GLENN PENDLAY Q&A

Training Bodybuilding
81

[quote]jeminz92 wrote:
Glenn, Do you have any other particular plyo exercises you would recommend to a basketball player besides the single leg drive exercise you posted on video that will increase there vertical and/or ability to jump off 1 leg? Thanks in advance for any answers.[/quote]

There are no other particular “special” exercises that we do. I made a video of that one because I think its particularly effective for many people, and because I dont see it done much elsewhere, and its hard to explain. We just do a lot of jumping on and off of boxes in a variety of ways. I might, in the future, do a compilation video of the various other jumps that we do.

One other exercise that we use a lot for NFL combine prep that is good for the 40 time but I also think helps jumping form one foot is just bounding… at least thats what we call it. Its basically kind of like doing a triple jump. You can alternate legs, or you can of course do multiple steps on one leg. We do both, and usually go 20-40 yards at a time. Its usefull to measure how far you get with a certain number of steps, say 5 to 10 steps, and try to beat that distance in subsequent sets.

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The clean learning progression videos are up, by the way.

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thanks coach

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Thanks that was helpful, How would you go about incorporating such jumping exercises as the ones you mentioned into a schedule that consist of Snatching, Clean and Jerks and possibly Squatting ( Depending if the lifts are caught in the squat portion) on Monday, Wednesday,Friday. Would it be wise to do such exercises as Box Jumps, and other forms of jumping on Tuesday and Thursday i was thinking if done like that it might also serve as a Active Recovery Day?!?!

85

[quote]jeminz92 wrote:
Thanks that was helpful, How would you go about incorporating such jumping exercises as the ones you mentioned into a schedule that consist of Snatching, Clean and Jerks and possibly Squatting ( Depending if the lifts are caught in the squat portion) on Monday, Wednesday,Friday. Would it be wise to do such exercises as Box Jumps, and other forms of jumping on Tuesday and Thursday i was thinking if done like that it might also serve as a Active Recovery Day?!?![/quote]

jumping or plyos arent really good for active recovery unless done in really, really limited quantity. I would do a hard plyo session either before or after your main workout, then lighter sessions, or other recovery methods, on the off days.

86

Hey Glenn, I asked this somewhere else but I’d like to hear your opinion as well. Most of my lifts have been fine but at the very end (last 1-3 weeks) of my cut my bench dropped significantly. ~20-30lb. It seems like this is the first lift to go down.

The only times I can say I’ve seen it go up on a consistent basis is when I do a specific bench program. For instance a 5x5 starting week 1 light and working up to my max by week 4 or 5 and continuing (e.g. bill starrs 5x5) and Dave Tates 6-week bench routine seemed to go well until I injured my right shoulder by overextending it on the floor press.

Does this seem typical? It seems gains are hard to come by when I just ramp up to a max weight (without much grind) with sets of 3 or 5.

87

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Hey Glenn, I asked this somewhere else but I’d like to hear your opinion as well. Most of my lifts have been fine but at the very end (last 1-3 weeks) of my cut my bench dropped significantly. ~20-30lb. It seems like this is the first lift to go down.

The only times I can say I’ve seen it go up on a consistent basis is when I do a specific bench program. For instance a 5x5 starting week 1 light and working up to my max by week 4 or 5 and continuing (e.g. bill starrs 5x5) and Dave Tates 6-week bench routine seemed to go well until I injured my right shoulder by overextending it on the floor press.

Does this seem typical? It seems gains are hard to come by when I just ramp up to a max weight (without much grind) with sets of 3 or 5. [/quote]

Obviously you need the volume… I am going to bet that the intermediate 5X5 would work great for you… recently nicknamed the texas method…

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[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Hey Glenn, I asked this somewhere else but I’d like to hear your opinion as well. Most of my lifts have been fine but at the very end (last 1-3 weeks) of my cut my bench dropped significantly. ~20-30lb. It seems like this is the first lift to go down.

