Pwnisher Q n A

Training Powerlifting
181

With respect to the above, and your most recent blog post/rant.

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
As for your other question, I honestly don’t do any mobility work. It’s not the most popular opinion, but I don’t believe in it. I feel like it’s just one of those ideas like pre-workout supplements that got injected into the training community and was rapidly absorbed and became really present. I think the best thing people can do to get more mobile is move around more, playing sports or just lifting weights, and when I look back on great strength athletes, ranging from Sandow, Arthur Saxon, Bob Peoples, Paul Anderson, Bill Kazmaier, etc, I just can’t fathom the image of them laying on the floor rolling around on foam to get stronger.[/quote]
I can’t speak for the later lifters, but for many of the original “strongmen” extensive warmups, mobility work, soft tissue work were definitely a part of their routines.

Foam-rolling, lacrosse/tennis-ball rolling, are really just poor-mans versions of good deep tissue sports massage.

Arthur Saxon:

About Goerner:

[quote]Each complex was performed with 1 swing, 1 press, 1 curl, and 1 press with each hand before progressing to the next kettlebell. All of this was done with no rest. Sometimes, if the mood suited him, he would do only sets of swings either one or two handed with kettlebells, again with no rest. This warm-up took around 40 minutes, and after a short rest Goerner sometimes repeated “Die Kette” only with thick handled Globe Dumbbells!

It was only after performing “Die Kette” that Goerner got into the meat of his training: Military presses, cleans, snatches, squats, curls and deadlifts, both with one and two hands. He squatted very rarely, and, again, as the mood hit him, but still managed a 600+ rock bottom squat using no equipment and a 500+ front squat. His deadlift, and his ability to grip and hold heavy block weights, engines, and other unwieldy objects were helped by a generous use of this special warm-up exercise. Goerner performed a two-handed deadlift of 793 lb. with a standard barbell (using an overhand grip) over 80 years ago – a lift many of today’s supers would kill for – and of course the aforementioned one-handed pull of 727 lb., a feat which boggles the imagination.[/quote]
(Those numbers may be inflated.)

Sandow, in describing a warm-up routine before heavy lifting.

[quote]The preliminary exercises with the dumb-bells may now be entered upon. Those of immediate benefit are the movements tending to give free play to the muscles and joints which, in the later exercises, will be drawn more heavily into service; to relaxing and rendering them supple; and to afford opportunity for acquiring proper methods of breathing under exercise; care being taken to maintain, as far as possible, the erect position and an easy but well-governed control of the body.
[…]
Some of these free movements, the pupil-athlete will find, are taken up more systematically in the exercises proper: they are here suggested as a sort of
“preliminary canter” or warming-up, before entering on the more serious training-drill which follows.[/quote]
There’s actually quite a bit of information about how the earlier strength athletes emphatically stressed the importance of warm-up and recovery work.

Mostly I wanted to point out that these things were deemed important long before the strong marketing agenda of today.

182

LoRez, I’ve started to change my tune a little on foam rolling, etc. I started mixing foam rolling (or really PVC rolling 'cause I’m pre-padded) movement specific warm-ups (light sets) and/or kettlebell swings if I find something that isn’t working right. “Mashing” cold muscles just doesn’t make sense to me.

183

[quote]LoRez wrote:
With respect to the above, and your most recent blog post/rant.

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
As for your other question, I honestly don’t do any mobility work. It’s not the most popular opinion, but I don’t believe in it. I feel like it’s just one of those ideas like pre-workout supplements that got injected into the training community and was rapidly absorbed and became really present. I think the best thing people can do to get more mobile is move around more, playing sports or just lifting weights, and when I look back on great strength athletes, ranging from Sandow, Arthur Saxon, Bob Peoples, Paul Anderson, Bill Kazmaier, etc, I just can’t fathom the image of them laying on the floor rolling around on foam to get stronger.[/quote]
I can’t speak for the later lifters, but for many of the original “strongmen” extensive warmups, mobility work, soft tissue work were definitely a part of their routines.

Foam-rolling, lacrosse/tennis-ball rolling, are really just poor-mans versions of good deep tissue sports massage.

