New Year, New Me

Ok I take it back. I hate the outlook of 'starting anew' because the majority of people who do it never change. However, I am not adhering to the usual paradigm of:

"I'm going to make sweeping changes, and revolutionise my outlook on life so I will stop feeling sorry for myself."

OR

"This last year has been fucking terrible, but I'm filled with motivation from the turning of the year. Surely this burning motivation will last the entire year and I will achieve all of my outlandish goals.."

OR

"I read The Secret and am convinced that if I stop being an asshole then I'll become rich and successful."

INSTEAD, I want to make some simple changes and tweak what I'm currently doing to improve upon myself. No ground breaking tips or out there principles, just manageable changes that are sustainable. After all, the brightest flame burns out fastest. This point is one borne from motivation, which I have found has not been at its strongest in the weight room over the past couple of months. Getting married, Heidi's first birthday and Christmas have been sources of amazing life-affirming joy as well as a lot of tired days and nights. So I'm taking this opportunity to make a few handy changes to what I'm doing to properly align with my new year's goals:

1) Get stronger while actually gaining mass: I keep running into people who are bigger than me, yet I am much stronger. If we're not in the weight room, 10/10 people would pick me as the weak piece of shit. I want that to change while still putting focus on strength. 

2) Accept that I want more mass: I've battled with the 'glory of strength' for so long, but it's only recently that I've realised that I don't care about benching 120kg if my chest looks like a chicken's. This needs to change and so I'll be changing my training style to suit. 

3) Get my lower body strong as shit: I don't care about big legs or developed hamstrings, I just want to jump high and have a strong posterior chain. Don't ask me why, but I believe it has something to do with my lingering manliness complex (thanks Jack Trifaro).

To get to these goals I need to change my training, so I'm going to be doing an Upper/Lower split which will look like this:

UPPER

OHP 3x5 (Strength)

Chin ups 3x5 (Strength)

DB Bench 3x8-10 (Size)

BB Rows 3x8-10 (Size)

Incline Bench 3x8-10 (Size)

Curlz (Size)

LOWER

Squat 3x5 (Strength)

Deadlift 3x3 (Strength)

Front Squat 3x5 (Strength)

The movements I have labelled as strength will be done the same as I usually train, with a focus on being tight, explosive and powerful. However, the movements labelled size will be the opposite, with slow tempos, smooth reps and slow eccentrics to give those muscle groups some extra size and mix up my training. The order of exercises will change to find out which order works best for me, but from yesterday's workout it seems that doing OHP and chin ups first works best. I'll be aiming to work out 3-4 times per week, and hopefully soon will be reaping the rewards. 

LET'S DO THIS