[quote]buckeye girl wrote:
OBoile wrote:
buckeye girl wrote:
Kerley wrote:
Stronghold wrote:
Kerley wrote:
Westside
Highly disagree.
Alisa, any idea what federation you want to compete in? Raw? Single Ply? Multiply?
My best advice would be to find the meet first before you settle on a training style or system. The equipment changes things to a degree…so knowing how you are going to compete is a good starting point.
why whats wrong with training westside?
Well, she’s interested in competing raw and trains at a college rec center. Those would be the two biggest problems.
A college rec center isn’t likely to have things like bands, chains, boards and all those other fun little gimmicks that westside advocates using in training. And considering that she’s talking about competing raw, all those things that work top end strength aren’t going to be the best tools to use to build a stronger raw lifter.
About a year and a half ago, I was in the same situation the OP is in now. I went the westside route, and made little progress. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have done 5/3/1 from the beginning and probably would have spent less time in gear.
Maxing out on singles and even triples week in and week out didn’t give me any sort of impressive strength gains. It just wasn’t enough volume. I had all the aches, pains and bruises, but little else to show for my efforts. And don’t even get me started on speed work, or the reverse hyper…
Now, before all of Louie’s ball lickers flip out, I’m not saying that westside doesn’t work, or that my program was flawless but still failed to yield results. Just that westside isn’t the be all end all program for powerlifters. Especially a raw female powerlifter that is relatively new to the game.
Alisa, glad to see another woman on here getting into powerlifting. Good luck 
While I tend to agree with you for the most part, I think you and some other posters have some misconceptions about what Westside is supposed to be. Westside doesn’t require bands or chains and it isn’t intended only for geared lifters. It is a template, nothing more. How you use that template depends on your goals and what equimpent is available to you.
That being said, your comments about volume, speed work (for a raw lifter) are spot on IMO. 5/3/1 (which is basically Westside, but varying ME intensity rather than varying ME exercises) seems to work well for a lot of people.
I don’t have any misconceptions about what westside is supposed to be. When I was “training westside” I was at a gym full of former westsiders and some of the strongest men in the sport. Guys that set their records without the help of foam rollers, or blind judges.
I see people post over and over again about how westside doesn’t require this, or you don’t need that to successfully use the template, and its such bullshit. The guys that are training westside and WINNING are the guys that are 1) training AT westside and 2) using all the gimmicks. The lifters that I see being successful with this set up are guys that have already built a good base, are competing in multiply gear, and shoot a couple grams of test in their ass every week.
I’m not saying westside won’t work for a raw/amateur/natural lifter–I know guys that fit in that category and have had great success with the template. But, westside isn’t the only way to train as a powerlifter, and it doesn’t work for everyone.[/quote]
Whoa relax. I was agreeing with you for the most part.