Starting the Conjugate System (Westside)

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Physically and mentally, I’m starting to burn out on 5/3/1. It started out great, but the more I do it, the less I get out of it. Training the four main lifts week in and week out is starting to wear on my joints and is even getting a little boring.

Here is what I have planned for my first westside cycle.

Sunday
DE bench @ about 50% or so
db bench press
cable row (straight bar, different grips)
face pulls
rotator cuff work

Monday
ME lower body (work the different gm’s mostly, occasionally a squat or deadlift type)
sldl
hyperextensions
abs

Wednesday
Me upper body
db press
rack chins
face pull
rotator cuff work

Friday
DE lower body
wave 50%-60% over 3 weeks for box squat
wave between 55-65% deadlift
hyperextension
abs

current lifts @ 180
bench- 255-270 (been a while since tested, last tested as 255)
squat- 335 (down from 350 in december before si joint issues)
deadlift- 395 (445 before injury)
all are raw

-Recovery wo’s always throughout the week (15-30 min of making joints healthier, rotator work, hip work w/ bands, traction w/bands, etc)
-Metabolic work depending on school schedule interspersed throughout the week

perceived weak points:
bench-bottom half, 2-4 in. off chest
squat-4in out of the hole I lean forward
deadlift-getting it off the ground

Thinking I’ll occasionally for a de cycle use bands, but maybe only 1/4 de cycles and keep the upper and lower band work separate from each other.

At the moment I’m a raw lifter, but that’s only because of financial reasons so I imagine that will change in the future (probably more than a year)

Does this look alright.

2

Sunday:
You need tricep work. That’s a must even for raw benchers.

Monday:
I’d do mostly squats and deadlift variations with GMs as an accessory. You need to be better at the competition lifts before you worry about max GMs. You can use GMs as an accessory and do sets of 5. You can rotate them with the SLDL and sumo SLDL. Try to find something that’s hamstring specific for an accessory.

Wednesday:
You need tricep work again. I wouldn’t do dumbbell twice. I’d keep it on DE and go for 15-20 reps.

Friday:
You need to find something hamstring specific.

Definitely use bands for most of your DE work and some of your ME work. I haven’t really heard of anyone having great success with DE work without bands or chains.

3

Sunday
DE bench @ about 50% or so
db bench press (50ish total reps)
cable row (straight bar, different grips)
overhead band extensions (high reps)
rotator cuff work

Monday
ME lower body (mostly squat and dead variations)
sldl or gm
ghr
hyperextension
abs

Wednesday
Me upper body
phone book press
rack chins
face pull
rotator cuff work

Friday
DE lower body
wave 50%-60% over 3 weeks for box squat
wave between 55-65% deadlift
ghr
abs

???
I’m worried it might be too much volume for monday

4

I’d do sldl or ghr not both on Monday. Also on your DE squat day you may want to consider doing free squats because the box squats are great for geared lifters. I ddi box squats for a while and when I went back to a raw free squat I had a hell of a time in the hole. My stretch reflex was virtually non existant. I fixed it with free squatting with bands and chains.

Doing box squats will make you good at doing box squats. They were designed for geared lifters, to simulate the suit taking the weight at the bottom of the lift and the lifter doing the eccentric portion. I don’t think box squats carry over well for raw dogs…try it and see if you get the results you desire.
Squatting off of a foam box however has done some good stuff for me. I feel it carries over to my raw squat as well as my geared squat. hope this helps…

5

welcome back. I felt i was one of the last few still on the conjugate method.

some thoughts:

enless you want to stay in your current weight class, replace some de squat and bench days with reps days. It will help add some size.

hit more shoulders and triceps. Through biceps in too.

use more squat and deadlift variations. at least 1:1:1 ratio.

how long did you do the 5 3 1? My workout partner switched and had good results for about 3 cycles. he has stagnated and misses the variety.

6

If the 5/3/1 is hurting your joints you better hold onto your ass. Conjugate as Westside does it is NOT easy on the joints.

Jason

7

"I’d do sldl or ghr not both on Monday. Also on your DE squat day you may want to consider doing free squats because the box squats are great for geared lifters. I ddi box squats for a while and when I went back to a raw free squat I had a hell of a time in the hole. My stretch reflex was virtually non existant. I fixed it with free squatting with bands and chains.

Doing box squats will make you good at doing box squats. They were designed for geared lifters, to simulate the suit taking the weight at the bottom of the lift and the lifter doing the eccentric portion. I don’t think box squats carry over well for raw dogs…try it and see if you get the results you desire.
Squatting off of a foam box however has done some good stuff for me. I feel it carries over to my raw squat as well as my geared squat. hope this helps…"

I’ll keep that mind, I’m thinking I’ll do box squat occassionally on ME day to blast the posterior chain.

“enless you want to stay in your current weight class, replace some de squat and bench days with reps days. It will help add some size.”

I’m thinking I’ll go up weight class when I can squat 4 wheels/side and dead 5/side

“hit more shoulders and triceps. Through biceps in too.”

I was thinking I would do a good bit of me shoulder press and close grip high incline for that. I was just going to do some band curls at home to keep tendonitu (elbow and biceps) at bay as part of my prehab/rehab workouts.

“use more squat and deadlift variations. at least 1:1:1 ratio.”

