That shit looks hard.
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I ran it a couple of years ago thanks to @TrainForPain
I couldn’t handle two clusters a day and Thibs even said it was okay to do one. It’s pretty fun once you get into it.
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It’s stupid hard but it is fun!
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Push Press and Military Press
The strict press starts from zero, then you produce force and the bar moves. This dead start means you need Starting Strength, or the ability to generate force rapidly. One specific way to train for starting Strength is to use Isometrics. During an isometric contraction the muscles are generating force without lengthening or shortening. So you can learn to contract all fibers, or get All Hands on Deck, or generate max force, in a specific position. Like the bottom of the press.
During the reversal and leg drive part of the push press your shoulders are working isometrically to support the barbell. So you’re working in a special way, to get a specific type of gains to work directly on a problem.
As you reverse the dip into the drive the barbell goes down fast then up, hopefully faster. This acceleration increases the down ward force on the barbell. So the Force that your shoulders are resisting during their Isometric contraction is much greater than just the weights that are on the bar. Maybe twice as much. So your muscles are subjected to more force than you could generate with a strict press. With weights Less than your max. So you can do multiple sets and reps this way, and blast your muscles like you lifted your max, 20 times.
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8-23
Stretches
Scap Junk, rear Delts and triceps
Slight Decline DB Press
35 x 12, 13, 14
Incline Pushup
x 10, 10
Semi Supinated, Close Grip Pulldown
x 12 x 3 sets
Side Delts then Rear Delts with DBs
x 15 then 15 x 3 sets
Band No Money x 30
Band Pushdown x 30
Band Face Pullull x 30
Band Overhead Extension x 30
2 rounds
Another good one. Bench press Monday with all the bros.
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Relax your traps when you bench. You probably slump and shrug your shoulders all day. So wrap a band around your shoulders then sit on it so you’re more aware. Then don’t shrug “up” when you’re about to bench.
If you’re old your digestion sucks and you can’t recover as fast. So train in 3 week waves, do some meal prep and take your vitamins.
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Some good lifting!! And will have to watch the video’s after
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Thanks man! That’s nice of you to say.
Oh yeah! I was doing that for a long time. It’s not good. Not at all. Nasty little habit I developed from lifting on old benches with fixed length forks. Caused a lot of pain.
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Sport Form
After 4 years I finally made it through A System of Multi Year Training in Weightlifting by A.S. Medvedyev, 1989.
Holy shit, it would take another book to mention everything in this book. Weightlifting stuff like the jerk is the best way to develop the top of the clean. Training info like if you stay in the same weight class for more than 3 years you take years/kilos off of your potential progress. Interesting insights into the former Soviet Union, like the national coach couldn’t count on the mail service to deliver his programs/routines to sports clubs around Russian, so he had to develop a 6 year, universal program for everyone to use and go through together.
Anyway, a big concept for these dudes was achieving Sport Form, or a high readiness for competition. During the “Competition Cycle” you’re doing very specific stuff, centered around the very specific, measurable results of your sport. Like getting the biggest single in the clean and jerk and snatch. So you do a lower volume of heavier lifts, to refine technique with heavy loads.
Before that is the “Preparatory Cycle” were you do lighter loads for more reps to stimulate gains without heavy weights that can distort your technique. And you do lots of General Physical Preparation work to prepare your body for the more specific work later.
The specific, heavy work that you use to achieve Sport Form is too rigorous to maintain for long. You can only get so many gains from the intense, specific stuff before you have to shut things down. To get better results you need to get more general gains and a better body (or Motor Apparatus) during your preparatory phase, which lasts a long time. Then you’re super studly, with big muscles fast jumps and big strength in general moves like squats and back raises.
You’re more awesome than before, but you’re not in Sport Form. You haven’t done the specific work (singles with near max weights) to get the best results, or the highest singles in the lifts. But you’re “better” now than when you started your last competition cycle. So when you do the shot period of specific work you do better,or get bigger lifts than last time.
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So what,everybody already knows that stuff.
The cool part was what they did with this information.
Dudes would spend months at a time in Preparation Cycles, not testing maxes or lifting super heavy weights, and during this time coaches and lifters wanted to know if they were getting better or not.
But because they weren’t doing specific work (heavy singles) they weren’t in Sport Form. They weren’t working on max strength, so it would be silly to test max strength when they were sure to get low results.
Instead they’d do “Shock” weeks with the same intensity or 70-80% weights they’d been using, only for a bunch more sets. Maybe 35 instead of 25 per day. See how they respond to 50-60% more work than normal. Since they were using volume to drive adaptations they tested with volume.
Boris Sheiko told Omar Usef that he still programs for powerlifting this way today, using “shock” workouts with many sets as a bench mark to measure progress in a Preparatory Period.
