Ken Leistner's way to train

Surfing the internet, I came across a great Philosophy of Dr. Ken Leistner. I have come across this name while reading Beyond Brawn.
Dr. Ken Leistner is a firm believer of Functional Strength, something used Strongmen of today’s sporting arena. So lifting logs, pulling chains, lumbar jacks, farmer’s walk, and many other activities. Not impressive, well when you look at the guys following this routine you see huge men, really huge.
He has also written and described bodybuilding and strength routines that can be incorporated by you and me for our routine gym lifts.
I am truly impressed with his philosophy of lifting and I would really want to incorporate his style of training. Dr. Ken Leistner, like Arthur Jones is a HIT advocate, and for me it is the most effective way to train.
In one of his articles he mentions the following routine:-
1. Squat 20 reps
2. Dips 12 reps
3. Rows 12 reps
4. BB curls 12 reps
5. Stiff-legged Deadlift 15 reps
6. shoulder Press 12 reps

All are single set exercises taken to momentary muscular failure. Many of us, even me for sometime wanted to train multiple sets without going to failure on any of the sets.

Well to say the least I was convinced as old timers like Reg Park and some great weight lifters have trained like that. These are the people who trained 2 to 3 hours a day. But if you consider us with our busy schedule, it is just not possible to devote so much time to this, unless you are a professional lifter or Bodybuilder. I obviously am not.

Dr. Ken Leistner also mentions that this is the hard way to train and people seldom want to train so hard. They prefer training long, but not hard. I like the HARD concept.

Reading further and understanding his philosophy has given me a new way of designing my programs. For a very long time, I have been thinking of doing a specialization of body parts, like the Shoulders, legs, chest, arms and other, obviously all cannot be undertaken at the same, as the body has only so much energy to deal with.

I have come across one article where he talks about the Power Look, and routine has also been mentioned about this. The routine is good, but I feel it is too taxing and can kill any gains that I can possibly get, if I follow a specialization routine.

To understand further I am going to use Ken’s philosophy and training style and use it to design my training routine. In the following Paragraphs whatever you read is going to be a specialization routine that I have designed by myself which I am going to incorporate and experiment on for the next three weeks starting tomorrow.

Shoulder Specialization – Monday
1. Shoulder Press à 1 set of 10- 12 reps. Rest 30 sec and do 50% of the 1st set’s reps. Again rest 30 sec and do 50% of 1st set.
2. Pulldowns à 1 set of 10-12 reps.
3. Lateral Raise à 8-10 reps. Same as Exercise No. 1.
4. Pulldowns à 1 set of reps.
5. Upright Rows à 8-10 reps. Same as Exercise No. 1.
6. Ab Crunches – Cross over crunches – Reverse Crunches. 3 sets with 15 sec gap.
7. Sprints or Run distance for 15 minutes.

This is a concept I see Ken using for the Leg Specialization. I have used a similar concept to specialize on the Shoulders. Three exercise to emphasize the shoulders. You would need to under train the rest of the body as this is a shoulder specialization, and maximum concentration for the next 3 weeks have to be the shoulders.

Wednesday – (Full body day)
1. Squat à 1 set of 90kg to failure. 10 reps.
2. Pullover à 15 kg X 15.
3. Bench Press à 60 Kg X Failure. 10 reps.
4. Rows à 60kg X Failure. 10 reps.
5. Deadlift à 90kgX Failure. 10 reps.
6. Sprints or Run distance for 10 to 15 minutes.

Shoulder Specialization day –Friday
1. Shoulder Press à 1 set of 10- 12 reps. Rest 30 sec and do 50% of the 1st set’s reps. Again rest 30 sec and do 50% of 1st set.
2. Pulldowns à 1 set of 10-12 reps.
3. Lateral Raise à 8-10 reps. Same as Exercise No. 1.
4. Pulldowns à 1 set of reps.
5. Upright Rows à 8-10 reps. Same as Exercise No. 1.
6. Ab Crunches – Cross over crunches – Reverse Crunches. 3 sets with 15 sec gap.
7. Sprints or Run distance for 15 minutes.

On the off days we can work on the Small muscle groups like the neck, forearms and calves. But I would recommend training and concentrating less on this as this might interfere in the development of the specialized body part.