All I can say is that some people have no issue never lifting over 80-85% in training but others can’t handle weights so much above what they are used to lifting and could even fail lifts lower than previous PRs.
I remember Bryce Lewis saying something about how some people can keep making progress while never going past RPE 7. It can work, just better for some people than others.
That was yet again impressive Mark.
I like your approach about going to the meet knowing you only have to strain for the third attempt.
I haven’t been to a meet, so bare with me, I get some of Chris’s thoughts.
If the opener was just a tad more than planned, the second the smallest of PR’s then you could use the second to gauge whether to go for a big PR or not go at all.
But as I said, I like the idea of being confident on the first two attempts.
And a 50 lbs total PR is nice congratulations mate.
Absolutely, this is what many people do. What I don’t like about it is that it requires me to think.
My experience is that openers should fly, something you can do at two am after being woken up by a kick to the groin.
As stated I like your approach a lot, next time I’ll try to max out I’ll have it sorted just like you do big guy
I would guess I fit into that first group. As to the second, do you think that this is something than can be ‘trained out’ or do you think it’s set in stone? I’m asking because we have a pretty large cohort on team Panora and I can’t recall anyone having issues in peak or meet because we don’t handle heavy weights in training.
Purely speculative, but do you think those who wouldn’t do well with this method subconsciously/instinctively or even intentionally know they wouldn’t do well and would eschew Panora’s method?
Probably, part of it is mental for sure. But in something like powerlifting, a placebo effect is something worth pursuing if it gives a measurable benefit.
Another part of this issue is that some people just make way better progress by regularly handling 90%+. If you see how Mike T and the other RTS coaches have people training, it’s not unusual to be doing RPE 8 singles for 3-4 months leading into a meet. I find if I keep doing singles for over 8 weeks I start to burn out, although if it was just bench I could manage. But for my next meet in April I plan to do heavy singles at about 6 weeks out, it works well for me. On squat especially, I’m lucky if I can squat 90% for a triple and I get to a point where I can’t do more than a single but I can still do more weight no problem.
So theoretically you might make better progress if you were to do something like that, but then again your lifts might go backwards or you could get injured. Mike T even said he has one guy, I forget his name but he’s maybe around 450-500 wilks, lifts go down when he trains heavy for a few weeks and he’s mostly doing set of 5-8 or so going into a meet. Seems weird, but that’s what works for him.
Most likely. I wouldn’t train like that because I believe that for me it’s far from optimal, but it works well for other people. Look at Yury Belkin’s Instagram video, he squatted about 920 and was going to take 1000 but only went up to mid 700s in training. He goes heavier on deadlift though, but the point still remains.
I remember a few years ago people talking about the free 4 day Sheiko program on his site, you never squat more than 80 or 85% and not much heavy work on bench or DL either. Some people couldn’t even match their old lifts, but I know one guy who put a couple hundred lbs on his total with that program. These days he’s pulling over 800.
I feel like this is the best thread on T-nation as of late.
I find for myself personally I might fall into the category @chris_ottawa is in, if I lift 80-85 percent I feel stronger overall.
I’ve tried deloading and loosely following what @MarkKO does and right now all my lifts are down big time but my body weight is roughly the same and oddly enough my technique sucks more on heavier lifts but better and more explosive with higher work volume on lighter weight. Lifting is such a weird science, I really want to dial it in more than ever though.
These are really good points.
I think totally buying into whatever system you use is an important factor, because it means you’ll work harder. That alone will improve results. So there’s that.
My position is that both systems work, as we’ve discussed, but that while heavier loads work they require you to get much more right in terms of balancing assistance and supplemental volume, recovery, day to day awareness during training, etc. Greg’s system is less demanding in that respect, having more room to fudge things because the intensity is much lower, so you don’t need to pay that much attention to whether you’re doing too much assistance, how you feel on the day, etc.
So yeah, both work, you will do best to pick the one you prefer but if you commit to either approach and do what each one requires you’ll do well.
Then of course there are the individual differences as you pointed out, with Mike T seeing some guys struggle with higher intensity but others not.
I also suspect that the higher intensity systems work better with more experienced people, and I’m talking well over five years of consistent, intelligent training. That level of knowledge and experience would, I suspect, provide an additional safety net.
Extra workout
Two rounds of 25 each of
Pull aparts
Table reverse hyper
Prisoner squats
Crunches
I just cut volume way down in the last while too and I’m making better progress than pretty much ever since I started competing. I was sold on this MRV stuff, but what I realize now is that the more your body has to put into simply recovering, the less is left for actually adapting. Sure some people do well with super high volume, but they are exceptions. Being lazy with training obviously won’t get you anywhere, but you can often get more out of less if you do it right.
Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t even come close to pushing the limit with volume unless the goal was to add a whole bunch of muscle.
Yeah, you need decent technique at the very least. If you can’t lift light weights with good technique then you definitely won’t do better with heavier weights, and you have a high risk of injury.
Woke at 266.3, looking much the same as usual.
Super weakling here but, you’re talking about volume and intensity. What about frequency in the light of strength as a skill idea?
I forgot to ask, what are you planning to take for your 3rd attempts?
For squat, 610, bench 335 or 340 depending how the 330 goes up. If it moves like it did this week, 340.
I think that’s another one that we can chalk up to how its managed. My best results have come from low frequency, each lift once a week - but the volume of that one time a week is reasonably high.
Personally, I think that high frequency is something that can likely lead to overuse issues in the long term. Apart from deadlifts, you’re getting into a pretty unnatural position and that alone adds stress. If your setup is good, that minimises the issues but it’s still there as a potential problem.
Although, let’s say you take a look at the three parameters: frequency, intensity and volume; and realising that if one goes up, at least one other needs to go down; and then set things up accordingly, there isn’t any reason it cant work. I just think of the three, frequency is the least effective in the context of powerlifting in most situations.
I mean, in the short to medium term (months to a year or so) anything can work. So let’s say your bench or your deadlift sucks compared to the other two lifts. You spend three months training that shit lift three times a week, but the other two stay at once a week. You’re smart, so you make sure the intensity of your shit lift is at most moderate, while training the other two however you did before but moderating their parameters to account for the increased volume and frequency of the shit lift. At the end of the three months, your shit lift has gone up and the other two haven’t gone down. Success.
But then you get greedy, and decide to try and increase the frequency for all your lifts. Either you’re really dumb and don’t reduce the intensity and volume, and you get fucked up pretty quick; or you’re smarter and reduce volume and intensity as best you can, most probably in assistance work. For a while the three lifts get a bunch better, but then you quite suddenly hit issues like niggles, and a somehow the lifts won’t move any more - because you’ve left out the assistance which builds the lifts and generally makes sure every bit of you is strong enough and big enough to do the lifts.
I would suppose one situation where frequency can work well is when you’re at a point where you aren’t going to get any bigger and you’re that strong that your volume and intensity has to be limited as well. Then, probably keeping intensity moderate and volume low while frequency is high could work well.
Interesting comments here mark. I think you remark around the balance of the three is extremely important. I am seeing my best results doing more frequency however i will caveat that by saying, previous to this I was only training 2 days a week and my relative volume of the lifts was low compared to most programs. Even now with doing squat 3 days a week my total volume is probably now much greater that someone doing a specific squat day with supplemental and accessories.
I am sure if I moved to single lift per day with suitable programming of intensity and volume I would also see good results.
and your Deadlift attempts?
That, or because the added stress just from having to warm up so many more times each week and spending more time in the gym starts to affect you. Either progress is slower than otherwise or you burn out and get weaker.
A large part of why I prefer an upper/lower split is because you only have to warm up once for each workout. For assistance work you will do maybe 1-3 warmup sets, but warming up for squat, then bench, then maybe deadlift to or some assistance work will not only add a lot of time to your workouts but even that light work that feels almost effortless will add up to a significant amount of effort if you do it over and over every week. I warm up 4 times a week, if I was doing full body workouts it would be maybe 8, 12, 20 times. I used to train full body at one time too.
The only real benefit to increased frequency beyond 1-2x/week per lift is that you get to practice the same movement pattern more often. This makes much more of a difference for people who have poor technique, and in that case it can make a big difference but 2-3x is plenty for even a beginner. Also, all the studies on frequency for hypertrophy found that 2x is slightly better than 1x in the short term but 3x or more gives no additional benefit.
I recently cut squatting down to once a week, in the past I did light squats before deadlifting, now my squat is stronger than ever and it feels good too. However, twice in the last year I tried cutting benching down to once a week and within 3-4 weeks my bench was down and my upper body also looked a bit deflated you could say. And while I’m not squatting twice, I deadlift on a separate day and it involves the same muscles so technically it is 2x frequency for lower body. I don’t think the Lilliebridge method would work for me at the moment.
That’s a very good point @simo74 because most of the time when training is discussed it’s assumed that training is at least three days a week. If you train twice a week, there is so much more room to move because your recovery will almost never be an issue.