results than dropping an exercise for the sake of time. 

A final note: please make sure to combine exercises logically. Don't combine rows and dead lifts, because your forearms will fry and you won't be able to lift as heavy. Don't combine squat and dead lift both fry the spinal erectors, quads, hamstrings and are too taxing overall to the body. I actually don't don't combine anything with dead lifts when I train. As I said before, I add a gymnastic move. I link that with my squat, and I combine my push and pull. Dead lifts go all by themselves because they are so taxing and epic.

Protein Shake

I haven't posted in awhile, but I feel like posting my newest contraption: a protein powder-less post workout shake. I made this because protein powders can be expensive and/or contain unwanted ingredients. 

This shake is very high in calories (and fat). High calories are great for gaining weight/strength (my goal), but if that is not your goal I will give you a few options to reduce the calories.

Here it is!

1/2 cup at free powdered milk+1.5 cups water+1 tablespoon olive oil OR 1.5-1.75 cups whole milk. (To reduce calories: leave out tablespoon of olive oil OR use a milk with less fat)

1/2 cup dried oats. (May want to blend before use)

1/2 cup peanut butter (to reduce calories, use less. Peanut butter is super high in calories)

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

1 Frozen banana (room temperature bananas make it warm and gross)

Optional: 1 raw, well washed egg. (Look into health risks before using)

Blend everything for a couple minutes.

I enjoy this. If you want to make it higher in protein still, you can add a scoop of protein powder (if you do, I would recommend taking out 1 tablespoon cocoa powder). 

Let me know what you think!

Why You Should Sprint

Do you want to get lean, fast? Do you want to get stronger while losing fat? Do you want to jump higher? Do you want to be faster? Do you want to just improve your cardio? Do you want to have all this with minimal work? You can! All you need to do to get started is to pay my ridiculously cheap price of $99.99 a month! Too expensive? No worries, I'll just tell you anyway.

Sprint. That's what you have to do. Sprint hard.

Ok, that's all folks! 

...but for real, sprinting is amazing. Sadly, some people can't sprint due to injury, being too overweight, disease, or because they have no legs. Want to know some of the reasons sprinting rock? I'll tell ya.

First and foremost: sprints are fun. This actually is an opinion, obviously. If you have a training parter (or team) sprinting is great fun. Racing people is fun... specially when you win! I suggest finding someone or some people close to your speed to train with. Sprinting by yourself is not nearly as fun, but you might have to at times. 

Sprints rock for athleticism: Sprints get your cardio pumping in no time, burn fat, make you faster and stronger and they even can increase your jump! Trying sprinting (not running moderately fast, but sprint) 200 meters. Now tell me your cardio isn't working hard. It may take you a few minutes to tell me: First point made.

Sprints burn fat. It's true! They burn calories like they ain't no tomorrow. That's not all folks! Sprints burn fat after you're done your workout for quite a bit. I don't remember all the science stuff off the top of my head, but there is some chemical stuff happening in your body that's good for burning fat. Sprints will also make you burn fat more later down the road as you build muscle from them! Quick story: I used to train long distance runs and endurance activities such as push ups. I got pretty lean, but I had to train hard and diet a little. Now that I sprint and weight train more I get lean super easy... while eating a ton of food (3500-4000 calories a day)! Cool story.

Sprints get you faster! No duh, Sherlock. How to do you get better at soccer? Play soccer. How do you get better at chess? Play chess. How do you get better at X? Do X. Sprinting is a great way to become better at sprinting! A little obvious, I know.

How could sprints increase your jump? Well, they aren't ideal for more experienced athletes, because you aren't training jumping. For the not as trained athlete they are a great way to become a better jumper! Sprinting trains fast twitch fiber muscles, which are used while jumping. Sprints also burn fat thus making the load lighter, so you jump higher. Good stuff.

I never really touched on how sprints make you stronger. That is because there is more to this part of the topic! Lifting is obviously better for improving strength, but sprints have their place! Sprints work pretty much every muscle group in your body (mainly legs and core, but sprint a 400m and you'll see you use more than just your legs). Full body movement build power more than small movements (like a bicep curl, for example) this is because it teaches the body to move as one, which is more powerful, and power comes from strength.

Next, working the fast twitch muscle fibers makes you stronger. Sprinting works fast twitch muscle fibers which makes your stronger. Believe it or not, but after I add more sprinting to my workout plan (when ever track starts), I quickly see strength improvements and weight gain! I gained weight, but I didn't get fat (I got leaner). Why? I'm not sure why. Obviously I burned more calories (I ate more to balance it out), worked my fast twitch muscles more (big muscle fibers)...but I was already doing that with lifting. I have read about quite a few people saying that sprinting can help produce or activate growth hormones, but I have not done a lot of research regarding that. So I can't say that true... but it sure seems like it might be! I gained 10 pounds my sophomore year of track (first time lifting regularly+sprinting+eating more protein+growing more), I gained 3-5 pounds junior year of track (reduced my lifting due to shoulder pain, but did a ton of sprinting+healthier eating+a little long distance running), this year I have gain 4-6 pounds during track so far (eating better+lifting regularly+actually+sprinting with less long distance work). Of course, older guys/girls won't get as much weight gain because they aren't in their prime growing stage (aka: teens and lower 20s)... Let mention one more thing: I usually lost 2-3 pounds (not this year, I gained about 5) between track seasons due to different training styles and eating habits. I think part of it is due to not sprinting. So if you are having trouble gaining weight, trying sprinting a couple times a week. Might do you some good!

