Freestyle Training

 

Instinctive Mass-Building with Dave Draper’s “Freestyle” Workouts

     It’s usually called instinctive training. It’s often referred to as “auto-regulation” these days.  Dave Draper called it freestyle training.

     Draper, the “Blonde Bomber,” for those of you who don’t know, was a Golden Age bodybuilder of the highest caliber, but not necessarily just for his physique.  His physique was fantastic, don’t get me wrong (one of the best of that era), but Dave himself was a bit of an iconoclast.  He thought outside of the box, had some unique training perspectives, and was, to boot, a gifted writer.  It may have had something to do with the fact that he was a creative.

     Lifters and bodybuilders of all sorts train for all sorts of reasons.  For some, training is a creative expression they undertake for the same reasons that other artists take up particular crafts.  These training types often need free rein to play with a variety of training tactics and methods.  Draper was one of these.

     Here, I want to look at Draper’s freestyle training methodology—if it can even be called “methodology;” I’m sure some would balk at such an intimation—and some suggestions for ways to use it.

     If you’re no longer a beginning lifter, and if you’re stuck in a rut using a “set” program, this might be just the thing you need to get gaining again.

     First, let’s look at what Draper himself had to say about this form of training.  This is from an article that Draper wrote for Paul Graham’s Australian “Muscle and Fitness,” hence his references to Graham and Sydney.  (This magazine is not to be confused with Weider’s rag of the same name.)  Here is Draper in his own words:

     “For many years I was a slave to set routines. You know what I mean . . . the same body part the same days every week with the same exercises, same poundages, same sets, and same reps. All of this same-same-same finally got to me, because I'm not a ‘same’ person. 

     “While a few individuals might thrive on the regimentation of such set workouts, I don't think most of us can remain sane very long on such routines. We need freedom, the chance to play in our environment. And when most of us are subjected to such a regimented routine—to me it's almost like being in a prison— we begin to rebel by missing workouts. 

     “As a result of missed workouts, we don't make gains, and not making gains causes a lot of potentially good bodybuilders to drop out of the sport. I almost came to this point in my own life several years ago, and it scared me. All of my best friends had come from the sport, and I didn't want to lose them. I had to come up with a good solution to keep training. 

     “My solution to this problem was what I call a ‘free-style routine.’ 

    “Very simply put, I began to train for enjoyment, doing whatever I felt like each workout. It was like being suddenly set free to play in the forest! 

     “I immediately began enjoying training. 

     “In a short time I discovered that I was hitting bodyparts about the same number of times per week as before, and I was doing about as much work. 

     “But when a bodypart had been overworked or a joint was hurting, I'd work around it for that day. A couple of days later my body would tell me to work it again. 

     “I was working hard, enjoying it, and making some VERY good gains. The freestyle routine even gave me the freedom to train with someone else for a day or two if I felt the urge, and without any guilt about letting something of my own slide. In Sydney, as a result, I put in some very challenging morning workouts with Paul Graham. 

     “This never could have happened if I'd still been a slave to my old set type of routine. 

     “Because I'm on a freestyle routine, my workouts for certain bodyparts may or may not be the same from day to day or week to week. The leg routine may be different every time, chest the same for two weeks, delts changing every couple of workouts. Arms haven't changed much at all for the last few weeks before my trip to Sydney, nor while I was training there, simply because I was on to a great workout for them.”

     If you are interested in taking up this kind of training, and you think it would suit you, a couple of caveats are in order.  First, make sure that you don’t use “freestyling” as an excuse to do more work on bodyparts that don’t need more work and less work on bodyparts that need decidedly more.  As I wrote last year in a post on “instinctive training,” if your instinct is telling you to do more chest and biceps work than heavy leg and back work throughout the week, you have no business training in a freestyle manner; oh, and your “instincts” are most assuredly wrong.  But if you know that you won’t skimp on the hard stuff, and you’re already a regimented lifter, then, by all means, give this form of lifting a try.

     In many ways, it ties into strength coach Dan John’s take on “bus bench” and “park bench” training.  If you’re not familiar with the concept, here’s John:

     “Bus bench workouts: you’re expecting results—on time, like you’re hoping the bus will be.

     “Park bench workouts are an opportunity to explore and enjoy where you are training.

     “It’s a simple concept.  Like weights, benches have multiple uses.  If you’re waiting to get to work sitting on a bus bench, you don’t just hope, you demand that the bus be on time.  If it’s even a little late, it could ruin your day at work.

     “Park benches are built the same way, but when you sit in a park, you don’t expect or worry if Toby the squirrel comes by or not.  You sit back and enjoy the process.

     “My co-writer of ‘Fat Loss Happens on Monday,’ Josh Hillis, believes that almost universally, people need four months of bus-bench training each year, split into two-month periods—two two-month blocks of focused training each year.

     “The rest of the year should be park-bench workouts where the training goals are simply to train.  You could cross out 8 months a year and still follow a plan that could achieve just about any goal.”

     Freestyle workouts are most decidedly park bench training.

     What follows are some practical ways to apply this.

     Let’s say you follow a very regimented heavy-light-medium program in order to enter a powerlifting meet.  When preparing for a meet, you need bus-bench training.  You need to have a clear, fairly detailed training plan.  Now, let’s say that when the meet is over, you got excellent results from the training, but you want to follow something a little less controlled and orderly.  After the meet, stick with H/L/M training, but don’t worry about doing anything other than calculating your workload to make sure that the heavy day is really heavy, the light day is really light, and so forth.  Other than that, play around.  Do some different forms of squatting, benching, and pulling that you haven’t tried before.  Follow some different set/rep combos.  High reps.  Low reps.  Everything in between.  Doesn’t matter.

     Another good program to follow when freestylin’ it is the 3-to-5 method.  With 3-to-5 training, the only rules are: you train 3 to 5 days a week, you do 3 to 5 exercises for 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps.  You generally rest 3 to 5 minutes between sets.  But you can play around with full-body workouts, split workouts of all types, or even do the exact same movements at each session.  Maybe for two weeks, you do squat, benches, overhead presses, and power cleans for 3 sets of 3 reps, 3 days a week.  Then for the next couple weeks, you do different exercises at every single session, train 5 days a week, and do 5 sets of 5 on everything.  But you don’t know what you’re going to do.  You just show up.  And do what feels “right.”

     Maybe you’re on a push, pull, legs split.  You like the split, but you just don’t like the exact program that you’re on from an exercise, sets, and reps standpoint.  No problem.  Stick with the split but toy around at each session.  On one push day, maybe you do 10 sets of 10 reps on bench presses, military presses, and skull crushers.  At the next push day, you might do 3 exercises for each muscle for 3 sets of 3 reps each.  Your chest workout could be benches, incline dumbbell presses, and weighted dips all for 3 sets of 3 reps.  Similar stuff for the other muscles.  Then at the next push workout, you do a “HIT-style” session where you only do two sets for each muscle, but with plenty of “intensity techniques,” such as drop sets, forced reps, or whatever.  The point is to enjoy the training and to experiment.  Get creative.  Have fun.  Play around with different workouts you have wanted to try.

     Sometimes, it really is best, in Draper’s words, to be set free to play in the forest.