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I always try to remember reverse shrug, but when you reach up for that bar it does mess you up a bit. The band trick is a good idea. I’ll need to test it out.
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This went on with others attributes too. If they wanted to measure improvements in cardio they didn’t use a two mile run or a 5000 meter bike ride, or a specific test that could be affected by preparedness or “skill.”
So they’d put a dude on a heart rate monitor and do any activity to push the heart rate up to the numbers they wanted, for the length of time they wanted. Then they measured heart rate right after the activity, and like 2, 5 and 10 minutes later. If your cardio was better your heart rate would return to normal faster.
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Yes. The rebound rate. This is still used in cardiac rehab as a factor.
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I’ve been doing tons of DB bench with neutral or semi underhand grip, or machine presses with neutral grip and lots of in/out of the elbows. Now I can really feel it when I’m shrugging instead of packing. .
The athleanx shoulder centration move is good to practice this action 1 arm at a time between sets.
In another video Donnie Thompson said to use a wider bench to unshrug and get your shoulders down. He said the shoulder is a ball and socket and on a narrow ass bench that joint will just be hanging off the side, floating in space, lacking stability and prone to moving wrong.
In a 3rd video Coach Ben from Big Benchers said to try 1 arm benches on the landmine. This seems cool to keep your shoulder down since you’ve got the whole floor for support and the barbell in the landmine to drive into.
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8-25 Lower
Stretch hamstring, glute, groin, hip flexor
Hip airplane, hip internal rotation vs band then band leg curl x 3 rounds
Psoas eccentric on bench for longer ROM, step downs, back raise with ass against wall x 3 rounds
DB RDLs
7s up to 75s
DB Chest Supported Row
x 10 x 3 sets
Standing Leg Curl, 5 count hold at top x 5
Nordic Hip Hinge x 10
3 pairs
Suitcase Walk
3 lengths of gym
Tibialus Raise on Incline Board x 12
Seated Calf Raise x 15
3 pairs
Peep my Tibs bro!
It was more of a mastery form, for the top lifters. When you entered into this stage of training, they would do less full movements like you stated about the jerks.
When you fully dive into the book we can agree it’s definitely a 20 year program. As they started young.
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8-29 Upper
Stretch pec, bicep, lats, trap
Mid back, triceps and Serratus band stuff
Shoulder centration, rear delts, mid back with DBs and Serratus pushups.
Arnold Press
7s up to 40
4 Board Pushup
x 10 x 2 sets
DB Side Delt then Rear Delt
7.5 x 16/16 x 2 sets
10 x 11 x 1 set
Band No Money x 36
Band Pushdown x 36
Band Face Pull x 36
Band Overhead Extension x 36
x 2 rounds with mini band
3rd workout for the week vs only 2 last week. 50% more! How’s that for fast progression?
8-30 Lower
Stretch hams, glutes, groin, hip flexor
Hip airplane, band leg curl, band internal hip rotation, step ups on incline
Box Zercher Squat
7s up to 140 x 7
Band GM
x 12 x 3 sets
Cable Pulldown, Semi Supinated Close Grip
x 13 x 3 sets
Leg Raise off bench x 15
Single Leg Tib Raise (kinda) x 10
Single Leg Calf Raise x 20
3 rounds
Step ups on incline were pretty cool.
9-1 Upper
Stretch pec, bicep, lat, trap
Band No money, band pushdown, band Serratus Push x 3 rounds
Mid back, rear delt, tricep stuff face down on incline bench, scap Pushup x 3 rounds
Slight Incline DB Press
40 x 12, 13, 14
Decline Pushup on Barbell
x 14, 14
DB Side Delt then Rear Delt
x 12/12 x 3 sets with 10s then one bonus drop set x 12/12 with 5s
Band No Money x 30
Band Pushdown x 30
Band Facepull x 30
Band Overhead Extension x 30
x 3 rounds
Ok, this is the 3rd week of my first “wave” (3 week training cycle) in my return to Conjugate style. A bunch of my work or volume is coming from little pre-habby junk like scap pushups and low trap stuff. And band stuff at the end. Some of that stuff will drop out as more serious assistance lifts come in.
I’m just using Repetition Effort without Max Effort or high set Dynamic Effort days. I’ll probably stick to that for awhile, until I figure out what to do ME/DE stuff.
I’ve worked up to some 7 rep maxes for decline, incline and overhead DB presses. I’m also going to do some “3 sets for max reps”, kinda like Paul Carter’s 3/50 method on decline, incline and overhead. I think maybe, maybe I’ll also do like a 4 rep max. That would give me 9 total workouts and 3 different sessions at each particular incline before I need to add weight. Which hopefully will be enough work to make the big 10 pound jump between dumbbells.
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