I’ll definateley try that out

“how long did you do the 5 3 1? My workout partner switched and had good results for about 3 cycles. he has stagnated and misses the variety.”

3 cycles in the summer, 4 cycles since mid november, inbetween i was working out at the pl club at my old school, so 7 total. I should’ve stopped after the 5th cycle cause that’s when the issues started.

“If the 5/3/1 is hurting your joints you better hold onto your ass. Conjugate as Westside does it is NOT easy on the joints.”

I’m never going to push the re work to failure, and i think being able to switch up exercises will help this. For example, if my hips are nagging me, I’ll do some olympic squats for me day.

8

I don’t think Monday is too much volume. You just need to not kill yourself on the GHR and back extensions. Those are more about getting the work in for hypertrophy of lagging muscles. You don’t need to kill yourself on the intensity.

Don’t lock in on specific accessories either. Rotate them every 3 weeks or so. The key is working the correct muscle groups to make the competition lifts increase. There are a ton of different exercises for lats, triceps, etc.

Our raw lifters still do almost all their DE squats to a box. They’ll free squat on some of their ME days. The box squat is one of the most misunderstood ideas. If you do them wrong, then they won’t help you much.

9

Btw, I’ve never done ghr’s before. I hear that if you haven’t done them before, you probably won’t get one rep without pushing off to help. Would locking in my lower legs with a barbell be a good setup?

10

If you don’t have a real GHR, then I’d do something else for hamstrings. That is true about the GHR. We usually hookup a band to assist the person when we get new lifters. I got 5 really ugly reps my first time using one, and I was already deadlifting over 600 at that point.

You can do leg curls with a band pretty easily. One-legged SLDL with a DB or KB tend to hit the hamstrings more too, if your lower back doesn’t get to tired. If you’re elevated 4-6", then you get a pretty good ROM.

11

I’ve done two workouts up to this point:

Sunday:
-DE bench 9x3 rotating diff grips about 1/2 max weight
-db bp 5x6
-cable rows ramp going down (never to failure) 4x8
-band face pull
-rotator cuff stuff

Monday
-DE Lower (worked trap bar DL up to an ugly 395, i wish i just ended at 385 and called it quits) last set, my set up was poor (grip was off and feet were a smidge off center)
-safety squat bb gm’s 3x5 (that ssbb has to be heavier than a normal one), i tried to mimic the movement of a dl, i kept my upper back rounded and narrow stance for low back emphasis, in a comp i’ll probably pull sumo
-sldl 3x10 too much emphasis on hip and lower back, i’m going with band curls next time
-hyperextension 3x10 lots of emphasis on the top portion of the glutes (I call that portion back insurance)
-hanging leg thingies 2x6 (pull legs up to chest while holding on to chin bar)
-side bends just did as many as i could for 2.5 minutes

12

I’m going to track my wo’s in a log thread.

13

I wouldn’t do the GM and SLDL in the same workout. Just pick one per workout and rotate it.

14

i meant one leg sldl, my bad.

15

[quote]Wild_Iron_Gym wrote:
If you don’t have a real GHR, then I’d do something else for hamstrings. That is true about the GHR. We usually hookup a band to assist the person when we get new lifters. I got 5 really ugly reps my first time using one, and I was already deadlifting over 600 at that point.
[/quote]

ha! I’m glad I’m not the only one…when I first did them a 52 yr old woman was doing them holding a 45# plate to her chest. I hopped up next- with no weight- and barely got 3 or four. Talk about a lession in Humility!

16

I hope this isn’t an extraneous question. How does the trap bar deadlift compare to a conventional deadlift in terms of the amount of weight that can be moved. I’ve just trying to figure out how much to sumo pull on de day.

-back angle in between that of conventional and sumo
-foot position same as conventional

17

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
I hope this isn’t an extraneous question. How does the trap bar deadlift compare to a conventional deadlift in terms of the amount of weight that can be moved. I’ve just trying to figure out how much to sumo pull on de day.

-back angle in between that of conventional and sumo
-foot position same as conventional [/quote]

Most people can pull more with a trap bar, especially the ones with raised handles. The difference can be quite large if the trap bar is used exclusively for long periods, especially compared to sumo. For example, years ago I only used the trap bar for deadlifts while training for football. I worked up to a 600+ trap bar pull. When I tried to pull sumo, I struggled with 515.

The sumo deadlift is much more technique-intensive than a trap bar pull.

18

I was pulling the trap bar beltless so I probably had a another 20-40 lbs on that one. This one had thin handles with good grip that were at the same level to the ground as a regular bar. I pull about 50 more lbs sumo compared to a conventional pull. I’m not all that great at the brute strength thing so I tend to focus on technique a bit more than the pl’ers that I’ve trained with (for all the lifts). I did notice it was lot more grip and rip even compared to conventional.

19

One thing I was wondering is how often I should switch out the ME exercises. I’ve been reading the book of methods and a lots of articles by Dave Tate and they say beginners should keep an ME lift for 3 weeks, then switch, a more advanced trainee 1 week then switch. Should I be keeping the lift for 2-3 weeks or switch every time?

20

Try switching every 2-3 weeks. If you can break your PR each time, then keep doing that. Once you can’t break your PR the second week, then start switching every week.