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Barbell Introducing barbell training for functional strength gains and keeping in swings, snatches, and TGUs.

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Wlaw

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Hello everyone,
I was hoping for some advice as I transition my training plan to include barbell training from strictly kettlebells and body weight for the past year.

Some background:
In the past I was a competitive bike racer that put in 10-20hr weeks for many years. I did strength training in the off season, but during the season was focused on cycling. I have also done a fair amount of running, climbing, and muay thai kickboxing in the past.

After kids, I transitioned to strength training mostly, which I have been doing consistently for a few years. In Jan of last year I started S&S and reached Simple this summer. Since then I have been doing kettlebell work, but have added in a variety of other exercises other than just swings and TGUs. In addition to weight training, I include 2 days a week of heavy bag work (boxing / kickboxing drills) and sprints / runs for the intensity and to get the dog exercise. Here is what the current program looks like:

Monday: off / recovery
Tuesday: Single arm swings (10 sets of 10 @ 32kg), TGUs (10 sets of 1 @ 32 kg), and single arm overhead press (10 sets of 5 @ 24kg)
Wednesday: Heavy bag workout + sprints
Thursday: Double arm swings ( 10 sets of 10 @ 32kg), single arm floor press (10 sets of 5 @ 24kg and sneak in 1 set @ 32kg currently), pull ups (5 sets of 8 @ body weight)
Friday: off / recovery
Saturday: Heavy bag workout + sprints
Sunday: Single arm snatches (10 sets of 10 @ 24kgs), single arm rows (10 sets of 7 @ 24kg), chin ups (5 sets of 8 @ body weight).

My goal is to put on functional muscle. I am 165lbs / 75kg now. About 10lbs of that has been added by doing S&S, removing cardio from my routine for the most part, and eating a lot more than I did in the past. I would like to put on another 10lbs this year and think the best way to accomplish this is to add heavy barbell exercises, so I just bought a squat rack, bar, and weights. I've done bench, squats, and deadlifts in the past and am confident in my form though can certainly improve a lot with practice. When deadlifting in the past, I was doing 5x5 @ 225lbs.

My question is this: I want to add in heavy strength training to see more functional strength gains and hypertrophy, but also want to keep in TGUs, snatches, and KBs into my weekly routine.

Does anyone know of a 3-4 day / week program or routine that includes KB swings, Snatch, TGUs, Squats, Deadlifts, bench press, and overhead press or is that trying to add too many exercises into one week to see gains.

I appreciate any feedback. Although I have been training for sports most of my life, strength training was never my primary focus, so I have a lot to learn.
 
My question is this: I want to add in heavy strength training to see more functional strength gains and hypertrophy, but also want to keep in TGUs, snatches, and KBs into my weekly routine.

Does anyone know of a 3-4 day / week program or routine that includes KB swings, Snatch, TGUs, Squats, Deadlifts, bench press, and overhead press or is that trying to add too many exercises into one week to see gains.

I like your idea to do a barbell program. It sounds just right for your goals.

My suggestion would be to do Reload. I'd let that be the priority while you're doing it. Maybe do a few KB swings, snatches, TGUs for your warm-up, and maybe after your barbell work, but keep it light and mainly working the movement patterns, not trying to get additional gains. Let the barbell drive your progress.
 
When I used to do Barbell and kettlebell lifts I would program it like that
Day 1 ( barbell squats) : jump squats , Barbell squats as per program, Single kettlebell front squats
Day 2 (bench press ) : plyometric push ups , Bench press as per program, TGU 3 to 5 reps per side
Day 3 (deadlifts): kb swings, deadlifts as per program, kb single leg deadlift
Day 4 ( military press) : light weight low volume snatches, military press, single kettlebell press

In my program here I tried to have 1 explosive movement, the main compounds movement and 1 unilateral movement. Worked great for me. The barbell lifts improved a lot, but I ran a PlanStrong after doing Reload first.
Sets and reps of the kettlebell exercises were a minimum of 6x10 for swings and 3x5 for the others and a max of 10x10 for swings and 5x5 depending mainly on the week of my main compound lifts.
Reload as previously mentioned is a good program, I've made big gains on that when I first started doing barbell.
 
Hello,

What about something like Easy Strength, but performed 4 days a week (instead of 5 as per the book). This can be some sort of "baseline" for strength. On the top of it, one can add roughly what we want:

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
@Wlaw, welcome to the StrongFirst forum.

In addition to @Anna C's excellent suggestion of Reload, consider also the Faleev 5 x 5 program you can find in a Tim Ferriss blog interview with Pavel. I have been following that for several months for my SQ and BP. It's super simple and that is part of its appeal. And I've been making good, steady progress on it so I'm very pleased.

-S-
 
I really appreciate the advice from everyone here. I bought RELOAD last night and started reviewing. We read this week and develop the plan.

Thanks again!
 
@Wlaw, welcome to the StrongFirst forum.

In addition to @Anna C's excellent suggestion of Reload, consider also the Faleev 5 x 5 program you can find in a Tim Ferriss blog interview with Pavel. I have been following that for several months for my SQ and BP. It's super simple and that is part of its appeal. And I've been making good, steady progress on it so I'm very pleased.

-S-
Hi Steve, thank for this. I read the article. Super interesting. I am going to go with Reload but keeping this program as a reference for the future. Appreciated!
 
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