Agreed.
And just as an update on the āAlpha Conditioningā
The weight I used for bench and got 21 reps with last week over 5 sets, I got 25 for this week AFTER the conditioning (Burpee pull ups and broad jump superset done for 10,8,6,4,2)
So anyone hesitant about it, there is my offer of an example of it working from one week to the next.
Alpha,
My question is, when ramping up on your working sets do you make sure to always stay above 70% of 1 rep max or so as to induce a training effect or do you just ramp up starting with what feels right to you?
Also i am looking to program daily undulating periodization. I think I read that you did this something like this not too long ago. Do you have any tips/suggestions? I train 4 day upper/lower right now.
I was thinking of doing something likeā¦
Day 1 4-5x10 (upper body) (not sure if Iām gonna utilize this rep range yet)
Day 2 4x8 (lower body)
Day 3 5x5 (upper body)
Day 4 3x3 (lower body,i also read what you just wrote about 8x3 and 10x3 so maybe i might do that but it then would be more volume than the 5x5. i did that set up for weighted chins years ago and it worked well)
the next week the sets/reps get rotated. You stated that you like to stay in a phase for about 4 weeks or so.
Thanks bro.
Animalmother, not sure if youāre familiar with Mike Zourdos, he does some work with Tuscherer, and is a big proponent of daily undulating periodization.
I found this spreadsheet online that someone made for how to run DUP for bench, squat, deadlift.
Itās from his dissertation. I made two modifications. The deadlift only had a strength day, and didnāt have anything on hypertrophy or power days. So I added rack pulls to hypertrophy day, and cleans to power days, and just kept the loads the same as the bench and squat, except for the clean, I made that 50% of deadlift, and adjusted the percentage from there. Iām sure you could just fill it in with other exercises if you desired, eg snatch, good mornings, incline press, etc.
I donāt know if itās any good or not, but I like excel for playing around with numbers.
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
Animalmother, not sure if youāre familiar with Mike Zourdos, he does some work with Tuscherer, and is a big proponent of daily undulating periodization.
I found this spreadsheet online that someone made for how to run DUP for bench, squat, deadlift.
Itās from his dissertation. I made two modifications. The deadlift only had a strength day, and didnāt have anything on hypertrophy or power days. So I added rack pulls to hypertrophy day, and cleans to power days, and just kept the loads the same as the bench and squat, except for the clean, I made that 50% of deadlift, and adjusted the percentage from there. Iām sure you could just fill it in with other exercises if you desired, eg snatch, good mornings, incline press, etc.
I donāt know if itās any good or not, but I like excel for playing around with numbers.[/quote]
thanks man.
Roran: That is what i am here for brother, I am just happy to have the questions!
Barbedwired: That is great man, glad you are liking it.
Lonnie123: That is awesome brother! I am so glad that it is working out for you! And I know your opinion holds a lot of weight, so i appreciate you sharing it on here!
MattyG: Good call on what you wrote brother, and I got your email, I plan to respond just as soon as I am done on here.
Animal mother: Yep, MattyG hit it on the headā¦ that guy is the brain power behind DUP. Just search him on youtube and you can get a lot of free info on how he programs it. If you want to know how I structured it to better fit my needs as well as strongman and conditioning, I wrote an article about it here: www.neversate.com/wrath/2014/12/19/new-strength-programming - you can also check out my daily workout programs from those dates and you will find about 2 months worth of workouts and how each day was specifically laid out.
I would stay with the DUP for at least 8 weeks to really give it a fair run and see where you end up. With what you laid out, you may even want to run it a little bit longer than that, but I am no expert in DUP so I would refer to the founder for more info. I can tell you that I found it easier to run (with my 4 main movements being Dead, Bench, squat, OHP) the same percentages on day 1 as day 4. So my dead percentages would be the same as the OHP. I did the same thing with cube and it seemed to workout easier for me because of all of the added conditioning and strongman stuff. I hope that makes sense. But this is also why I always say that I am taking āprincipalsā from those programs and not running the actual programs themselves. If they didnāt work for me, then I would blame myself rather than the founderās actual program because I didnāt run it the way they intended. For most people I would tell them to run a program EXACTLY as it is written. But for me having so many different goals, I have to mess with stuff a lotā¦
As far as what you asked about ramping sets, well i try to stay away from percentages when running those types of workouts and try to self-regulate more. I will do my warm-up sets prior to my work sets and do not include them in the prescribed working sets. But I would stay that starting around 70% of your 3RM would be a fair guess. The important thing is to add at least a little bit of weight to each set each week for more linear progression.