Arthur Saxon:

About Goerner:

[quote]Each complex was performed with 1 swing, 1 press, 1 curl, and 1 press with each hand before progressing to the next kettlebell. All of this was done with no rest. Sometimes, if the mood suited him, he would do only sets of swings either one or two handed with kettlebells, again with no rest. This warm-up took around 40 minutes, and after a short rest Goerner sometimes repeated “Die Kette” only with thick handled Globe Dumbbells!

It was only after performing “Die Kette” that Goerner got into the meat of his training: Military presses, cleans, snatches, squats, curls and deadlifts, both with one and two hands. He squatted very rarely, and, again, as the mood hit him, but still managed a 600+ rock bottom squat using no equipment and a 500+ front squat. His deadlift, and his ability to grip and hold heavy block weights, engines, and other unwieldy objects were helped by a generous use of this special warm-up exercise. Goerner performed a two-handed deadlift of 793 lb. with a standard barbell (using an overhand grip) over 80 years ago – a lift many of today’s supers would kill for – and of course the aforementioned one-handed pull of 727 lb., a feat which boggles the imagination.[/quote]
(Those numbers may be inflated.)

Sandow, in describing a warm-up routine before heavy lifting.

[quote]The preliminary exercises with the dumb-bells may now be entered upon. Those of immediate benefit are the movements tending to give free play to the muscles and joints which, in the later exercises, will be drawn more heavily into service; to relaxing and rendering them supple; and to afford opportunity for acquiring proper methods of breathing under exercise; care being taken to maintain, as far as possible, the erect position and an easy but well-governed control of the body.
[…]
Some of these free movements, the pupil-athlete will find, are taken up more systematically in the exercises proper: they are here suggested as a sort of
“preliminary canter” or warming-up, before entering on the more serious training-drill which follows.[/quote]
There’s actually quite a bit of information about how the earlier strength athletes emphatically stressed the importance of warm-up and recovery work.

Mostly I wanted to point out that these things were deemed important long before the strong marketing agenda of today.[/quote]

I think massage is an excellent idea, as is doing some actual work to get some strength and mobility generated. Dan John’s approach of making the warm up the workout is a worthwhile notion to invest in, and I incorporate it into my own training (usually GHRs, Chin ups, pulldowns or KB swings). However, for the massage, I wait until something is actually broken before I seek to employ it.

184

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I think massage is an excellent idea, as is doing some actual work to get some strength and mobility generated. Dan John’s approach of making the warm up the workout is a worthwhile notion to invest in, and I incorporate it into my own training (usually GHRs, Chin ups, pulldowns or KB swings). However, for the massage, I wait until something is actually broken before I seek to employ it.[/quote]
It seems I’m not following your argument here, beyond “don’t do it until you need it”. For that matter, a lot of your lifting philosophy seems to come down to: do no more or no less than needed to continue making progress.

However, what I don’t follow is the “if you’re untrained/weak, there’s no need for this stuff” direction.

These quotes, and the idea/argument behind them, I don’t really understand.

Are you denying that activation is an actual phenomena? Denying that a sedentary lifestyle can jack up your joints? Denying that lifting with jacked joints can cause further damage?

While I’m pretty sure I get the overall message, I’m just not following the argument.

185

I would say my philosophy boils down to do the things you need to do in order to meet your goals. Quantity has never really been a thing I concern myself with.

A sedentary lifestyle is a terrible thing, which is why I advocate against it. I am a big advocate on playing sports and physical activity in order to correct the damage of a sedentary lifestyle, and see the current process of avoiding that at all costs and instead engaging in foam rolling and structured mobility work to be silly. I think that if these same people that employed these tactics instead went out and played football or basketball or hockey or just something a few times a week, they’d see some amazing results.

I also think people should do these things BEFORE they ever touch a weight. For at least 3 months, but a year would be even more ideal. From there, bodyweight work should be implemented to develop some foundational strength. I constantly cite Dave Tate’s statement that a trainee should be able to do 100 push ups before touching a barbell.

However, these thoughts are heresy in the online lifting world, and instead we see a ton of kids loading up on Starting Strength or stronglifts, only able to press the bar, and stalling out in a matter of weeks.

