When would you do shirt work when working with a westside template. Would you put it on after your max effort exercise and try for a few singles.Should you use it each ME day, or every few weeks? Does the following example seem logical. Floor press with chains for ME. Put shirt on, work up to a single then rest of workout. Basically I am having a litttle trouble as when to do my shirt work. Any help is great.
I like to wear mine with a little cape, and pretend I’m a superhero in the gym.
Rarely get in your shirt unless you are prepping for a contest. Every 8 weeks is good if you aren’t prepping for contests. If you are pre-contest then every 3 weeks is good.
As far as what to do when you get in it, that is more complicated. When prepping for a meet, I put on the shirt about 9 weeks out and start working up to heavy weight for triples with no boards. Some may touch and some might not. I just like to get the feel. Then, I work up to heavy singles 6 weeks out- trying to get them to touch even more (once again no boards). Then, about 3 weeks out, I like to incorporate boards and work up to an opener off the chest.
Go to EliteFts and read all the logs and stuff. Ask question on the board.
Westside does not put the shirt on often. Louie stresses this in many articles. That isn’t to say master it and learn it, but RAW strenght must be improved.
There are obviously many differing opinions such as metal militia, etc, but this is what Louie reccommends.
Good luck!
If it was me I think you’ve got to be very intimately familiar with your equipment. I would do it every 6-8 weeks or so if you don’t have a meet coming up. While training for a meet I’d use it every other week bare minimum however you can work it in is up to you.
Just to give the complete opposite view on what DL5000 said…
The metal milita guys (seb burns, bill crawford etc) put on their bench shirt in almost every workout when they’re six or so months out from a comp.
They believe that doing this allows them to learn the groove of the shirt better. I’ve heard stories of them being able to touch 285-315 and then jack their shirt up and hit high 500’s.
I’ve never used a metal milita style workout for an extended period of time but one thing that I can say it be very careful volume management. If you’re not extremely well conditioned going into it, it will kill you.
Try it every other workout or 3 week mini cycles or as you peak for a meet, the point is that you should figure out why you want to wear one first and then figure out the best way for you to train with it, try different ways and the way that gets you strong without beating you up too much is usually the way to go.
Another thing to look at is what kind of shirt you have. A single ply shirt you more than likely will not have to get into as often. Guys like Nick Tylutki or Brad Gillingham only put their shirts on once or twice before a meet, otherwise it is all raw. But other guys put it on for a cycle going into the meet.
I personally use a Karin’s Double Denim. I do at least a 10- 12 week trainings cycle were I warm up raw then do one to warm up sets in my shirt off of boards to get back into the groove for the day. Then I do at least one set of touch, two board, and four board.
I will sometimes do more two and four board to get used to handling heavy weights and slowely learn how to adjust, or jack, the shirt to were it needs to be for certain weights.
I then finish with some raw burn out work, always trying for 20 reps to finish out. Check out Metal Malitia if your going multi ply, or go west side as well.
What does jacking up the shirt mean?
thanks
[quote]bubarock wrote:
What does jacking up the shirt mean?
thanks[/quote]
Pulling the neck collar down as much as possible and just getting more out of the shirt than before
Also, just because some really strong guys only use a shirt a couple times in a cycle doesn’t mean that when you first get one, you shouldn’t do more than that to get used to the shirt.
I’ve had two workouts in my shirt, but am still really bad at getting any carryover out of it.
So, if you’re new, you want to make sure you know exactly what to do to get the most out of it.
If you remember from Louie Simmons’ articles, he states that shirt work is not ME work. It is necessary though and i would refer to it as sports specific work. As such i rotate it in every other week in place of my ME day. I only do my shirt work full range, typically 3-5 singles working on perfecting the groove of the shirt. Start off light using a loose shirt and go heavier the closer you get to a meet with the shirt tighter. On my other weeks i do ME raw work off boards. Stay away from boards in your shirt because it will screw your technique up. My bench has gone from 551 to 639 using this program which i have modified from a similar program Matt LaMarque uses.
Get the Metal Militia videos, their training is designed for equipment.
I follow a Metal Militia training plan myself, so caveat emptor.
I think you should use the full-range shirted bench as a ME exercise and see it frequently in rotation. I do full-range shirt work every week, and feel that it is necessary with just about any modern shirt.
With the older shirts (i.e. EHPHD) you could get away with only throwing it on a few times before a meet, but all of the newer shirts require much more time to learn. If you are trying to learn a full elbow-tuck belly bench in a couple of sessions leading up to a meet, or once every five weeks, I think you are in for disappointment.
I know Louis says in one article that shirt work is not ME work, however if you read the whole quote I think you’ll see a different message:
"The problem today is the popularity of bench shirts and their ability to raise one’s bench considerably. There are some who will only do shirt work, that is, doing band {sic} pressing with a bench shirt.
The lifter will set the shirt to barely touch three boards, and then adjust it to touch two boards, and finally crank the shirt to maximally work on one board.
In our gym, George Halbert’s group did just this for months, only to discover that it did not work. They became very good on board pressing with a shirt, only to find that they had no groove or, even worse, the ability to touch their chest. This resulted in a lot of bomb-outs.
At our gym, 20 feet away from George’s group, a second group tried the same routine, also coming to the same conclusion. This time, four top lifters had miserable results. Only one out of four made a bench, and it was 70 pounds under his best. Why? Using a bench shirt is not max effort work. The shirt is doing the work, not the lifter. "
-Louis Simmons in “Prepare to Bench”
I took away from that quote the idea that shirted boards are bad as they train you to use the wrong groove. My own experience heartily supports that notion.
Indeed later in that same article Louis suggests:
"One must learn to use a shirt, but one must learn to touch the chest. Bill Crawford says that you must touch the chest. I suggest, instead of board pressing with a bench shirt, have a shirt that you can touch 450 and establish a max record in that shirt, let’s say 510. Next use a shirt that allows you to touch
500 and possibly a max of 570, and finally a 550 shirt and find your max with that shirt, I’m guessing maybe 625. A bigger bencher would use three stronger bench shirts. A lesser bencher, say 400 max, would do the same with a weaker set of shirts."
-Louis Simmons in “Prepare to Bench”
As to whether you would do this in conjunction with another ME exercise (i.e. ME Floor press with chains, followed by shirt work) well that depends on you. Try it, if it works, go for it!
Personally if I max out on floor press and still have enough in me to take a serious attempt at an 85%+ full range bench, that would mean I didn’t go heavy enough on my ME! However I am great with intensity and poor with volume. Another of my training partners would have no trouble doing two ME exercises back to back. (We don’t call him “Deuce” for nothing!)
Hanley: With good technique, open back denims are amazingly adjustable. My technique is nowhere near Bill?s or Sebastian’s and I am able to touch 300 pounds less than my max in my tight shirt.