Looking for Westside Template

[StormTheBeach]

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
So if ME lifts aren’t what make you stronger, and DE lifts don’t change until a new max is set in competition, what does make you stronger on this system?

Is it the RE work?[/quote]

The easy answer is increasing weight on exercises you suck at.

The real answer is physics. Power= work/time. The more work you can perform in less time, the more powerful you are. This is why the workouts should last no longer than 45mins and GPP needs to be very highly developed. The strongest people on Earth are not strong because the lift the heaviest weights during training. It’s because they can handle the much more substancial workloads in a given amount of time. So, when is power developed? Dynamic day. 12 sets of 2 reps with 45s rest creates a shitload of power.

The next logical question is then, how do max efforts make you stronger? Like I said before: they don’t. This is were the ability to efficiently work comes into play. Work=Force*Displacement. This just means the amount of force you can exert and the distance that force is sustained. Basically, this is describing tension and muscular strain. More tension and strain over a certain distance(Max effort lifts)=more work=more power=more weight in a meet.

Thats about as general of a description as I can give for that. The general idea though is that strength is developed through a combination of ME, DE, and RE Methods(all things being equal, a larger muscle is a stronger muscle).

Just lifts Maximal weights to work on tension and strain, Submaximal weights as fast as possible, and use RE work to develop and add size to lagging muscles.

[Fletch1986]

I’ve been lacking in GPP because I never thought it mattered much and started work on that the past month or so and it’s already making a difference. I started with mini workouts with bodyweight and bands and light db work and pre/re-hab for 15-30 minutes and more recently the past couple of weeks I added in mountain biking a couple times a week for an hour including warmup and cooldown. I feel like I recover from sessions way faster, I don’t get nearly as sore, and I can do more during the main and mini workouts without feeling beat up. It’s awsome.

I found this awsome trail that’s mostly uphill with lots of switchbacks, and then when I get to the top I’m just about exhausted and then I have to go downhill on some technical stuff and things that require a bit of power from my legs and hips and stabilization from my shoulders and arms. I know Jim Wendler says to do something awsome for GPP and I think I found mine.

I’m not trying to turn this into a Mt. biking thread, just wanted to share my own experience with GPP and further espouse the benefits of GPP. After ignoring it so long, I never knew it could be so important. Now, including the mini-workouts, I workout 6-7 times a week with no problem. Not to mention, I’ve never felt so athletic before if that makes sense and not to mention it’s making me look better (appreciable improvements in body composition without weight change).

I know Louie suggested that GPP is even more important for the natty lifter than the juiced lifter in the book of methods. If I remember correctly, he said it was because nattys don’t have recovery ability of the juiced so they have to develop that recovery ability or something like that. Sorry it’s not sprinting up a hill or pushing/dragging a sled/tire lol.

Thanks STB for the explanations.

[T3hPwnisher]

[quote]zackysmith wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]zackysmith wrote:
do wide grip lat pulldowns or close grip pulldowns affect the bench more?[/quote]

Dude, the whole program is about personal experimentation and finding out what works for YOU.

There is a lot of great information in this thread, but honestly I think you’d benefit from something more structured and basic, especially if you aren’t competing, and especially with how young you seem in your training. Was there any reason you didn’t want to follow 5/3/1 originally? What about the Juggernaut Method?[/quote]
Whats the juggernaut method? Im following 5 3 1 BBB atm but i like having information about other programs too. Just for knowledge sake and also future uses[/quote]

If you type “juggernaut method” into google, you will get tons of results that will explain what it is. You’ll even find some threads here.

[clutz15]

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
There is a lot of conflicting info on here and it seems like a lot of overcomplication on very simple concepts. I will lay it out to you as I understand it (which is pretty good because I am pretty sure I am the only one on here with the westside certification to my name).

A lot of people say to drop dynamic efforts for various reasons. This is not smart. I feel dynamic efforts are the most important aspect of the whole westside system. This is the only time you have to work on form in the main lifts and is the only way you can keep track of gains (via total work completed). Once you figure it out, you can predict what you are capable of at a meet based on what you did on your dynamic day. Thats a little to complicated for a beginner. Anyway, here is exactly what you are going to do:

Dynamic Speed Squats:

Week 1: 50% bar weight plus 25% band tension for 12 sets of 2 reps w/45s rest between sets
Week 2: 55% bar weight and then the same as above
Week 3: 60% bar weight, 25% band tension, 10 sets of 2 reps
Week 4: 50% bar weight, no bands, 6 sets of 2 reps (deload week)

When you get done with those go straight to Dynamic Deadlifts:

50% bar weight for 10 singles. Do this everyweek. Change the band tension, chain combination, or both every week. Week 4 is just straight bar weight for 5 singles

Next up pick 3 exercises that work points/muscles that fail first when you are near maximal weights. Those are your weaknesses so work the shit out of them. Advice Louie told me about sets and reps, do as much as you feel you need to do. I would suggest 5-6 sets of 10-20 on general exercises (GHRs, Hamstring Curls, Back Ext., whatever else) and 4-5 sets of 3-8 for specific exercises (Rack Pulls, Good Mornings, Pause Squats, basically anything done with a barbell).

