I’m Back ! Arnold after last weeks Emergency Heart Surgery .
I digress .
Since Labor Day of last year , I have done a Single Dead , Bench and Squat at 90% of my 1 RM every Morning monday through saturday with sunday off. The next monday , I add 2# to the Squat and Dead , and 1# to my bench .
This is with NO Warm-UP . Just myself and the bar .
I have never failed to make the lift .
I am wondering if anyone has ever attempted this .
Wondering how long i can keep making progress.
This is all based on Pouliquins maxim of Adaptation every 6 training days., and Louie’s maxim that you should be able to hit 90% of 1RM without any warm up .
Any Insight T-nationers ???
Thanks as always .
Currently 51 y/o , 6’1 , 203# : Max 385 atg , 225 , 475 .
Do you have a link (or rather, what do I google?) to the article?
Do you sell ARXfit machines?
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One Source : Neuromuscular adaptations to strength training – Human Kinetics
Also , came across similar information in Super Training / Siff , Dr. Verkhoshansky .
There was another guy on here telling people that warming up is a waste of time and that he had a massive 410lb deadlift but then it turned out he was selling some kind of fancy isokinetic machines and his 410 pull was done on one of them.
So you really just load 90% on the bar and do a single, that’s it? I wouldn’t want to do that myself, there is a higher risk of injury and I know from experience that if I’m not properly warmed up then I can’t lift as much.
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Keep it up. PT’s, and chiros need to pay their mortgages.
Don’t forget funeral homes.
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I mean, I don’t like cleaning up my weights as much as the next guy but damn.
Its another example of a big name pushing a stupid program. I don’t care what Poliquin’s credentials are, how many elites has he produced with this system
Does Poliquin even recommend doing this? I just searched “Charles Poliquin no warm up” and found a bunch of articles about warming up, none say to skip the warmup.
Has your doctor okayed this heavy lifting? Don’t try and be smart by avoiding extended lifting - your blood pressure and heart rate will be impacted at this intensity even if it’s just 3 single lifts (even if 10 minutes apart)
Anyway, 90% of these is about the maximum I’d want to walk upto and lift cold if I had to.
You’re probabaly now at the point where risk of injury is starting to become more likely.
This is also the point where your joints will begin to complain after some months for missing the warm up.
You’re also likely leaving some training benefit behind (missing both volume and extra intensity)
Let us know how it goes (mainly so we know you haven’t died)
PS. That last bit is not a joke.
Check the T-Nation obituary section.
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This is the part that I’m wondering about. I know that Louie said that you should be able to get out of bed at 3am and lift your opener, but he never said it should be 90% or that you shouldn’t warm up for it - all it means is that you shouldn’t open too heavy. Have you ever seen Chuck Vogelpohl or Dave Hoff squat 1000 with no warmup? Also, Louie said that if you train the same lift at 90%+ for more than three weeks then you will get weaker, did you consider that part?
What is this adaptation every 6 days? I can’t find anything on it.
I like Louie’s personality. I hate his training advice.
Also Louie has his guys open LIGHT and take a big second attempt which was the way it was done in the old days. I remember reading somewhere that he said you should be able to deadlift 70% of you max cold.
The problem with reading Louie is trying to weed through all the contradictory advice over the years. The man is a moving target. His shit WORKS though.
The caveats are that your technique needs to be dialed in pretty tight and your base of strength needs to be be SOLID. Also the percentages of DE work will need to be tailored to the individual’s bar speed. Don’t just follow his recommendations on bar speed.
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I think it also depends how technically proficient you are in the lifts, and as a result what you are calculating 90% of.
When I first started benching Powerlifter style, my ‘max’ was 140ish, I got that up to 165kg in just over a month. Did I actually get that much stronger? No. I simply improved my proficency at the lift and was able to actually display what my true 1RM is.
If I was calculating 90% of my low proficiency 1RM, that would be 126, which is actually only 76% of my actual 1rm, something I could probably go in and bench for a single, with no warmup, day after day. But there’s no way I could confidently pop out a 150kg single cold
Excellent point about DE percentages. Louies numbers are guidelines. 5% or even 10% lighter works well too.
Dude has been writing articles for over 25 years now. If you read a 1998 one and a 2016, there have been changes. But the Westside Barbell Podcasts are current and awesome. You can listen and learn how things evolved, and why they changed.
I don’t believe you need a base of strength, or great technique before starting. The whole point of the system is to build a base, build strength and refine technique. You don’t need any of that stuff to start. The whole program is those things. The program is a great way to develop them.
Anyway, Back on Track
Dirks system seems more “Bulgarian” than Westside. Heavy every day. Louie says 72 hours between strenuous lower body workouts, and alternate Heavy and Fast workouts. Bulgarian says push hard every day.
I don’t see why you would do it any other way, my openers have always been slightly under 90%.