As for the topic of activation, I have no idea what it even is. My glutes have never felt sleepy, so I am unsure what it means to wake them up. Truth be told, I just lift weights, and it seems to be working out for me.

186

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I constantly cite Dave Tate’s statement that a trainee should be able to do 100 push ups before touching a barbell.[/quote]

Consecutive? Without pausing to rest at the top or bottom? I better stop lifting, as my best is 64.

187

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I constantly cite Dave Tate’s statement that a trainee should be able to do 100 push ups before touching a barbell.[/quote]

Consecutive? Without pausing to rest at the top or bottom? I better stop lifting, as my best is 64.
[/quote]

It’s so awesome you actually asked the question, because so many people just see the number and get up in arms about the matter, not bothering to wonder “what was the authors intent?” Hell, he may have even meant spread out through out the day, or through mutliple sets.

As for what Dave personally meant, no idea. He can still be reached for comment through various forms, but whenever I’ve offered that invitation in the past, no one has pursued it. I’m curious if anyone ever will and find out what his parameters were. For myself, I always keep myself in some sort of condition where, at any given time, I can do 100 push ups. Sometimes I may need to rest at the top, other times not, but I never actually have to practice the movement these days, my training just takes care of it.

188

I suppose I never thought much about the 100 pushup number since I was doing that years before I started lifting, back when I was younger and thought pushups and situps were the key to looking like a badass. That whole SEAL/Spetnaz schtick doesn’t do anything for me anymore.

I think we’re on the same page that a good basis of some sort of physical activity should exist before touching a weight. For me that was several years of track and cross-country and bodyweight stuff, and wrestling before that.

With respect to activation, it’s one of those things I didn’t really believe in until I saw it for myself. There’s a couple places where there are enough muscles around a joint that some can take over while the others do very little. The whole pelvic tilt thing and glute activation is probably the most obvious one – where back extension and hamstrings can do the work while the glutes do nothing – but also around the shoulders where the upper traps can take the work away from the deltoids and triceps in an overhead press.

Once I put a bit of work to make sure I was actually using my glutes in the squat and deadlift movements, it made the weight feel significantly lighter, since effectively an entire muscle group wasn’t even used before. For example, it’s possible to lift a weight from the ground using almost purely back extension without hinging from the hips at all; or, you can hinge at the hips, but only use your hamstrings to lift the weight. Figuring out how to use all three in concert – glutes, hamstrings and erectors/extensors – is going to be stronger than any subset.

But even with that, it’s pretty much needing to give an occasional reminder to my body (i.e., activation work) to use all the muscles it can for the lift. It’s not an everyday thing, and really just a conscious and forceful contraction of the muscles is usually good enough. This is basically Pavel’s suggestion too, when he discusses flexing the glutes and bracing the abs in a few of his books.

I think it’s like many things; you need to let your body know you want to do something, and eventually it adapts. In this case, you let it know that you actually want to use all the muscles, not just half of them. At least that’s how I see “activation” work. Just a tool to use sparingly as necessary and for no longer.

Likewise for “thoracic mobility work” and self-myofascial release stuff. My posture and shoulder positioning was jacked up a bit from sitting all the time, poor “activation”, and thus weight training served to exaggerate the issues rather than fix them.

On the other hand, I’m not sure most people have the knowledge, training, and self-awareness to properly self diagnose and apply the tools. After I fiddled with things for for awhile, trying to make sense from articles, I went to a professional and had things done right. As well as learned the things that I could do to correct and maintain my issues.

But to your original point, I’m not sure how much of this could have been fixed or avoided by participating in a more whole-body sport. Running – in my observation – tends to actually create and exaggerate issues more than fix them. I’d imagine soccer is similar since you’re only really using the lower half the body. I just don’t have the experience with football or basketball.

I don’t think I have any real point with what I wrote, just sharing my own observations.

–

Actually, with respect to “activation”, the touch and go mat pulls have proved to be a great diagnostic tool, especially when pushed to failure or fatigue. As I approach fatigue, certain things start to fall apart as various muscle groups start to shut down. Being able to monitor that while making small form changes has been pretty useful. One of the simpler ones was realizing that if I tilt my hips just a tiny bit forward (i.e., intentional anterior pelvic tilt), it keeps my lower back from being the weak point.