I hope that helps you out a little bit man!
Wow, thanks for the answer. I left the question open ended since I wasnāt sure what you meant.
I really appreciate that you did take all those turns in the answer, since it brings up a number of things I hadnāt really considered in my own training. Itās actually really helpful to see the thought process behind your current training methods. Some of those paths Iāve taken, but most of them I havenāt. Iāll definitely be borrowing some of those ideas down the road.
So from a programming standpoint, this is basically the core of it? ā4x8 for 5 weeks, 5x5 for 5 weeks and 10x3 for 5 weeks then taking the next few weeks to try and set new PRsā
How do you structure your lifts over the week? Iāve been reading, but havenāt really tried to break things down and understand how itās laid out.
LoRez: āSo from a programming standpoint, this is basically the core of it? ā4x8 for 5 weeks, 5x5 for 5 weeks and 10x3 for 5 weeks then taking the next few weeks to try and set new PRsāā Yep, thatās part of my year right there. If it seems to be working I will start back over with heavier weights at the beginning.
As far as how I set up my exercises throughout the week, each session has 2 giant sets, one that is built around 1 or 2 main strength movements for the day and an accessory giant set based off of a different movement. I try to keep all of my main accessory movements close to the actual exercise is it supposed to be supporting and I always keep them heavy. For me personally, I find that light weight accessory stuff doesnāt seem to help me out much other than feeling like I put more work in.
My exercise set-up is usually something like this:
Day 1: Conventional Deadlifts & Flat Bench Press (Main), Double Paused Deadlifts (Accessory)
Day 2: Squats & Barbell Overhead Press [usually strict] (Main), Pause Squats & Z Presses (Accessory)
Day 3: Farmerās Walk Handle Deadlifts & Log Incline Bench Press (Main), Floor Presses (Accessory)
Day 4: Front Squats & Strongman OHP [Log or Axle] (Main), Paused Front Squats (Accessory)
That is just a rough idea of what I try to build most of the workouts around. I lay it out in a little more detail here: neversate.com/wrath/2015/1/31/new-programming-for-february . Hopefully this will give you a little bit better of an idea of where I am headed with these ideas. Thanks for asking brother!
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āAlways be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.ā --Judy Garland
āI used to walk down the street like I was a starā¦ I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be - and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth.ā --Lady Gaga
SUNDAY, 22FEBRUARY2015 - Work For Today
CONDITIONING - Snow. Lots of Shoveling snow.
STRENGHT
After my last Squat session, when I woke up the next day (and every day since), when I extend my hips forward I have been getting a really bad pain in my lower abdominal area and it has felt like someone have been putting pressure on my left nutā¦Not cool. I have been a little bit worried that it could be some sort of hernia so I have been a little bit worried and leery about lifting heavy. Then today I headed to the gym and figured that it would either get worse with lifting heavy stuff or stay the same. So I lifted heavy.
2" Axle Deadlifts:
135 Warm-up
225 Warm-up
315 Warm-up
405 Warn-up
500 - Beltless (because I forgot to put it on)ā¦Still no pain in the groin area but the rep felt very heavy on my gripā¦I thought I was almost topped out for the day.
550 - Actually felt easier than 500ā¦
585 - Best rep of the day. Grip felt strong and it was relatively fast (it in the vid below)
605 - (PR). The way 500 felt today, i would have never guessed this would happen. you can see in the vid that I put it down very quickly, that is because it was slipping out of my left hand. You can kind of see me bending my left arm (not smart) trying to hold onto it. It wasnāt locked out for long, but Iām still counting it as an axle PR. Pretty stoked about it.
Then I moved onto Farmerās Handle Deadlifts to see if they would aggravate the groin area.
410
510
590
690
730ā¦I stopped here because things were moving very slowly and I kinda wanna see what happens with the pain tomorrow morning. It feels pretty good right now though. Better than when I left for the gym, but then again nothing hurts that much at the end of a session. Time will tell.
Here is a vid of the 585 & 605 Axle Dead from today and I threw in a 615 squat from last week. Thanks for reading everyone!
Man, thatās an awesome pull!
I taking a closer look to your squat and I think Iām seeing some slight rotation of your hips to the side, I think left. Take a closer look, perhaps Iām wrongā¦
Hope youāll feel better bro.
Alpha.