The only times I can say I’ve seen it go up on a consistent basis is when I do a specific bench program. For instance a 5x5 starting week 1 light and working up to my max by week 4 or 5 and continuing (e.g. bill starrs 5x5) and Dave Tates 6-week bench routine seemed to go well until I injured my right shoulder by overextending it on the floor press.

Does this seem typical? It seems gains are hard to come by when I just ramp up to a max weight (without much grind) with sets of 3 or 5. [/quote]

Obviously you need the volume… I am going to bet that the intermediate 5X5 would work great for you… recently nicknamed the texas method…[/quote]
The Texas Method seems great when doing a lift 3x per week, but how about 1x per week? I’m deadlifting and benching once a week, so I’m thinking instead of doing 5x5 or 3x3 at the same weight, I would be better off just ramping to a max weight of 3-5 reps (like what Thibaudeau has been preaching). Thoughts?

89

[quote]PB Andy wrote:

[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Hey Glenn, I asked this somewhere else but I’d like to hear your opinion as well. Most of my lifts have been fine but at the very end (last 1-3 weeks) of my cut my bench dropped significantly. ~20-30lb. It seems like this is the first lift to go down.

The only times I can say I’ve seen it go up on a consistent basis is when I do a specific bench program. For instance a 5x5 starting week 1 light and working up to my max by week 4 or 5 and continuing (e.g. bill starrs 5x5) and Dave Tates 6-week bench routine seemed to go well until I injured my right shoulder by overextending it on the floor press.

Does this seem typical? It seems gains are hard to come by when I just ramp up to a max weight (without much grind) with sets of 3 or 5. [/quote]

Obviously you need the volume… I am going to bet that the intermediate 5X5 would work great for you… recently nicknamed the texas method…[/quote]
The Texas Method seems great when doing a lift 3x per week, but how about 1x per week? I’m deadlifting and benching once a week, so I’m thinking instead of doing 5x5 or 3x3 at the same weight, I would be better off just ramping to a max weight of 3-5 reps (like what Thibaudeau has been preaching). Thoughts?[/quote]

Lots of questions before that could be answered… are you only traiing those movements/bodyparts once a week, or are you doing over similar movements on other days? how many exercises are you doing per bodypart? If you did ramp to maz, would you come back down and do more work, or stop?

90

[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Hey Glenn, I asked this somewhere else but I’d like to hear your opinion as well. Most of my lifts have been fine but at the very end (last 1-3 weeks) of my cut my bench dropped significantly. ~20-30lb. It seems like this is the first lift to go down.

The only times I can say I’ve seen it go up on a consistent basis is when I do a specific bench program. For instance a 5x5 starting week 1 light and working up to my max by week 4 or 5 and continuing (e.g. bill starrs 5x5) and Dave Tates 6-week bench routine seemed to go well until I injured my right shoulder by overextending it on the floor press.

Does this seem typical? It seems gains are hard to come by when I just ramp up to a max weight (without much grind) with sets of 3 or 5. [/quote]

Obviously you need the volume… I am going to bet that the intermediate 5X5 would work great for you… recently nicknamed the texas method…[/quote]

Glenn,

I found lots of variations of the Texas Method floating around the internet. Would this be the correct template…

Cheers
C

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[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:

[quote]PB Andy wrote:

[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Hey Glenn, I asked this somewhere else but I’d like to hear your opinion as well. Most of my lifts have been fine but at the very end (last 1-3 weeks) of my cut my bench dropped significantly. ~20-30lb. It seems like this is the first lift to go down.

The only times I can say I’ve seen it go up on a consistent basis is when I do a specific bench program. For instance a 5x5 starting week 1 light and working up to my max by week 4 or 5 and continuing (e.g. bill starrs 5x5) and Dave Tates 6-week bench routine seemed to go well until I injured my right shoulder by overextending it on the floor press.