My metric is pretty much: does this change make the lift easier? does it let me work harder for longer? if so, keep it.

189

I appreciate the effort put into that post. We have definitely had different experiences in our training, and I imagine it would be what is responsible for our different perspectives on the matter. I’ve certainly read up on a lot of the material that is out there about mobility and soft tissue work, and everytime it’s simply left me unconvinced.

I could simply not be the target demographic, but as long as I continue to progress without employing it, I’m going to hold the opinion of it not being a necessary thing. There are certainly many many others that feel and have experienced otherwise, but that’s always going to be the case with just about everything.

In regards to sports, I should have specified that I definitely meant a sport with at least some manner of contact involved. You are correct, I do not think that competitive running or soccer would fit the bill in this case, but a football, hockey, wrestling, things along that line I find are very beneficial.

190

I just gave this thread a reread. Got even more out of it this time through.

I wanted to revisit a couple things and get more detail.

You mentioned starting with abbreviated programming and later learning the value of assistance work through your experience with Westside… but you also mentioned that you effectively milked abbreviated training for all it was worth first.

If you were to do that again, would you have incorporated accessory work into your training earlier, or do you think it’s better to wait until it’s actually needed? (You can read my bias in that question.)

I’m on a quite abbreviated push/pull Power to the People routine, alternating between higher-frequency strength phases and higher-volume size phases – for lack of better terminology – and still progressing just working with the cycling variants in that book. With my current momentum, I feel like I’ll be able to keep this up for quite some time; several more months, if not longer. The only assistance I’ve done is just to get some balance around a couple joints to stave off some pain. Nothing has really presented itself as an obvious weakness elsewhere, so I haven’t done anything else.

But I’m just looking for your thoughts on when you would introduce accessory work.

Second question… what did your deadlift training look like over your whole training career? How strong did you get with using an abbreviated approach? How strong were you when you switched to the various Westside approaches, and where did that take you? Likewise for 5/3/1. How strong were you when you first moved to ROM progression?

I’m guess I’m just trying to understand the path you took over time, and when and why you made the decisions you did with your training.

191

[quote]LoRez wrote:
I just gave this thread a reread. Got even more out of it this time through.

I wanted to revisit a couple things and get more detail.

You mentioned starting with abbreviated programming and later learning the value of assistance work through your experience with Westside… but you also mentioned that you effectively milked abbreviated training for all it was worth first.

If you were to do that again, would you have incorporated accessory work into your training earlier, or do you think it’s better to wait until it’s actually needed? (You can read my bias in that question.)

I’m on a quite abbreviated push/pull Power to the People routine, alternating between higher-frequency strength phases and higher-volume size phases – for lack of better terminology – and still progressing just working with the cycling variants in that book. With my current momentum, I feel like I’ll be able to keep this up for quite some time; several more months, if not longer. The only assistance I’ve done is just to get some balance around a couple joints to stave off some pain. Nothing has really presented itself as an obvious weakness elsewhere, so I haven’t done anything else.

But I’m just looking for your thoughts on when you would introduce accessory work.

Second question… what did your deadlift training look like over your whole training career? How strong did you get with using an abbreviated approach? How strong were you when you switched to the various Westside approaches, and where did that take you? Likewise for 5/3/1. How strong were you when you first moved to ROM progression?

I’m guess I’m just trying to understand the path you took over time, and when and why you made the decisions you did with your training.[/quote]

Well, a few things you have to keep in mind is that before I got into abbreviated training, I was just “lifting”, which included tons of assistance work prioritized as primary stuff. Lots of isolation and stupid stuff. Along with that, I alternated between Westside and abbreviated training about 9 months on/9 months off for years, so I wasn’t completely without, I would just have periods without.

All THAT being said, the value of abbreviated training was as much psychological as it was physical for me. Going strict abbreviated taught me what you really NEED versus want when it comes to training, and gave me a good idea how to prioritize. Once that gets established, assistance work isn’t bad at all, because one understands how it fits in.

