WB Archives 20180105: Rest Day - The workout After That

Being back at the gym this week has been wonderful. Just the feeling of the weight in my hands, the strain on my muscles, the sweat, the pump, the endorphins….hell, I feel like I am 10 years younger after just a week of a ramp up program. It is like waking up from a deep sleep.
There is a problem though: this Sunday is the dreaded day of rest. Now rest day is just about the craziest thing because a lot of people take rest day as the day to totally explode everything they worked for and be a lazy sloth and fill themselves with terrible food. I am going to propose a new protocol for rest day. Rest day will now become the The Workout After That (TWAT day). After you are done with all the workouts you enjoy like your big compound movements and your isolation exercises, which pump and define your muscles, it is time for something different. Forget leg day, back and chest day and shoulder and arm day. All of that will seem like fun compared to TWAT day.
So what is the workout after that? Well, this is a subjective thing. TWAT day is a day to do a circuit of your three worst movements. Arnold invented the Arnold Press (yes, I am aware that there are claims otherwise that are probably true) and the reason he invented it was simple.
He says that his traps were one of his weakest parts and because of this he tended to avoid working them. So in order to build up his weakest area he created a lift which specifically targeted it. Avoiding working his traps means he grew stronger in other areas and the traps looked even smaller. Arnold realized that being weak in something doesn’t mean you avoid it. Quite the contrary. If you are weak at something, you pound the fuck out of it until it is your strongest attribute.

Not a valid option for rest day

I got to thinking this this week when I realized that my plank is just freaking atrocious. I mean I was shaking like an epileptic crack head with Parkinson’s after minute one (the planking world record as seen in the featured picture is four hours and twenty six minutes). After that, I began thinking about which other things I am not too good at. The overhead press for instance. Man that is a humbling lift. I don’t know if you guys have the same issue, but overhead press with strict form (knees locked out) makes me feel like a rank amateur. Finally, power clean & snatch. I was working on this two summers ago when went a little too fast on the snatch and went straight back. Nothing hurt except my ego, but I never did the lift again.

So this Sunday, TWAT day, I decided to take my 3 worst/least favorite moves and do 5 massive volume giant sets with them (followed by my daily cardio).


I will follow this order and rep range

OH Press 12,12,12,12,12
X
Plank 1min, 1:30min, 1min, 1:30min, 1 min
X
Power Clean and Snatch 8,8,8,8,8

Because TWAT day is a rest day I will be looking for an RPE at around 7-8 rather than the normal 9-10 looking for failure so my weights will be on the light side.

Let me know below what your weakest or least favorite lifts are and if you are willing to humble yourself with the TWAT and see if you can improve!