I know youāre a big fan of 10x3 and 8x3 etc. If you personally were to program a 5x3 or 3x3 how do you think that would effect your results. Since itās lower volume I would imagine that you would get less muscle growth but how do you think it would effect your pure strength gains? Thanks.
Been a while since I have checked in and looks like you are still smashing it! Those are some good numbers for the Axle Deadlift.
Really started getting into a programme strongly influenced by yours with conditioning followed by strength work then giant sets. Still probably need some work on getting the exercise choice and reps right on the giant sets, but feel I am close to new PRs on both squats and deadlift.
Will definitely follow more regularly again for both motivation and to learn.
Not alpha - but when I ran 10x3 I got some insight from Alpha.
You could literally run a 3x3 or 5x3 within a 10x3 setā¦
Use the first couple sets to ladder up to your desired static 3x3, then use remaining sets to ladder down.
Ex.
Sets 1-5 ladder up 10-20 Pounds each or w.e works.
Sets 6/7/8 static desired weight for the 3x3
Sets 8-10 ladder down back off sets
I realize all your lifts are impressive, but your Axle Deadlift PR videos always leave me shaking my head. I showed that lift to my girlfriend, and she had the exact same reaction as I did. Nice work.
Oh, I also ran across a lift you might find interesting. This may be where the idea for the Z Press originated. There was an article by John Grimek called āImprove Your Pressā, published 1946.
Basically a seated press with no back support or foot support.
[quote]ANIMAL M0THER wrote:
Alpha.
I know youāre a big fan of 10x3 and 8x3 etc. If you personally were to program a 5x3 or 3x3 how do you think that would effect your results. Since itās lower volume I would imagine that you would get less muscle growth but how do you think it would effect your pure strength gains? Thanks.[/quote]
I canāt answer to your question but as far as I can see and heās working within the 10 sets by feel so basically he is building up to a 3 rep top set and then backing down by feel, thatās why itās hard for me to follow very detailed and small progress besides the weights being used, at least when itās written in this manner.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
I realize all your lifts are impressive, but your Axle Deadlift PR videos always leave me shaking my head. I showed that lift to my girlfriend, and she had the exact same reaction as I did. Nice work.
Oh, I also ran across a lift you might find interesting. This may be where the idea for the Z Press originated. There was an article by John Grimek called āImprove Your Pressā, published 1946.
Basically a seated press with no back support or foot support.[/quote]
I like to press seated much better this way. That way the seated press doesnāt become an incline press.
I read that a while ago on the site The Tight Ten Slacks of Dezso Ban. There is there tons of great old school info.
Regev: Yea man, I was having some pain in my left side and you can definitely tell I was favoring it in that video. Good eye man.
AnimalMother: Well, I think if you are just looking for strength gains and your form is dialed in pretty tight then I think it would be just fine. I would just make my last set my top (heaviest) set and omit the back off sets. Thanks for asking!
IronWarrior: Great to hear from you man! And that is awesome about the programming and PRs! If I can help you in any way, do not hesitate to ask!
Barbedwired: Spot on advice brother!
LoRez: Thank you so much for the kind words man, I donāt think anyone really know how hard a heavy axle is to hold onto until they have tried it. (And I know you have, so thank you) Funny you should mention the Z Press, I did those today and even got a vid of a set (below). And that exercise sounds awesome, I will literally try anything to up my overhead press! Thanks for the tip boss
Regev: I will have to check out that info, thanks man!
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āItās a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.ā --Richard Yates
āThe only sin is mediocrity.ā --Martha Graham
MONDAY, 23FEBRUARY2015 - Work For Today
CONDITIONING
At the top of every minute for 12 Minutes
3 Burpee Pull-Ups
3 Hanstand Push-Ups
12 Squats
**Still having trouble with the groin issue I talked about yesterday so things looked a little bit different today.
STRENGTH GIANT SET
Double Pause Deadlifts: 500x5, 500x5, 500x5, 500x5
Sled Rows: 350x10, 440x10, 500x10, 530x10 (Vid)
Log Incline Bench Press: 245x5, 335x3, 365x1, 385x1 (Vid)
Dragon Flags: 10, 10, 10, 10
ACCESSORY GIANT SET
āZā Presses: 135x5, 185x4, 205x3, 225x1 (Vid), 245xFall Over
Plate loaded Reverse Hyper: 230x10, 230x10, 230x10
NOTES:
- I was feeling the axle deadlifts from yesterday so I chose to keep my paused dead relatively light and just get some reps in. Plus these seemed to aggravate my groin thing.
