I’m familiar with Westside style DE training but I don’t really know any other ways to implement it. I’m really intent on doing the speed work with the comp lifts and/or close derivatives so I’m not just talking about plyos.
Does it absolutely have to go before heavy work or have any of ya’ll had success with placing it afterwards?
What kind of rep schemes and intensities do ya’ll use and how much and how often of accommodating resistance do ya’ll use too?
Using bench as a specific example, i found success implementing it after my ME day. Typically, i would bench heavy on monday, and do speed work on thursday.
As for the speed work i used on the bench, i would always keep the weight on the bar below 60% of my 1RM, and usually end up at about 60% of my 1RM. As a side note, my 1RM was at 315, so i would do speed work with 185 at the most. This is about 58%. As i increased my 1RM, i typically stayed at 185, and the % would get lower when compared to my 1RM.
My rep schemes were 8 sets of 3 reps. When i did this, although it was speed work, i focused on staying in control of the bar through the eccentric portion, so my negative was not ‘Fast’. The reason why is because for me particularly, if i tried to do the whole rep quickly, my technique would not be consistent. So i tried to duplicate my decent and touch portion to how i would always bench, but the moment i touched, i tried to move the weight with as much force as possible.
This practice was important as i started implementing bands. My favorite bands to use for speed bench are the average ones. With the bands looped on, controlling your negative became that much more important because if you went fast through the whole movement, you could almost eliminate the tension of the bands on the eccentric portion. I liked the feel of learning how to resist the tension on the way down. It helped me learn my grove and focus on blasting off when i touched.
To push this, my partner and i timed our rest periods. Instead of adding weight week to week, we shortened rest times. From 30 seconds down to 10. As the rest times got shorter we stopped switching between and just had one person go through all 8 of their sets, then the next person went. This was challenging.
We also messed with weight, rest times, and bands. For 4 week cycles we would run lighter bar weight with more band tension (average bands plus light bands). Or more weight with less or even no bands. Or very light bar weight (50%) and no bands for very short rest periods.
We also implemented low board (single board) presses on speed days. I really enjoyed this, as i could bang the board to keep bar speed high and keep my shoulders fresh (my shoulders are beat up).
I would look to combine certain speed days with the work you are doing on your ME day. Reverse band pressing with supra maximal weight on ME day combines nicely with very light bar weight (50%) and no bands for short rest periods. Heavy floor presses combines nicely with heavier bar weight (55-60%) and extra band tension. Regular ME bench combines nicely with single board banded speed (55%) days.
Squat and DL speed days are similar in the percentage, and are really nice to combine with bands. On Squats, i like to do bands from both angles to either use lighter weight with band tension, or heavier weight with reverse bands to focus on driving out of the hole. Deadlifts i like micro-mini bands for speed work, and low rack pulls at less weight with shorter break periods.
With Squat and deads, it would depend on your programming over the entire cycle to determine where to place these moves, as i have found i like to place one of the speed days with the other moves ME day, and even doing both moves speed days in the same workout. It just depends on what your week looks like and where you want to focus.
As an experiment, I wanted to try splitting up the basic movement patterns into a 5 day split and was having a hard time figuring out how the speed work would go in there. Here’s what I have so far:
Notes:
The split?
day 1
chins
bis
isolation lats
maybe calves
day 2
half of DE bp
hepburn rep scheme press
shoulder isolation
maybe tris
day 3
box squat half of DE squat
HRS squat
leg curl of some sort
calves
rest
day 4
rest of DE bench
HRS bench
tris
shoulder
day 5
free squat de squat
HRS deadlift
cable rows
calves
rest
I do it a bit different, I guess its not necessarily dynamic effort, but for example.
Bench 2 sets of heavy doubles or triples
then explosive/speed bench for 4+ sets of 3 or 4 using 55-60% with a short rest. I go upward of 10 sets.
This was laid out better in the powerbuilding book by Josh Bryant. He uses it in this way mostly.
[quote]scottkoscielniak wrote:
I do it a bit different, I guess its not necessarily dynamic effort, but for example.
Bench 2 sets of heavy doubles or triples
then explosive/speed bench for 4+ sets of 3 or 4 using 55-60% with a short rest. I go upward of 10 sets.