Ok, there is more to sprinting and such... but I can't write forever. I'll just give you three basic templates you can use for sprinting. One more for far loss, one more for overall athletism, and one you can fit in some more strength training.

Fat loss (can replace slow cardio, or you could make this a hybrid with your long distance program):

3 days a week worth at least one day of rest between days. Order day does not matter.

Day 1: hill sprints: 70-150 meters. Steeper the better. Sprint up, walk slowly down. Repeat. Start with 3-5 sprints. Increase sprints, distance or speed to make harder. Don't go over 150 meters and don't do more than 12 sprints. At that point you need a steeper hill or just run faster.

Day 2: interval day: sprint 20-40 meters for 6-12 sets, max speed (rest 30-60seconds between sets). Rest 3-5 minutes. Then do 2-3 long "sprints" of 300-500 meters, (rest 2-4 minutes between sets). You will not be able to run full out here.

Day 3: easy day: sprint 50-70 meters  6-12 times. Rest 2-3 minutes between sets. Progress by running faster.

Overall athletism:

3-4 days a week.

Day 1: hill sprints: 70-200 meters. Do 4-12 sprints. Rest: 2-4 minutes (should be longer than just walking down the hill). Increase difficultly: same as fat loss, but don't let your speed suffer too much from doing too many or too long sprints.

Day 2: skill day (work on technique): do 4 20-30 meter sprints. Work on exploding as fast as possible and pumping arms hard. Rest 2-3 minutes between sets. Next, do 3-5 50-75 meter long stride sprints. Focus on lengthening stride and using high knees. Rest 1-3 minutes between sets.

Day 3: alternating: sprint 100 meters, rest 3-5 minutes, sprint 200 meters, rest 3-5 minutes. Repeat. Do a totals of 4-6 repeats.

Day 4 (optional): long sprint: 200 meters, 300 meters, 400 meters, 500 meters, 400 meters, 300 meters, 200 meters. Do one or two of these. Rest 2-4 minutes between each sprint, 5-8 between sets, if you dare repeat.

Combining with leg strengthening day:

Same as overalls athletism, but only do days 1 and 2, days 1 and 3 or days 1 and 4. Make sure you space out your sprint and leg training days! 

Optional: add as a finisher for your leg day: sprint 100 meters, do 10-20 lunges each leg, sprint back 100 meters, do 25-75 squats (or 10-30 jump squats). No rest. Repeat?

To sum it up: have fun, sprinting rocks, train hard, eat well, and sleep a lot!

Hip Pain

I have read plenty on squat form and such. I followed most of it but there was one thing I didn't take too seriously. That is, I never had pain when doing squats with my back a bit over arched. I never have had or seen someone complain about pain from it, I just heard it's unlikely for a guy to be able to do it, and that it is bad. I made my hips more flexible than the average dude so I was/am capable of over (hyper) extending my back.

From using my over extended squat technique, I got a better stretch reflex, no back rounding and it was just plain out easier to do. So I thought I was all good.

I was wrong.

I went ice skating the day before my Monday workout, fell down and landed on my hips a few times, but that didn't cause any pain for more than 5 seconds. On Monday, I squatted with my not-super-grand form. I squatted 270pounds for 5 reps for 3 sets. Difficult load. No pain after my workout, feeling dandy with a new personal record under my belt... but later that day after sitting for awhile, I noticed pain in my right hip. It always clicked in the past, but never hurt. Just walking hurt a bit. After walking around a bit the pain dissipated. I tried a few squats to see how they felt. Bam! Pain. This pain didn't feel muscular, it felt like joint pain, almost like bone pain.

From that day, I've been resting my hip... which I hate, being a sprinter who likes squatting and dead lifting. I'm not sure if my pain is coming my skating fails, or from my squat form. I'm leaning on my bad squat form though, because when I tuck my hips in (contracting abs and glutes) and do a test squat the pain nearly non-existent (tucking the hips is proper form), but might ache while I walk away from my squat test.

Now that I knew mostly what caused the pain, I looked into what it might be. From what I read (never fully trust online sources when self-treating), I might have some hip impingement... which I really hope I am wrong, because hip impingement would really stink.

I watched some really neat videos by this CrossFit guy. If you want to look into his stuff, look up mobilitywod. What I got from him is that the hyper extending of the lower back rotates the pelvis back (no duh), thus, limiting the ball in socket joint of the hip (holy flying cows, why didn't I think about that before?). That limitation isn't good, because I could be pinching my femur and my pelvis together because of that limitation, causing impingement.

All in all, my advice to you is: never settle for iffy form just because it feels easier and causes no pain...for now. It might in the long run!

This means for your squats, don't hyper extend your back... yeah, like ever...but don't use this as an excuse to round your back, that's still pretty darn bad for you. Keep a straight back!

Edit: today, after some pain was dissipated, I noticed more of the pain is right above my hip in the lower back... maybe this is just a minor back injury telling me to fix my form in some exercises...