If I had to do it ALL over again, I probably would’ve done 5/3/1 BBB from the start honestly. Abbreviated training rocks, but if I was without ego, I think I’d get a lot more from that program. In this way, I’d still be doing assistance work, but the assistance work would still primarily be the main movement.

I will cover the second question in another post.

192

Deadlift training went like this.

1: Don’t deadlift for the first several years of training because I don’t know what it is and my college gym says they are totally illegal

2: First time I deadlift, I use an easy curl bar and manage 3 plates per side (so that’s like…300lbs?)

3: Use Pavel’s 3-5 where I deadlift every other day for 5x5 straight sets on a 3 day rotation. Do this for about a year. Ended up using something like 365 for 5x5 by the time I was done, and 405 for a single.

4: Use bastardized “Westside” where I deadlift off the floor once every 4 weeks for max effort. Got up to 540lbs in about a year for this (all of this is without a belt).

5: Let ego get best of me when I get back into Pavel’s, refuse to use less than 405 for my first 5x5 workout, pull everything stiff legged, jack up my back squatting, don’t deadlift with a bar for 3 years.

6: After 3 years of heavily prioritizing squats and not doing any deads, start up DoggCrapp training, do heavy mat pulls for the first time, fall in love. Only do DC for 2 months because now I think I can get back into heavy lifting.

7: Do 1 ROM progression cycle with deads over 7 weeks. Manage to work down to 495x5 off the floor. Still running abbreviated training for the rest of my lifts, training deads once a week.

8: Switch to a system where I alternate between mat pulls w/ROM progression and high rep floor pulls. Do this for a year, manage to work up to 585 in my second meet.

9: Switch to 5/3/1 for everything else, in doing so pull the everloving shit out of my hamstring by trying to do some super fast eccentric squats in -30 degree weather in my garage. This prompts me to go back into straight up ROM progression for deads to work around bum hamstring. Get up to 601 in my next meet.

10: Here I am today, worked up to 650 in the gym.

1 Like
193

Thanks for both responses. I read them right away, but needed some time to digest before replying (and then I went on vacation).

I now realize I have a pretty big knowledge gap when it comes to assistance work. I know a handful of movements usually used for assistance for any given lift, but I have no actual experience putting the two together. So far, given a lift, if it stops making improvements, it’s always come down to making adjustments to my mental approach, my form, my diet, or my programming (frequency, volume, relative intensities) for that particular lift.

Basically, my view has been that assistance work is what you move to once those stop working. And honestly I feel like there are so many options with the above, that I’ll really never have any need to do assistance work.

That’s not to say I’m right or anything, it’s just where I am right now. I’ve always been very minimalist in my training, only adding things as necessary, so I don’t have that base of assistance work that it sounds like you had.

Do you have any input there? I’m not sure whether that’s a belief I need to revise.

–

Also, when you say this: “Abbreviated training rocks, but if I was without ego, I think I’d get a lot more from that program.”, are you referring to 5/3/1 BBB or abbreviated training when you say “that program”? I wasn’t sure with how you wrote that.

Personally I’m finding that when it says “start each cycle with a weight you can easily use for 10 reps”, it actually means that.

194

I used to think a TON about assistance work, but I found that, the less I thought about it, the better it worked. My approach these days is to just do SOMETHING and do it hard. With this approach, as long as I pick something reasonable, I get stronger. I want to get my squat stronger? I could do squats, front squats, high bar squats, safety squat bar squats, etc etc, and as long as by the time I’m done with my training session I can’t speak normally and it feels like my legs are made of lead, I get stronger. I want to be a better presser (bench or overhead), I could bench, press, use a swiss bar, use a log, go incline, use an axle, use dumbbells, etc etc, and as long as I generally hate myself by the time the session is done, I’m probably going to get stronger.

I think Dan John coined this metaphor for training, but thinking of your training like a bucket. The “big movements” (ie: your highest priority movements) are like big stones. You fit as many into the bucket as you can, but because of their size there is going to be some cracks left to fill. Assistance work ranges from smaller stones/pebbles all the way to sand (ie: everything from heavier compound work to pre/rehab). You try to fit in as many bigger stones as possible until you run out of room and then resort to sand. If you just fill the whole thing up with sand, you have no room for big stones, but once you have filled your bucket with big stones, you may as well squeeze in as much as you can with smaller stuff.

