Having attended a powerlifting workshop featuring two world champion powerlifters - a friend and I decided to become training partners once a week for the three basic lifts.
To me, as a strength foundation to support my bodybuilding training (one day of full body HIT a week + additional accessory training).
What advice re training strategies/routine do you recommend? I am aware that powerlifting once weekly is a disadvantage, but I’m only looking for slow, steady strength progression in the basic lifts alongside perfecting the technique.
I’m not sure how well 1x a week is going to work as squats and deads will certainly interfere with one another, but 5/3/1 has worked well for me so far.
Not to throw your plan off, but have you seen the 5/3/1 plus doggcrapp template? That seems to scratch both itches.
In any case, I think you have quite an few options.
Three lifts in a day is stressful, and this will be more about quality reps than getting to failure.
One option I would like is the strength-skill approach CT writes about. You’d work at ~80% of your max for each lift and do 5 sets of 3, next week it’s 5 x 4, then 5 x 5. Then you increase weights and roll again.
A similar plan would be the above but using some of the lower rep wave methods.
If it was me, and I was practicing these lifts, I’d also consider making it a “position” day. So I’d work up to one heavy, technically sound, set of 2-3 for each lift, plus 2 back-off sets of 3-5. Then I’d pick one “position” lift for each at my weak point (so like paused squats) and do 3 x 5. I’d want this to be lighter than my main lift, so it’s not going to be like high pin presses.
As you get going and you find your opportunities (like maybe you can’t power through a sticking point, so we would do some explosive work), you’d probably want to revisit. I’d definitely treat it as practice for 6-9 weeks though.
My $0.02 as someone that has never competed in that sport and isn’t that strong on the lifts just in the gym.
I typed a whole thing out talking about where I get most complimented, how people do 3 different lat raise variations whilst I don’t do any and am still wider than them but…
…all I really want to say is OHP rocks. Not just for the shoulders but also for upper back. It’s a top 3 exercise for me (yes ahead of the bench).
You’re way ahead of me in development, but there’s something primal I love about the standing OHP. I only started doing seated DB presses a few months ago (after doing OHP 2x week for the longest time). I love them right now but I can imagine them being a right ballache when the weight gets heavier.
I should also add that I loved the stability required on the standing OHP. I’m sure it carries over to other lifts and gives me another bad excuse to skip abs. cough
Overhead press is not a “powerlift.” So dude probably isn’t going to work it on the 1 day a week he and his powerlift partner are working on the competition lifts.
As for squats and deadlifts interfering with each other, just remember you don’t need to hit each lift with the same volume and intensity each workout.
Some guys just do less deadlifts than squats, overall. Like 20 or 25 squats in a workout and just 10-12 deadlifts.
Some guys alternate, training squat one week and deadlift the next week.
Or one week squat “heavy” first and deadlift “light” after. Then the next workout is deadlift “heavy” first followed by squat “light” after.
I agree with TrainforPain about a bunch of low reps sets, not to failure, being a good way to practice and perfect the big lifts. Especially if you’re doing HIT stuff another day.
Thanks for all the good advice, guys! I will probably go for the alternating low rep route not til failure. CT:s progression looks interesting and uncomplicated. Speaking of failure - it seems the great powerlifters only go to failure on the day of the meet?
Quite possibly add some cluster sets later on. Re OHP I think the combination of the three lifts on one training day will be enough - and I have opportunities to elaborate on shoulders the other days of accessory work.
I wonder why if it is so beneficial for muscle development almost all bodybuilders for decades don’t do standard OHP. I don’t believe it’s because it’s hard for them. In my opinion, machine presses lead to a better result for the muscular development of the shoulders. This thesis was also supported by a respected author and trainer who no longer writes articles on the forum.
When I reached (to me) heavier weights on OHP, I started getting problems from one shoulder, that I was unable to get rid of - no matter what ergonomically or technical adjustments I did.
Shifting to the machine OHP solved the issues, with further development in strength as a result.
Probably a case of me not really qualifying for the barbell OHP, due to physionomy or underlying subtle instability issues.
I’m not saying that the OHP isn’t useful for strength and many other things. I’m saying that mainly for building shoulder muscles, machines probably work better. And I think that’s because the OHP involves a lot of other body parts that have to balance the weight, so you can’t put as much weight on the shoulders as you would on a machine. And I don’t see any other reason why bodybuilders shouldn’t do OHP. Many of them don’t even do a standard Barbell Bench Press.
I’m not talking about Jim of course.
I thnk (and I’m pretty sure we’re aligned) it’s a cost/ benefit thing. If you’re going to do 3-5 exercises for shoulders, barbell OHP takes more than it gives… not to mention you’re then likely already doing a lot of pushing exercises for other bodyparts, so you’re going to be more generally beat up in the shoulders/ elbows.
If, on the other hand, you’re only going to do one main movement and maybe another accessory or two, the barbell OHP gives you more bang for your buck.
All the pioneers of bodybuilding used to overhead press, and I’d imagine many of the top guys now may have used it earlier on in their training years. There is a risk for the lower back with overhead pressing movements and bodybuilders are not interested in training their core stability when compared to other athletes so there are much better options to target the delts. There’s also the element of them being easy to cheat on which doesn’t favor the targetted muscle group.
Another important point is the fragility of the shoulder joint. Lots of people fear the OHP for that reason, especially if they’ve had troubles in the past. Of course then there’s the neural cost and fitting it in amongst all your other compound pressing exercises. None of this means you can’t get killer shoulders with the OHP. The history is there for all to see.