This was laid out better in the powerbuilding book by Josh Bryant. He uses it in this way mostly. [/quote]
By the way I’ve heard it explained on these boards, powerbuilding is basically what I’m trying to do at this point. I’ll look into that book. I’ve liked his articles on T-Nation.
Are you wanting four speed sets twice a week? Why? Why not do a repetition day and then do all of your speed work on the following day?
[quote]Chicksan wrote:
Are you wanting four speed sets twice a week? Why? Why not do a repetition day and then do all of your speed work on the following day?[/quote]
The reason I had it like that I was splitting the speed work across more days so I wouldn’t be tired out after the speed work and could get in my moderately heavy reps with the powerlifts and standing press.
But I’m not sure if that’s the best way to do it. What I do want to do is split up the movement patters/muscle groups across more days kind of like a bodybuilder would and still be working on the powerlifts.
[quote]scottkoscielniak wrote:
I do it a bit different, I guess its not necessarily dynamic effort, but for example.
Bench 2 sets of heavy doubles or triples
then explosive/speed bench for 4+ sets of 3 or 4 using 55-60% with a short rest. I go upward of 10 sets.
This was laid out better in the powerbuilding book by Josh Bryant. He uses it in this way mostly. [/quote]
For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to go with something really similar to what you’ve outlined. Some squat speed work after the heavier squat work, speed bench after heavy bench, and db/kb swings after deads.
So the biggest difference compared to what I’ve been doing will be less volume on speed work and that’ll allow me more recovery to allocate towards lagging parts like my tris, bis, shoulders, and hamstrings which will definitely be more doable over the split I have now.
Thanks for all the ideas everyone and I’m still open to more.
Notes:
The split:
day 1
hepburn rep scheme press (8x2 to 8x3 over 8-10 weeks and add 5-10lbs to working weight and do it again)
heavyish tris
light shoulders
calves
day 2
chins
heavyish bis
light lats
pump bis
day 3
HRS squat
speed squat (alternating weeks free and box squat)
leg curl of some sort
calves
rest
day 4
HRS bench
speed bench
pump tris
light shoulder
day 5
HRS deadlift
db/kb swings
cable rows
calves
You can make one week a DE week and then the next a rep week (could be multiple weeks also). I would not split them up during the week. Kind of gets away from Prilepin’s Chart when you do that. Just my opinion.
[quote]vdizenzo wrote:
You can make one week a DE week and then the next a rep week (could be multiple weeks also). I would not split them up during the week. Kind of gets away from Prilepin’s Chart when you do that. Just my opinion.[/quote]
I don’t quite follow what you mean about Prilepin’s Chart. Maybe my understanding is off, I haven’t studied it a bunch or anything like that, but isn’t the chart just a set/rep/total reps scheme for a given percentage?
So when I do my heavy work, I’m working with 80 percentish of my max following the chart fairly closely, then I do the speed work at 50-60% of my max for lower end of total reps on the chart for that percentage range.
To me, that looks like I’m following Prilepin’s chart for the higher percentage, then moving on to do prilepin’s chart at a lower percentage during the same workout.
Or is the case that prilepin’s chart can only be followed with a competition lift for one given percentage range in one workout and still be following the principles that Prilepin set forth?
www.maxfitusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/prelipins.pdf
I found this link up above. It basically gives some formulas how to use Prilepin’s chart for different percentages in the same workout. If you get the chance and have the time, could you let me know if this is garbage or legit?
You said you were going to do half the sets on DE, that comes out the 12 reps. The low end for the chart is 18. Just throwing it out there. I know we do not have to follow the chart like it’s holy grail. However, a little science never hurt any of us.
I skimmed the article you posted. Started to get a bit technical for me, a little beyond my SFW mentality. I did not notice it taking into consideration the intensity of speed work. I think performing reps versus performing speed reps is a different story. That said, you look like you put some thought into this. You very well may have come up with something. Worth a shot for a few months. Sometimes I think believing in a program has more to do with success than the actual program.
My developmental stage has pretty much peaked, so I am finding I have to make small tweaks myself. Best of luck.