You’re prescribing percentages of maxes for the heavies and explosives. What weights for the assistance exercises? Also a percent? Max weight to complete 5x5 - i.e., failing on the 25th rep? Thanks.
[quote]deltaname wrote:
You’re prescribing percentages of maxes for the heavies and explosives. What weights for the assistance exercises? Also a percent? Max weight to complete 5x5 - i.e., failing on the 25th rep? Thanks.[/quote]
I give a rep range for the assistance exercises, for example 6-8 reps. Use the same weight for all your work sets (you can do 1 or 2 warm-ups). When you can do the top of the rep range (8 in my example) with the same weight, you add weight at the next workout. If you get something like 8,8,7,6 that’s fine but you stick with the same weight at the next session.
Just going to piggy back this bit quick question about the order of exercises.
So heavy bench day would look like for first week
- heavy bench - 80% 5setx4
- bench assistance - 2 sec pause bench 5x5
- Bench assistance - push press 4x6-8
- Squat explosive/technique - 80% 5x2
I’m just confused on if the explosive/technique is a different exercise type than the assistance exercises.
So like on heavy squat day I would do squats, 1 squat direct assistance (like 4 second down 4 second up) and another squat assistance like Anderson squats. Then for bench explosive I would just really focus on form of the bench?
I posted this in the live spill, re-posting here for those not checking the live spill…
Just some heads up for those that have been using singles and doubles only for a while…you may want to start out using 90% of your 1 RM as a training max. I found out the hard way that high bar squats and deadlifts go to hell using 5 and 6 rep sets when you aren’t used to that high of a rep range…of course, it could be just because I’m old (48), but I refuse to accept that.
[quote]cycloneforce wrote:
I posted this in the live spill, re-posting here for those not checking the live spill…
Just some heads up for those that have been using singles and doubles only for a while…you may want to start out using 90% of your 1 RM as a training max. I found out the hard way that high bar squats and deadlifts go to hell using 5 and 6 rep sets when you aren’t used to that high of a rep range…of course, it could be just because I’m old (48), but I refuse to accept that.[/quote]
Yes, there is difinetly something to that if you rarely went above 2-3 reps for a long while. HOWEVER 5 x 6 @ 80% is VERY VERY VERY demanding work. It’s normal if it’s tough, even to maybe not complete a set or two (in that case, if by rep 4 or 5 I know that the last 1-2 reps will not go up, I finish the set as a rest/pause… having a 10-15 second pause then finishing the set)
[quote]J_McQ wrote:
Just going to piggy back this bit quick question about the order of exercises.
So heavy bench day would look like for first week
- heavy bench - 80% 5setx4
- bench assistance - 2 sec pause bench 5x5
- Bench assistance - push press 4x6-8
- Squat explosive/technique - 80% 5x2
I’m just confused on if the explosive/technique is a different exercise type than the assistance exercises.
So like on heavy squat day I would do squats, 1 squat direct assistance (like 4 second down 4 second up) and another squat assistance like Anderson squats. Then for bench explosive I would just really focus on form of the bench?[/quote]
For the technique/explosive bench don’t do anything different for the bench, just bench normally focusing on pushing as hard as possible. I just prefer to use technique/speed day instead of “easy” day because words have power and if I say “easy day” some people will not focus properly on the sets. Compensate the relative ease of the loads by pushing harder/faster.
There is no assistance exercises for the bench on the technique/speed bench day and no squat assistance on the technique/speed squat day
Thank you for your reply Chris. Much appreciated!
Also the idea of the speed/technique day has already helped me immensely. Like you said, “relative ease of the loads”, I already see just simply doing 2 reps of this normally heavy weight as hard or perfect as possible has made the heavy day so much better. Specifically for my squat, wherein I used to lean a little forward on the way up, working the same heavy weight but really exploding out of the hole has just been awesome.
Thanks for this program!
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