That’s pretty much how I approach it these days. Additionally, if I have no contest looming, and am gaining weight, I go pretty crazy with assistance work. When I have a contest and some events to train, I tend to use the events AS my assistance work.

As for the quote you were asking about, I was saying I think I’d get more out of 5/3/1 BBB vs abbreviated training if I started all over, assuming I could keep my ego in check.

195

Here’s a different question for Ya,

What approaches would you use if a lifter really wanted to increase the hypertrophy for his chest and that was his main goal? Movements, sets reps el,volume etc.

196

Hello! Who are you and what have you achieved? (I don’t read these forums much)

197

[quote]GrindOverMatter wrote:
Here’s a different question for Ya,

What approaches would you use if a lifter really wanted to increase the hypertrophy for his chest and that was his main goal? Movements, sets reps el,volume etc.[/quote]

That’s really outside my wheelhouse. I have never really trained explicitly for the goal of hypertrophy, but instead got hypertrophy for the sake of accomplishing other goals.

That said, I have been see in good results by using ladder push ups at the end of a workout as a finisher. I actually start with dips with a very short ROM, keeping tension on the chest the whole time for 30ish reps, the move onto floor push ups, and then something elevated in the rack. Great pump.

198

[quote]ahnz wrote:
Hello! Who are you and what have you achieved? (I don’t read these forums much)[/quote]

I’m currently a lifetime drugfree strongman competitor that also competed in powerlifting. My last powerlifting meet was in Dec of 2012 (man time flies) where I managed to go 502/336/601 (kilos to pounds) for a raw w/wraps total of 1439 in the 181 class. Since then, I’ve managed best gym lifts of a 550 squat, 350 dead bench from chains and 650 (ugly) deadlift at about 198.

I’m a pretty bad strongman, but I’m having a blast with it. Got another contest on 10 Jan that looks exciting. It has a last man standing tire deadlift, which is something I can shine on.

I suppose I’m pretty unique in that I’m one of the few people using Range of Motion progression training for my squat and deadlift (and up until recently, my press and bench), but otherwise, I just like to share my experiences.

199

Just wanted to chip in - I’ve been off the forums for a while, this was one of the few threads I took the time to read through in the last x number of months. The conversation in this thread about dave tate’s “hundred pushups” philosophy inspired me to actually give it a shot - I’d read that a while back and always thought “fuck that” haha but my bench has been my worst lift for forever and I have a ton of trouble getting it to improve, so I decided go back to the basics and actually follow the advice that I’d written off because I couldn’t do it. At 225, I’m hoping putting in the work to be able to do 100 pushups in a single set (that’s the way I’m interpreting it) will help build up the musculature I need and the sheer pressing volume might give my bench the kick in the ass it needs when I return to it.

Just re-read the thread and figured I’d chime in about how it inspired me / helped shape the direction my training is taking. Great stuff here, thanks for putting the time in Pwnisher

200

[quote]N.K. wrote:
Just wanted to chip in - I’ve been off the forums for a while, this was one of the few threads I took the time to read through in the last x number of months. The conversation in this thread about dave tate’s “hundred pushups” philosophy inspired me to actually give it a shot - I’d read that a while back and always thought “fuck that” haha but my bench has been my worst lift for forever and I have a ton of trouble getting it to improve, so I decided go back to the basics and actually follow the advice that I’d written off because I couldn’t do it. At 225, I’m hoping putting in the work to be able to do 100 pushups in a single set (that’s the way I’m interpreting it) will help build up the musculature I need and the sheer pressing volume might give my bench the kick in the ass it needs when I return to it.

Just re-read the thread and figured I’d chime in about how it inspired me / helped shape the direction my training is taking. Great stuff here, thanks for putting the time in Pwnisher[/quote]

That’s great to hear man. I’ve known a ton of people who balked at Dave’s idea there and had a ton of different reasons to justify why they wouldn’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t do it, but ultimately I have discovered that being stronger has never made me weaker. I’m glad it’s given you a way to vector your training, and appreciate the kind words.