CG Bench - worked up to 285 for a triple. Had an awesome spotter today - he let me grind out that last rep for like 10 seconds, uneven lockout and all. My lats were destroyed (yup, even on a close grip) so theres a weak point to work on
DB bench : 45’s x30, x22
Incline Tate Press 35’s x12, x8; 20’s x2x15 - I hate these and I don’t think I’m going to do them often anymore. My wrists always fail before my tri’s
Band Pressdowns 2 sets to failure
Lat Pulldowns 100lbs x20; x12, x9; 70lbs x10
Rear Delt Raises 15’s 2x15, 1x10
EZ Bar Curls 2 sets to failure
Sledmill for a few intervals then done.
Still hitting high volume this week. Going to ratchet up the intensity next week which means max singles on ME day and bands on DE day.
SSB Speed Squats to a low box: 245lbs 25x2. Completed in 24.5 minutes. Dead on!
Speed Pulls: 245 15 singles completed in 7.5 minutes. Also dead on!
Today was a good day. The squats were challenging but the deadlifts kind of weren’t. No matter, its still a ton of technique practice and I was planning on upping the intensity for the next three weeks anyway.
Finished up with
Back raise 3x11
DB SLDL: 60’s 3x20
Pulldown Abs: many
Sledmill: 10 minutes of intervals forward & backward
@stronkfak hard to tell yet! I guess I will have to see how my body responds to cranking up the resistance over the next few weeks with bands. I will say this: I’m in a lot better shape than I thought I was. I think going forward I will have to increase the weight when I come back to the LATT because it seems like its more of a test of my conditioning than my muscular endurance.
It feels great though. The additional work helps my weight loss goals and is really just to prep me for the heavier weights. With no meet currently in sight I feel like I’m in purgatory a bit so a lot of my performance indicators will just be how my lifts progress on ME
day and how well I recover from the banded squats on DE day.
I was doing the same for a while.I was basically doing conjugate as stormthebeach suggested,deviding my training in blocks.I dropped that for a more original westside routine and it worked out way better for me.But I might get back at lactic acid training,since I too felt like it had some merrit
@stronkfak two things really stepped up my understanding of Westside. One was working with a coach who walked me through peaking for a meet, and two was reading through the entirety of StB’s thread. Before that I would just do my ME and DE days continuously but I knew there had to be some type of direction to actually peak for a meet. Reading through StB’s thread clarified that for me and made sense of all the work I did with my coach. LATT is something that Louie and Dave Tate have mentioned in their writings, it is just not emphasized nearly as much as in StB’s philosophy.
There really isn’t a right or wrong way to run a Westside program as long as you are maxing out, moving weights fast, and hammering your weak points to get better. I’ve devoted lots of hours of personal time studying the method and think I have a good grasp of it, but I know I have a lot more to learn as well.
Warmup: Agile 11 + shoulders and pecs
Plyo Pushups 3x8
Speed Bench: 155x18x3 - completed in 13:42. 3 more sets than last week with the same weight, and I beat my time by almost a full minute. This is what happens when you come back to something you haven’t done for a while. Alternated grip widths as usual.
DB OHP: 40’s x24, x23
Tri Pressdowns: 52.5 lb 2x30, x21, x22, x17
Cable Rows w/ lat bar: 100 lb 2x20, 1x13, 55 lb x23
Band Pull Aparts x a million
No conditioning today. The speed bench took a lot out of me and my legs are still damaged from the lactic acid tolerance stuff on Friday.
I’ve been summoned. I see there’s another conjugate lifter here. Saw something about USAPL, I am pretty sure they let you compete in different feds. Be careful about (lifting) gear though, they only allow IPF approved stuff. I for example can’t use my nice p2 belt in USAPL meets because elitefts didn’t pay to have their brand equipment approved.
Thanks @Destrength! Yes I am aware of the USAPL anal personal equipment rules and since I use almost exclusively Inzer stuff, I think I’d be okay. I’m not totally sold though. Both RPS meets I have done have had upwards of 100 raw lifters, awesome atmosphere, and some big-time weights being crushed. Glad to hear I don’t have to choose one or the other. Probably won’t gear up for another meet until springtime 2017 however.
@Destrength I have only competed in RPS so I would not be able to give you a fair comparison. That being said, the RPS meets I have done were extremely well-run with a lot of very strong lifters. I have not experienced unfair judging or any of the fuckery I hear about (mostly on the internet) from certain other feds.
Where do you live? Im in NY and we have 3 rather large RPS meets here every year plus 3-4 more just across the river in Jersey. The other options locally seem to be USAPL, and to a lesser extent IPA.
SSB Good Mornings: Worked up to 295x3, 335 for 2 singles, and a miss at 355. My knees buckled when I began my hinge so I’m thinking its my lower back holding me up, which is a good indicator of what to work on. Also, I’m not a big fan of good mornings as a max-effort lift. I’m thinking of moving them back to rep work for sets of 6-10 like I had been using for my previous meet preps.
SSB Squats, Close Stance: Worked up to 335x6, 385x3
GHR x11, x10, x10 - Hamstrings still wrecked from Friday, so these felt kind of funky.
I read it! He is clearly a big fan of the good morning, as was Louie especially in his earlier articles. Matt is a very knowlegable guy and I believe he had the biggest total at Westside while he was there, so I always make it a priority to read his writings. I just think for myself, my weak link seems to give out on the GM before I can get a proper strain. Thats why I think its better to use them for rep work, at least for now.
Its worth noting that Matt squatted I believe 1100 in gear, and most of the Westsiders could hit over 500 for reps with all the different GM variations. If I had to guess I would say it is more effective as an ME lift when a ridiculous amount of weight can be handled, as opposed to a relative beginner like myself who still gets a shit ton out of squatting variations. Its all experimentation though, and since I don’t have a meet scheduled I am probably due to test my maxes pretty soon so I’ll get a gauge on where I am and what needs to be worked.
I like how he split his ME work into builders vs testers.
One day I’ll run a conjugate cycle just to see how it feels. I was thinking about it driving in to work, especially how as far as I understand it’s a system, not a program, like 531.
For example, I figured for me I’d do paused squats and bench as DE mostly, and maybe some low box squats for DL. For ME I’d probably do a lot of floor presses, Spoto presses and very close and very wide grip; while for squat I’d do regular stance box squats at various heights as well as some SSB variations and good mornings, and rely on that to drive my DL as well with only occasional heavy pulls. Them I’d use my RE work to hammer my weak points.
Seems like you understand the system and I think thats very important to being successful with Westside. The more I learn about it, the more i realize theres a lot more i have to learn lol. But in the meantime it works!
Adding this post merely as a note to myself. I shouldn’t be so quick to write off the good morning as a ME lift after all. It is 36 hours later and I am sore in places I have not been sore before. Even my lats are fried and I can hardly ever give them a good pounding no matter how many rows and pulldowns I do. I know soreness alone isn’t an indicator of progress but I think it would be silly to not take this as a sign of moving in the right direction.
I personally see way more value in doing good mornings as a heavy accessory for a 3x3 or something similar or working up to a heavy set of 3-5 after your max effort variation
My squat has gone up by staying specific and maxing mostly on low bar squat variations
Just my 2 cents though,I’m not suggesting that good mornings as a max effort variation are a bad idea