[LeanMachine]

Hey guys,

My senior year of high school is just winding down and I'm finishing it off with a nice dose of vanity in the form of a chest specialization routine. I've made a lot of progress this year, gaining 10 pounds of muscle (I assume because I can still see my abs well), and increasing all my big lifts by a moderate amount of weight. Most importantly, I've learned how to get my diet and supplement timing down almost perfectly. And most importantly, I can do the pec dance to the beat of "Boy Looka Here" by Rich Boy.

So now I'm wondering about my routine both over the summer and into my first year of college. I'm going to be in Thailand most of the summer, doing some kickboxing in Bangkok and then some service work in the north. I'll have access to some barbells and dumbbells on those old school benches, but not much else. I'll be kickboxing twice a day too, but I'll be able to get in some work at the gym a few times a week. I plan on just doing a full body routine of:

squats
deadlifts
bench press
bentover row
clean and press
pullups

3 or 4 sets of 6 to 8 reps each. heavy, of course.

So, now I'm not sure what to do once I'm back in the US. I'm thinking about doing a strength program the first half of the year, and then moving to a more size oriented routine. The logic is that by getting stronger first, I'll be able to hit my muscles that much harder when I do the size routine and I'll grow more in the long run. I'm not sure how to go about making a strength routine, besides low reps and long rests and big compounds.

Any advice?

[crazytomie]

Sounds good mate, mix it up abit, as long as ur doing something. You sound young as your just coming outa skool, so try eveything u hear till you find wat works for you. Do a farmers walk upstairs i find this helps finsh off your legs, or around the car park lunges like good old ronnie. Good old military press is another one you can add to your list. Dont go to low in the reps all the time, try to stick to the 8-10 range. But is about the form and sqeeze from the exercises, which is where i find my best results. But hey thats me, wats works for you. Good luck with the kick boxing. Hope i helped a little.

[ZiR RED]

You may want to lower the sets while you're in thailand. Kickboxing twice a day is going to place enough stress on your recovery, be careful not to over do it with a crazy workload. I would incorporate some form of undulating periodization into your lifting. 4-6 reps on some exercises, 6-8 on others, 10-12 on the rest. Then rotate these every few sessions.

Br

[Shwitt88]

a lot of it depends on what your goals are. with martial arts like muay thai you really dont want to get too big cause your muscle will get in the way, not saying that you dont want to get bigger. like zir red said, thai practice 2x a day will put a big stress on your body(im tired after one practice).

also, if you are planning on fighting in the future, your weight training is more dependent on your wieght class... so ive been told. if youre gonna fight around your current weight, 160, you need to be focus a lot on your quickness. if youre gonna fight at a higher weight, 185+, you need to be able to muscle your opponent around the ring more, in the clinch for example.

im no expert on this topic but this is what ive gathered from one of my kru when i trained(he trained in thailand too).

main thing is training for martial arts is gonna be different than training for a body builder. id say to listen to your kru in thailand because theyll be the most knowledgeable on how you should train.

good luck in thailand though bro, thats a hell of an opportunity.

[ZackKnight]

Everybody answered it really well, but I'm gonna just throw in a thing i noticed

you want strength first and size later.

Size
Comes
With
Strength

[LeanMachine]

Im sorry I didn't specify this before... the kickboxing is mostly for fun, I don't plan on competing and its just a great thing I like to do in Thailand (I go over there a lot, its fun to train with professionals but I don't plan on becoming one myself). In the long run, I want to honestly just get bigger, even if it might mess with my kickboxing.

Thanks ZiR RED, I'll do that. I was a little worried about overtraining. Plus... protein isn't so easy to get and lots and lots of rice isn't optimal.

What kind of routine would you guys suggest to get stronger? I don't know much specific about strength training. I was thinking about a powerlifting routine, focusing on the three big lifts of course. I'm not sure about specific techniques used for strength training either (bands? explosive days? negatives?).

[ZackKnight]

if ur going for more of powerlifting type workout and want to add strength try this:

week1- heavy til failure
week2- speed week- use resistance bands and about 65% of ur 1RM and pause at the bottom and explode. keep the rep range btw about 6 to 8.
week3- light workout for endurance
week4- definitions workout
week5- MAX OUT and then after that heavy til failure. the cycle starts all over again