The Arttu Winter 2013 Strength Cycle

I'm following Arttu's strength cycle to the letter, doing no other work in the gym. I'll go in the gym, do the menu, and get out to rest/recover. The only other things I'll do myself is mobilise before, stretch after, eat clean and sleep well. I've no idea what he has in store, and that's the best way if I'm going to follow blindly. All I know is that we'll do it until Christmas, then test maxes again.

Pre Cycle (3 weeks)
Before we start focusing on increasing strength, I want to know your strength goals, where are you looking to be at and what kind of weights you wanna be throwing up? Also what is your biggest weakness (as in what is your weakest lift)?

Let's spend the next few weeks finding your PR's on all the big lifts and movements.

Back squat, front squat, deadlift, clean, snatch, OHS, press, bench, weighted dips and chins. I want these spread in to a span of 2 weeks or even 3 weeks, I want you to wake up in the morning and have the feeling that today I can lift some heavy sh*t! You have to be physically and mentally ready when hitting your 1 rep maxes. Once we find your 1 rep maxes then will start to focus on increasing those numbers and attacking your weaker points. The way I want you to divide them (whatever day you start on): Day 1: Back squat Day 2: Snatch Day 3: Clean Day 4: Deadlift & Bench Day 5: OHS Day 6: Press Day 7: Front squat Day 8: Weighted chins and dips This does not mean to go 8 days straight I want you to have at least 1 rest day in between. Result

Day 1: Back squat 110kg Day 2: Snatch 73kg Day 3: Clean 92kg Day 4: Deadlift 145kg & Bench 88kg Day 5: OHS 95kg Day 6: Press 62kg Day 7: Front squat 92kg Day 8: Weighted pull-up 26kg and weighted dip 40kg

Week 1
Plan is to take the 1RM numbers found in the 3 week pre-cycle and work on building lifts at 85% of that. Increasing numbers until 10 reps at 85% of pre-cycle 1RM is accomplished.

Irrelevant to the strength goal, but so as not to lose all cardiovascular ability. There will be short, 4-8min met-cons thrown in.

Day 1: 3 Pos Clean 70%/75%/78%/78%, 3-3-3-3 Jerk 3-3-3 FS
Day 2: Hang Pwr Snatch 55%/65%/75%, Snatch Pull 80/85/90, OHS 3x5, Snatch Press 4x5
Day 3: Clean 55%/65/75/85, Spl Jrk 75/80/85, Clean Dead 80/85/90, HPwr clean 5x10
Day 4: 20 min met-con

Week 2

Day 1: Hng Sq Snatch 65%~85%, Hang Sq Clean, BS 80%~90%
Day 2: Pwr CL/FS 65~85%, Clean Dead 5x3, Spl Jrk 65~85%
Day 3: Pwr Sn+3OHS 55~65%, Cl Hi Pull 3x2, Sn Pu-press 3x3, BS 90% 1x5

Week 3

Day 1: Sn Pull + Sn Hi Pull + Pwr Sn 55~65%, Pwr Sn x2x4, Sn Dead 3x3, BS 70~90%x2
Day 2: Long Met-con
Day 3: Cl+2 jerk 65~75%, FS 85% 2x5, Good Mornings 30%(BS) 8x4
Day 4: Long Met-con
Day 5: Pwr Sn 75% 1x8, Pwr Cl 75% 1x8, OHS 65~75% 3x4, Bent O Rows 40%(dead) 4x4

Week 4 - deload week
Plan this week is to not go above 55% of maxes and to do all eccentric movements fast. fast out of the hole, fast bar movement off shoulders etc.
Day 1: Push Press 55%, Met-con Day 2: 3 Pos clean 55%, Push Jerk 55%, FS 55%, Met-con Day 3: 3 Pos snatch 55%, Snatch Pull 55%, OHS 55%

Donnie Shankle Seminar Lifting

Day 1: Snatch 69kg Day 2: Clean & Jerk 83kg PR

Week 5

Day 1: Snatch, C&J, back extensions 5x10 Day 2: Snatch, OHS 1RM, Good Morning 4x10 Day 3: Snatch, C&J, BS, Snatch Dead


UPDATE

It was a massive undertaking to write all exercises and weights and sets on here as well as on my BTWB page.

All together this cycle lasted for 3 weeks pre-cycle and then 13 weeks, here are the results.

Results

Back squat 114kg Snatch 74kg Clean 97kg Deadlift 145kg & Bench 88kg OHS 101kg Press 62kg Front squat 102kg Weighted pull-up 26kg and weighted dip 38kg

Gains

Back squat 4kg Snatch 1kg Clean 5kg Deadlift untested & Bench untested OHS 6kg Press -3kg Front squat 10kg Weighted pull-up untested and weighted dip -2kg