After that, train abs. Very Very heavy. Stuff like leg raises with added weight, front squat holds for 5, 8, and 10 second max’s, fallouts with balst straps, or the god awful ab wheel.

For Dynamic Bench:

Always use 40% for 12 sets of 3 reps. Change the bar, bands, chains, whatever else you can switch up, every weeks. Same rules apply for assistance work.

These dynamic days should go pretty quick. Try to be done all of the main work in about 45mins.

Max Effort Lower/Upper:

Here is the fun part. Pick an exercise, work up to the heaviest weight you are capable of on that day for a single, then go do assitance work. It is not more complicated than that. Switch the exercise every week.

There are other programming aspects like how to seperate the actual phases of the system for optimal results but, you dont need to worry about those when you are just starting out.

Let me know if you have any questions and I should be able to answer them. Hope this helped.[/quote]

This was an awesome post. Thanks again for sharing your wealth of knowledge. Your lifts speak for themselves that this system works. And you’ve inspired me to change a few things I’ve been doing to follow as closely as possible to what you’e written.

[zackysmith]

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]zackysmith wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]zackysmith wrote:
do wide grip lat pulldowns or close grip pulldowns affect the bench more?[/quote]

Dude, the whole program is about personal experimentation and finding out what works for YOU.

There is a lot of great information in this thread, but honestly I think you’d benefit from something more structured and basic, especially if you aren’t competing, and especially with how young you seem in your training. Was there any reason you didn’t want to follow 5/3/1 originally? What about the Juggernaut Method?[/quote]
Whats the juggernaut method? Im following 5 3 1 BBB atm but i like having information about other programs too. Just for knowledge sake and also future uses[/quote]

If you type “juggernaut method” into google, you will get tons of results that will explain what it is. You’ll even find some threads here.
[/quote]
Yea tried having a look and only seen numbers, not really much explaining anything. If youve any info id love to see it.

[StormTheBeach]

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
I’ve been lacking in GPP because I never thought it mattered much and started work on that the past month or so and it’s already making a difference. I started with mini workouts with bodyweight and bands and light db work and pre/re-hab for 15-30 minutes and more recently the past couple of weeks I added in mountain biking a couple times a week for an hour including warmup and cooldown. I feel like I recover from sessions way faster, I don’t get nearly as sore, and I can do more during the main and mini workouts without feeling beat up. It’s awsome.

I found this awsome trail that’s mostly uphill with lots of switchbacks, and then when I get to the top I’m just about exhausted and then I have to go downhill on some technical stuff and things that require a bit of power from my legs and hips and stabilization from my shoulders and arms. I know Jim Wendler says to do something awsome for GPP and I think I found mine.

I’m not trying to turn this into a Mt. biking thread, just wanted to share my own experience with GPP and further espouse the benefits of GPP. After ignoring it so long, I never knew it could be so important. Now, including the mini-workouts, I workout 6-7 times a week with no problem. Not to mention, I’ve never felt so athletic before if that makes sense and not to mention it’s making me look better (appreciable improvements in body composition without weight change).

I know Louie suggested that GPP is even more important for the natty lifter than the juiced lifter in the book of methods. If I remember correctly, he said it was because nattys don’t have recovery ability of the juiced so they have to develop that recovery ability or something like that. Sorry it’s not sprinting up a hill or pushing/dragging a sled/tire lol.

Thanks STB for the explanations. [/quote]

This is awesome. Powerlifters/Any strength athlete thinking low intensity cardio will decrease their strength is just wrong. All recovery (down time between sets) is aerobic energy system based. Not to say we should all go out and do Tri-Athalons, but a good aerobic base is essential.

Probably the biggest benefit to doing little aerobic workouts is that work like that shifts your nervous activity from sympathetic (highly overactive/makes you feel like shit) to parasympathetic (responsible for recovery between workouts and internal homeostasis).

It doesnt have to be a tire, sled, hills, whatever else, you are still getting the same benefit physiologically. Keep it up man.

[unstable]

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
So, when is power developed? Dynamic day. 12 sets of 2 reps with 45s rest creates a shitload of power.