- Incline log bench went pretty well. 365 wasnāt bad at all and 385 got a little bit out in front of me, but I was able to fight it back into the groove and got the rep. It is in the vid below.
- Sled rows: Again, these bothered my ab/balls but was pretty happy to get 530x10. They are much harder on the rumber mats of my gym than they are outside. Tough to break the friction of the floor. (vid below)
- Z Presses. 225lbs literally flew up so fast that I almost fell backwards. You can see it in the vid, then I threw on 245. It shot up but then kinda stalled or I pushed the bar out of the balance point. I was fighting for the lockout while trying to keep my balance then my right quad cramped, I lifted my leg to try to stop it and that was all she wrote. I rolled onto my back and got my face out of the way just in time before I had to take a trip to the dentist. It was pretty funnyā¦
Here is the vid. It is a 365 & 385lb log incline bench press, the sled rows with 530lbs and the 225 Z Press.
Those sled rows looked intense! Itās cool to see some different exercises, keep up the work!
Alpha - been checking in on your logs for a while. You look like a bad dude. Keep up the good work. I wish you luck with the gym and your website.
Stay strong, God bless, and vigilance
Alpha,
Obviously, you huck much weight. Itās absurd actuallyā¦but Jesus, is it fun to watch! That being said, you are always belted in your videos. Wonderingā¦do you always don a belt regardless of the weight or just after a certain percentage of your 1RM? Say, 70% and up or whateverā¦
JJ
Alpha,
How often do you test your strength/maxes? After a certain amount of cycles/weeks/months?
Roran: Thanks man! Yea they are definitely something different and (at least for me) much more interesting than any other rowing exercise. They get your heart pumping as well
vanillagorilla23: Thanks so much brother, I really appreciate that!
jjcrugby: Thanks for the kind words man! Actually Iād say the majority of my lifting takes place without a belt. It s just that most of the sets I record are PRs or close to it, so you see it come on. I wouldnāt say that I throw on the belt at a certain percentage, rather it is just certain weights for different movements. For squats it goes on for anything above 500lbs and for deads, anything over 550.
I have broken my back twice in my life (non lifting related) but have re-injured it badly enough to paralyze my left hip flexor for a number of months. After that incident, I now use the belt for my heaviest sets. Thanks for asking man!
Animal Mother: Honestly, too often! The plan is to usually go 4x8 for 5 weeks, 5x5 for 5 weeks then 10x3 for 5 weeks then I will start looking for PRsā¦But in reality if I have anything 3 reps or less planned, if I am feeling particularly good, I will go for it. I know I am not supposed to, but I do. I still donāt believe I am anywhere close to my strength potential and if I could really dial in my technique I know my numbers would be much higher.
I say go for it when you are feeling right, but do your best not to miss reps. Missed reps are like ghosts that tend to hang around a while. If I go for a PR, I can usually tell you the second I grab the bar if I have it or not. I canāt explain it, (some call it flow) but I am primed mentally and physically and know that I have it before I even begin. I know that is not a nice clean answer like āevery 10-15 weeksā but I am just trying to explain how I do things. If you are fortunate enough to have a coach, THEY will tell you when you are ready. If you are not, you will just have to learn to recognize when the time is right. With all of my athletes, judging by how their sets are going, I will tell them when to go for it because I can see it. This is also why I record a lot of my sets. (Which i would encourage you to do) Because a lot of times your perspective of how something felt isnāt the reality of what is actually happening. I hope that helps man.
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āIntegrity is the antithesis of compromise and the sworn enemy of comfort. It bases its decisions not on how much discomfort we might be able to avoid, but on how much we need to avoid the compromise of comfort.ā --Craig D. Lounsbrough
TUESDAY, 24FEBRUARY2015 - Work For Today
Wave 4/Day 2
CONDITONING
:30 Seconds Jumping Jacks
:30 Seconds Squats
:30 Seconds Push-Ups
:30 Seconds Mountain Climbers
:30 Seconds Lunges
:30 Seconds ManMakers
1:00 Minute Rest
:30 Seconds Jumping Jacks
:30 Seconds Jumping Squats
:30 Seconds Crossover Push-Ups
:30 Seconds Plank
:30 Seconds Jumping Lunges
:30 Seconds Burpees
1:00 Minute Rest
Start back at the top and go all of the way through again
EVENTS: 10 Rounds
100 Foot Yoke Walk @ 700lbs
5 Tire Flips