[quote]prodiboy wrote:
Do you guys have any raw lifters that train with you guys, if so does their training differ from the geared lifters.[/quote]
We have very few raw lifters. That being said, raw lifters follow a similar split. I was raw for almost 2 years before I started using gear. It was very similar to the old West Side routine, 2 upper / 2 lower a week. Two days a week devoted to very heavy lifts, two days a week devoted to speed / assistance.
From what I’ve seen, what differs is the speed days. As a geared lifer, we focus more on assistance lifts instead of “speed” lifts. When I was training raw, we never missed DE work. We would frequently changed bars, bands, chains, etc, etc – but it was always DE/ME for both upper and lower.
Now, we’ll cycle speed work and assistance work. Personally, I always do DE bench because it works for me. However, instead of DE box squats we’ll cycle in good mornings, deadlifts, box squats for reps, etc. Our DE Lower day turns into an assistance day for the most part. We still do speed work every now and then, just not every week.
Raw training is a very important part of our equipped meet training. Our group strives to be strong raw and geared. We usually put our shirts on every 3 weeks, switching to every other week about 8 weeks out of a meet. On ME days, we’ll always “warm up” to a heavy set raw before putting our gear on, and keep track of that too.
Even though we are primarily a “geared” gym, I’ve seem some stupid raw lifts (just of the top of my head) :
- 680x2 squat for speed work of a parallel box (belt only) [actually saw 2 people do this]
- 600x1 squat ass to grass free squat (belt only)
- 325x3 bench from a drug free 165lb lifter
- 465 raw bench from a drug free 18 year old
- 640 raw squat from a 220
- 655 chain suspended good morning belt only (if I didn’t see this with my own eyes I wouldn’t believe it)
Hopefully that answers your question
EDIT:
One more thing that differed was the ME Lower was either a heavy squat, or a heavy pull (never both), then a supplementary exercise, then accessories. When I first started training geared, it was always a heavy squat and a heavy pull on the same day, then accessories. We would vary good mornings, pin pulls and squats on ME lower. Now we almost always squat heavy for ME lower.