The next logical question is then, how do max efforts make you stronger? Like I said before: they don’t.
[/quote]

STB-
I hope you return to this thread because I did have some questions about what you’re saying. I TRY to make sense of as much as I can but when I picked up a copy of “The Science and Practice of Strength Training” by Zatziorski, the stuff was over my head.

Also, I want to apologize to anyone that I gave bum information to…it’s not my intent to steer anyone in the wrong direction. I’m not Westside certified…only certs I hold pertain to computers and information technology. Again, I do my best to make sense of this methodology and apply it.

NOW–
If I read you correctly, the dynamic work is what makes you stronger? I don’t get that. Just in a real-world setting, there are quite a few lifters who did dynamic work for quite awhile and then abandoned it and they’ve continued to make gains. If you look at how (defunct now?) Metal Militia would train their bench, there was no dynamic work. I recently invested in Brian Schwab’s DVD just to get some ideas and he only does dynamic work every 3rd week.

I could be 100% wrong here, but I always understood the dynamic work to be something that teaches you to be explosive, you’re training the nervous system to FIRE! EXPLODE! At the same time you’re keeping the reps low to practice form (prevent form breakdown). So if you do 8-12 sets of 2 reps for squats, you should have 8-12 perfect FIRST squats…instead of doing something like 2 sets of 12 reps where you’d only get 2 FIRST squats. It would seem to make sense that @50% someone could easily do 10 reps for 2-3 sets rather than break it into 2 reps and multiple sets.

There was also something where the duration of the 2 reps (in dynamic squat) should be equal to a full-out squat – time wise I mean. Does that mean that >100% for multiple reps can be equal to 100%+ in terms of work/effort/progress?

Please, I’d like to understand this stuff…so don’t take anything that I’m saying as argumentative.

I really thought that the ME work was what built real strength.

[T3hPwnisher]

[quote]zackysmith wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]zackysmith wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]zackysmith wrote:
do wide grip lat pulldowns or close grip pulldowns affect the bench more?[/quote]

Dude, the whole program is about personal experimentation and finding out what works for YOU.

There is a lot of great information in this thread, but honestly I think you’d benefit from something more structured and basic, especially if you aren’t competing, and especially with how young you seem in your training. Was there any reason you didn’t want to follow 5/3/1 originally? What about the Juggernaut Method?[/quote]
Whats the juggernaut method? Im following 5 3 1 BBB atm but i like having information about other programs too. Just for knowledge sake and also future uses[/quote]

If you type “juggernaut method” into google, you will get tons of results that will explain what it is. You’ll even find some threads here.
[/quote]
Yea tried having a look and only seen numbers, not really much explaining anything. If youve any info id love to see it. [/quote]

Again, these were like the first few links when I typped it into google

Juggernaut Method

http://articles.elitefts.com/articles/programs/origin-of-the-juggernaut-method/

Those two links should explain what the method is about.

[StormTheBeach]

[quote]unstable wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
So, when is power developed? Dynamic day. 12 sets of 2 reps with 45s rest creates a shitload of power.

The next logical question is then, how do max efforts make you stronger? Like I said before: they don’t.
[/quote]

STB-
I hope you return to this thread because I did have some questions about what you’re saying. I TRY to make sense of as much as I can but when I picked up a copy of “The Science and Practice of Strength Training” by Zatziorski, the stuff was over my head.

Also, I want to apologize to anyone that I gave bum information to…it’s not my intent to steer anyone in the wrong direction. I’m not Westside certified…only certs I hold pertain to computers and information technology. Again, I do my best to make sense of this methodology and apply it.

NOW–
If I read you correctly, the dynamic work is what makes you stronger? I don’t get that. Just in a real-world setting, there are quite a few lifters who did dynamic work for quite awhile and then abandoned it and they’ve continued to make gains. If you look at how (defunct now?) Metal Militia would train their bench, there was no dynamic work. I recently invested in Brian Schwab’s DVD just to get some ideas and he only does dynamic work every 3rd week.

I could be 100% wrong here, but I always understood the dynamic work to be something that teaches you to be explosive, you’re training the nervous system to FIRE! EXPLODE! At the same time you’re keeping the reps low to practice form (prevent form breakdown). So if you do 8-12 sets of 2 reps for squats, you should have 8-12 perfect FIRST squats…instead of doing something like 2 sets of 12 reps where you’d only get 2 FIRST squats. It would seem to make sense that @50% someone could easily do 10 reps for 2-3 sets rather than break it into 2 reps and multiple sets.