Does this seem typical? It seems gains are hard to come by when I just ramp up to a max weight (without much grind) with sets of 3 or 5. [/quote]

Obviously you need the volume… I am going to bet that the intermediate 5X5 would work great for you… recently nicknamed the texas method…[/quote]
The Texas Method seems great when doing a lift 3x per week, but how about 1x per week? I’m deadlifting and benching once a week, so I’m thinking instead of doing 5x5 or 3x3 at the same weight, I would be better off just ramping to a max weight of 3-5 reps (like what Thibaudeau has been preaching). Thoughts?[/quote]

Lots of questions before that could be answered… are you only traiing those movements/bodyparts once a week, or are you doing over similar movements on other days? how many exercises are you doing per bodypart? If you did ramp to maz, would you come back down and do more work, or stop?[/quote]

For legs I am doing similar movements… clean and jerk/snatch once a week, power c&j/snatch once a week, back squat 1x per week, front squat 1x per week. For upper body, other than bench once a week, all I really do is some push presses, push-ups, and pull-ups. Generally when I ramp, I do not drop the weight for more work.

92

[quote]PB Andy wrote:

[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:

[quote]PB Andy wrote:

[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Hey Glenn, I asked this somewhere else but I’d like to hear your opinion as well. Most of my lifts have been fine but at the very end (last 1-3 weeks) of my cut my bench dropped significantly. ~20-30lb. It seems like this is the first lift to go down.

The only times I can say I’ve seen it go up on a consistent basis is when I do a specific bench program. For instance a 5x5 starting week 1 light and working up to my max by week 4 or 5 and continuing (e.g. bill starrs 5x5) and Dave Tates 6-week bench routine seemed to go well until I injured my right shoulder by overextending it on the floor press.

Does this seem typical? It seems gains are hard to come by when I just ramp up to a max weight (without much grind) with sets of 3 or 5. [/quote]

Obviously you need the volume… I am going to bet that the intermediate 5X5 would work great for you… recently nicknamed the texas method…[/quote]
The Texas Method seems great when doing a lift 3x per week, but how about 1x per week? I’m deadlifting and benching once a week, so I’m thinking instead of doing 5x5 or 3x3 at the same weight, I would be better off just ramping to a max weight of 3-5 reps (like what Thibaudeau has been preaching). Thoughts?[/quote]

Lots of questions before that could be answered… are you only traiing those movements/bodyparts once a week, or are you doing over similar movements on other days? how many exercises are you doing per bodypart? If you did ramp to maz, would you come back down and do more work, or stop?[/quote]

For legs I am doing similar movements… clean and jerk/snatch once a week, power c&j/snatch once a week, back squat 1x per week, front squat 1x per week. For upper body, other than bench once a week, all I really do is some push presses, push-ups, and pull-ups. Generally when I ramp, I do not drop the weight for more work.[/quote]

I think its fairly simple, your only doing each movement once a week, and your body needs more work than just working up to one top set to make progress. I am betting that if you were doing each movement 2-3 times a week, it might be a slightly different story.

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Thanks for your advice Glenn.

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Hi Glenn, firstly thank you for being gracious enough to tame the time to offer free advice. Secondly I was wondering if you had any pointers on my technique:

I didn’t have a chance to use bumper plates so it was just a bar. The quality isn’t the best as its on my phone.

Thanks

95

[quote]Ed Ache wrote:
Hi Glenn, firstly thank you for being gracious enough to tame the time to offer free advice. Secondly I was wondering if you had any pointers on my technique:

I didn’t have a chance to use bumper plates so it was just a bar. The quality isn’t the best as its on my phone.

Thanks[/quote]

I think that looks really good, you do a great job of moving under the bar. Would be interesting to see what you could do with some weight on the bar!

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[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:

[quote]Ed Ache wrote:
Hi Glenn, firstly thank you for being gracious enough to tame the time to offer free advice. Secondly I was wondering if you had any pointers on my technique:

I didn’t have a chance to use bumper plates so it was just a bar. The quality isn’t the best as its on my phone.

