Easy Strength X Sheiko
This has been an interesting thought experiment.
Easy Strength is pretty straightforward on paper. Sheiko isn’t. Both work.
Most of the ideas are actually compatible. This is an attempt to introduce the “variability” from Sheiko onto the simplicity of Easy Strength.
How does it work? You flip a coin.
The ideas are tested, but not put together this way.
Preliminaries
You can roughly categorize training into “getting ready for a competition” vs “everything else”. This is for “everything else”.
A Training Day
A training day consists of: strength work + something else.
With Easy Strength, that “something else” is athletic sport-specific training, or just “life”.
With Sheiko, it’s weak-point, accessory, bodybuilding work. (Do it. It’s still important.)
The Lifts
Pick some lifts.
Dan John: Push, Pull, Hinge, Squat, Loaded Carries
Sheiko: Squat, Bench, Deadlift
Workouts per Week
Train 3-5 days per week.
Two Lifts per Workout
Do two lifts per workout, on the same days, every week. (Hint: press every workout.)
Sheiko does this: Bench/Squat, Bench/Deadlift, Bench/Squat, Bench/Deadlift
How Heavy? or Autoregulation
You’re doing triples. They should be “easy”, and not “hard”.
Never miss.
If they’re too light, add some weight. If they’re too heavy or it’s an off day, drop some weight.
Sheiko says: drop 5-10% if it’s a bad day. Add 5-7.5 kg (~10-15 lbs) at most every 2 weeks.
Varying the Volume
The most basic Easy Strength plan is to do 3x3 for each lift. Even more generally, “around 10 reps”. We’ll stick with triples.
Sheiko varies the total reps week to week, month to month.
There are three kinds of workout volumes: “low”, “medium” and “high”. These are evenly distributed, so a 16 week training cycle will have the same amount of low, medium and high workouts. Workout volumes never follow each other, so never Low followed by Low.
Flip a coin to figure out the next workout volume.
If you just did a High workout, then heads means Medium, tails means Low.
If you just did a Medium workout, then heads means High, tails means Low.
If you just did a Low workout, then heads means High, tails means Medium.
What do these look like?
Low:
First Lift: 3 x 3
Second Lift: 3 x 3
Medium:
First Lift: 4 x 3
Second Lift: 4 x 3
High:
First Lift: 3 x 3
Second Lift: 4 x 3
First Lift: 3 x 3
On the High day, one of the lifts is done twice. Flip a coin to decide.
Doing it this way averages 12 reps per lift per workout. The ratio of lifts between High and Low is close to Sheiko’s examples.
Another option is that the high day is made of 3 x 3. This averages to 10.5 lifts per workout, which is closer to Dan John’s examples.
You can stop here and just do this. Or, you can also…
Varying the Exercises
At least half the time, Sheiko uses the main/competition lift. The rest of the time, he uses a variation of that lift.
Variations consist of:
- partials
- pauses at various parts of the lift
- adjusted strength curve with bands, chains, slingshots
- speed/explosiveness
This can be done with a coin, too. Heads means do the lift, tails the variation.
In his bench program, 5/8ths of the time it’s the competition bench. The rest are variations. You can do that with three coins. If there’s exactly two heads (3/8ths of the time) do a variation.
Vary the variations. If there’s any pattern I’ve found, spend more time with partials, and very little time with speed work.
One comment made about Easy Strength is it’s not quite a “forever” plan. This may bring it closer that direction.
Again, you can stop here. Or you can also…
Varying the Intensity
This is where it starts to get complicated.
The key is to maintain the total number of lifts, and keep the average intensity in the 65-75% range.
Easy Strength and Even Easier Strength stick to the “rule of 10”:
- 3 x 3
- 5 x 2
- 2 x 5
- 5, add weight, 3, add weight, 2
- 10 singles, adding weight each time
Sheiko has his own patterns, but they all get volume by ramping up from 50-60%, and then:
- pyramids, up and then down a bit
- doubles
- triples
- 5x5
- “ragged”: 3, 7, 5, 8, 4, 9, 6; all at the same weight
Or you can just use triples, always 
At every decision point of “above the knee” vs “below the knee”, pick the thing you’re worse at more often.