There was also something where the duration of the 2 reps (in dynamic squat) should be equal to a full-out squat – time wise I mean. Does that mean that >100% for multiple reps can be equal to 100%+ in terms of work/effort/progress?

Please, I’d like to understand this stuff…so don’t take anything that I’m saying as argumentative.

I really thought that the ME work was what built real strength.[/quote]

You pretty much answered your own question. The reps on dynmaic exercises should mimic the time under tension of max lifts. The problem with doing 2-3 sets of 10 reps is you will have a sharp decrease in force production and you will teach yourself to move slowly. Say you do 600lbs for 10 reps on whatever exercise as your main lift of the day. You have exerted enough force to move 600 10 times. That does not mean you can lift 605 once. You see it happen in meets all the time, the guy who bombs out or lifts shitty says something like “Dude, I smoked this for 5 in training.” Keeping reps to 1-3 with the dynamic work will make it possible to exert MORE force than the weight that is actually on the bar. Again, all of this stuff (powerlifting, olympic lifting, strongman, whatever) is all a factor of physics. Nothing more. If just benching made your bench go up, why not compete every weekend? You see what I mean?

Not to say you can’t do lifts with this set-up, I am just saying do not substitute DE work for RE work.

There are some people who get strong just doing very basic programmes. Those people, usually, are either genetic freaks or juiced out of their minds. Both of those scenarios are fine with me and I am not saying that to put anyone down. But, if you are a part of the other 99.9% of the population, which I know I definitely am, then you need a more sophisticated training model.

Did I answer your question at all? haha.

[Fletch1986]

What’s your suggestion for someone for whom DE bench work is too hard on the shoulder? I’m already constantly working on mobility, flexibility, and that good stuff and making good gains there too but I my shoulder gets way more niggly than I like after doing bench speed work and seems to set me back more than help.

I’ve basically replaced it with RE work (5/3/1 standing press), the other thing I thought of was using a one or a two board + a rep for every board I use… but I’m weakest at the bottom.

[unstable]

Partially…and I do appreciate you taking the time.

I’ve NEVER suggested to anyone, especially a beginner to replace DE work for RE work. I think DE work has it’s place in training for at least a couple of years before you can really look at it and make that decision whether to drop it. I know guys like Dizenzo dropped speed work and then came back to it years later…And like I mentioned Brian Schwab only does speed work every 3rd week and he doesn’t use bands, only chains.

I GET the physics behind dynamic work. Louie doesn’t usually explain it very well, but what I like to say to people is–if you have 100 lbs. barbell, how much force has to be put on that barbell to make it move? Most guys will say 100 lbs. but the correct answer is obviously MORE THAN 100 lbs…It MUST be OVER 100 lbs, but the closer the force exerted is to 100 lbs. the slower the load will move.

Then you’ve got the force velocity curve where 100 lbs. can only be moved so fast, no matter how much force is exerted on it. Let’s say it’s 200 lbs. for figuring-sake…So a 300 lbs. bencher and a 500 lbs. bencher could both only exert a maximum of 200 lbs. force on 100 lbs because of the velocity curve…

I get all of this…
I guess I just never felt or thought of taking a 50-60% load and it was THAT making me stronger. I thought it was contributing in some way, whether it was CNS training or kind of giving myself a break from handling 90%+

I THOUGHT it was those lifts at 90%+ that were contributing to the real strength gains, especially when, like I said you got guys like the MM crew that do no dynamic work but they are handling 90% loads weekly off of boards in shirts or raw or whatever.

If my best bench is 400, there’s something that is keeping me from hitting 405. If we were able to measure the force on the bar it would have to be OVER 400 for the duration of the lift and THEORETICALLY could exceed 405 at points during the lift but never drop below 400. When taking a 405 attempt, more than 405 lbs. couldn’t be maintained over the duration of the lift, that’s why I fail. Right?

I’m not sure where I’m going with any of this…lol, sorry I got interupted a few times when trying to type this up so it’s kind of scatter-brained and non-sensical. At the end of the day I don’t GET how dynamic work builds strength. Would it make more sense to do more dynamic work if that’s the case? I mean why only 8-12 sets at 50-60%? Just theorizing here brother.

[sufiandy]

The force of 405 is the equilibrium point. By adding more force than 405lbs it moves the weight some distance up, if you go below 405 the weight starts coming down. You might be capable of applying 410lbs of force for a 2 second period but that +5lbs might only move the weight 2/3 of the way and you will fail. By applying 420lbs for 2 seconds it might move fast enough to finish the lift in that time. So the 2 ways to increase a lift are adding more force in a short period of time (DE trains this end) and maximal force for a longer period of time, ME tends to do that.