Thanks[/quote]

I think that looks really good, you do a great job of moving under the bar. Would be interesting to see what you could do with some weight on the bar![/quote]

Thank you Glenn, I will try and get a video of some with weight up. Greatly appreciate your comments.

97

[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Hey Glenn, I asked this somewhere else but I’d like to hear your opinion as well. Most of my lifts have been fine but at the very end (last 1-3 weeks) of my cut my bench dropped significantly. ~20-30lb. It seems like this is the first lift to go down.

The only times I can say I’ve seen it go up on a consistent basis is when I do a specific bench program. For instance a 5x5 starting week 1 light and working up to my max by week 4 or 5 and continuing (e.g. bill starrs 5x5) and Dave Tates 6-week bench routine seemed to go well until I injured my right shoulder by overextending it on the floor press.

Does this seem typical? It seems gains are hard to come by when I just ramp up to a max weight (without much grind) with sets of 3 or 5. [/quote]

Obviously you need the volume… I am going to bet that the intermediate 5X5 would work great for you… recently nicknamed the texas method…[/quote]

So you think I just need more volume? The thing is, right now and in the past even when I was doing bench 2x per week it didn’t seem like strength gains came like they did with the structured bench routine. Even with similar volumes

For instance on Dave Tates bench routine, you have one ME day of working up to a 5,3 or 1RM then doing a back off set, then you do basically tricep and back work. The 2nd day you do 8x3 speed work and that’s it. 1st 2 weeks have Board Press after that but in the other 4 weeks it’s just “free time”. So as you can see the volume really isn’t that high. And with Bill starr’s method you’re really only going up to 1-2 heavy sets twice per week with a speed day in between.

Contrast that with what I’m doing now, ramping up to a max set of bench one day and 2 max sets of incline DB Bench another day (one of 4-6 and one of 8-12 reps) and the volume really isn’t that different.

Any thoughts?

Thanks again!

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If the frequency is the same, the volume is the same, and your using similar intensities… maybe then the structured programs are just SUPERIOR at producing results?

Honestly, if this has been your experience, why have you not gone back to what worked for you?

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Here is an interesting video interview that my friend Barry Kinsella did with Donny Shankle. I have had a number of people tell me that they watch it for inspiration before they train… For those who dont know Donny, he is a World team member for usa weightlifting, and he is the man who beat Dimitri Klokov in 2006 when Klokov was the defending world champion. The first American male to defeat a defending world champion in 30 years.

And, by the way, a point of trivia… Donny is the best cook that I know. Grows his own tomatoes and makes marinara sauce that is, well, words dont exist. Of course, he also makes Gumbo and fried catfish and all kinds of vegetable soup and tons of other dishes and wow, I CANNOT figure out how he throws things together and makes it so tasty. He is truly talented. There are a couple of his recipees up at the california strength website, but we are trying to get more up. If anyone is interested, I could post a couple over here. NO ONE cooks like Donny, lol.

Donny is also almost done recording himself reading the entire bible aloud. That was monster undertaking and I admire him for finishing it. I cant wait to listen to it. Donny is a very unique and special individual.

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Glenn! A quick weekend question for ya.

You helped me in the Front Squat Thread, thanks a lot for that! My Front Squat is progressing nicely, but I’ve run into some “thinking”. My training partners are weaker than on the front even though their libms are shorter and biomechanically speaking they should be crushing me there, but I’m ahead by 20-30 pounds and getting stronger on the movement faster than they do. But for our second exercise, we do leg press and they are ahead of me there by 150-200 pounds.

We all ramp the the same way, but they are just way ahead on the leg press. Do you have any possible explanation to that? I’m was playing with the thought that I can not use my hips to produce more power on the leg press. I also am stronger than they are on hamstrings exercises, especially leg curls. But front does not rely much on the hamstrings unless I’m way too efficient with glutes out of the hole.

That difference is way too big so maybe I’m doing something or missing something, weak link somewhere. In that case I would like to fix it.

Thanks a bunch!