OK I have been lifting seriously for a little over a year now and have had decent succes with my goals. With help from people on this site like TT, Patricia,and many others indirectly I now way 170lbs at 10%bf My three favorite lifts(Squat, deads and bench press) are extremely sad though as far as poundages go.
Thanks to my school schedule I can now only make it to the gym on Tuesday, Thursday, some Saturdays, and some Sundays. I wanted to know if someone would possibly help me build a powerlifting program with this info to work with. Two major factors I have set against me are; I have no workout partner so it is hard to max on my bench often and I go to a Ballys gym so I have no chains or bands to work with.
Any and all help/suggestions would be greatly appriciated. GET BIG. DA
I would suggest a Squat/Dead day and then a Bench day. Every other week switch between heavy squats or heavy deads. Do the other lift as an assistance with a lot lighter weight then your working sets. Choose your assistance lifts based on your weaknesses. You may not get as strong as quickly under this routine but it will keep you in the game!
Mitch Green
Here’s another option. Do a traditional Westside split, but spread it out over the days you come in. Pick a rotation like ME Squat, ME Bench, DE Squat, DE Bench and stick to it, even if you come in sporadically. If you did ME bench last time, then you know it’s time for DE squat. It could look like this:
Tues - ME Squat
Thurs - ME Bench
Sat - DE Squat
Tues - DE Bench
Thurs - ME Squat
Sat - ME Bench
Sun - DE Squat
…
Rotate your ME Squat movements like this: GM, squat, pull. On speed days, you can do box squats and speed pulls as your primary movements, then more accessory work.
Benching will obviously be more difficult, so see what you can do about getting a spot. Also remember that mini bands are only $10 a piece, so for $20 you can have something that will dramatically help out your bench. Try maxing with reps more often.
Just some thoughts.
If you have a power rack avialable to you bench in it. I lift at home with out a spotter and have no problems.
Some people are going to disagree with this, but if your’e stuck between ging heavy on a Smith machine and going light on the free bench, the Smith is a viable option provided:
-
You are benching with elbows out (minimal change in the angle of the arms on the way up)
-
You realise that the smith is usually heavier than an olympic bar and you need to compensate.
-
You set up correctly under the bar.
Admittedly, you can’t practice the control that is so important, and you will not work your “secondary muscles” as much, but at least you’ll get to move big iron.
Tracer,
I have had the opposite experience with the smith machine actually being lifter due to the counter balancing in it. Also how often are you going to be going to maximal weight? Arent there trainers around who could spot you?
Here’s a non-Westside version
I assume you can go 3 days/week.
Day1
Squat
Bench
Military
Tricep extensions
Abs
Day2
Deadlift
Bench
Chins
Barbell Rows
Bicep curls
Day3
Squat
Good mornings
Bench
Dips
Abs
The squat on day 1, bench on day1, and deadlift on day 2 is where you push hard. The other squat and bench days you do 60-80% of the hard days weight but don’t push as hard and aim for speed.
beef
I’m a little old school on this and probably a lot of you would disagree about 3 days a week is great for a heavy program.
No 1. why are you worrying about maxing out anything? Unless your prepping for a meet I wouldn’t do anything less than triples and I wouldn’t do triples unless you’ve worked up to it. Anyway here’s how I would split it out.
Week 1
Day 1 - Squat
Day 2 - Bench
Day 3 - DL
Week 2
Day 1 - Squat
Day 2 - Bench
Day 3 - Squat
Week 3
Day 1 - DL
Day 2 - Bench
Day 3 - Squat
Always benching and squating every week and hitting DL hard about every 10 days! If your DLing properly and hard enough 10 days would be optimal recovery, Squat days I would Do heavy unless your squating twice in one week then the closest squat day to your DL day I would do speed/light day! I always had great success with this type of program and so have those that I’ve coached
You can try this It was posted by coach H at elitefts
Day 1
- Speed Deadlift/High Pull/Clean
- Max Effort Lower Body Work to 3-5rm
- Upper body Push and Pull (2-4x8-12)
- Posterior Chain 2-4x10-15
Day 2
- Speed Squat
- ME Upper Body 3-5rm
plus Tri work - Clean or Deadlift 2-4x4-6
- Posterior Chain 2-4x10-15
Day 3
- Speed Bench
plus Tricep work - Max Effort Clean or Deadlift
Variation - Single Leg Lower Body Lunge/1leg sq
2-4x8-10/leg - Posterior Chain
Also Check out the post by silverback about the tier system
You could ad a fourth extra session and hit rear delts, side delts, chin, row, bicep when you have time
btw-
The original program posted by Coach H called for Clean variations, he did not include deadlifts. The inclusion/option of deadlifts was done on my part, not knowing if you know how to clean. If cleans and high pulls are not an option then deadlifts and their variations are a good replacement, IMO.
You can also check out H’s training log at elitefts, as his inseason program is based on three weekly workouts.
Thanks a lot to everyone. I will try to split it like this:
D1. MEdeadlifts
D2.DE bench
D3.ME squat
D4.MEbench
D5.DEdeadlifts
D6.DEsquats
I will do assistance work on each day. The only problem is I do not know what to do for assistance work.(if I didn’t make myself clear I know very little about powerlifting and training for it.)
I will keep this order and split it up over the days I can come in during the week. I think this split will keep the workouts fresh and challenging for my body. Please tweak and add what ever you think is needed or missing.
GET BIG. DA
Part-Time Beast by CT.
Thanks for all of the info.
Ok lets see how bad I messed this up.
I am a little on the fat side right now from what the mirror is telling me and feel I should lose a little of it before I go all out into powerlifting and trying to gain weight again. So I took some stuff from CT, CW and Beefcake and put together a plan for myself. Please yell at me if I have horrible missed the point on this but here it goes:
Sunday I did:
Squat (8reps warm up, 3 reps heavy x 2, 10 reps light for speed)
Deads (same reps as above)
Bench (same)
about 1min rest between each
assistance:
pull ups (1 set many reps as i can get)
cable cross overs (6reps at 3 different hights)
standing dumbbell curls (2sets 10reps progressive weight)
rope pull down (2sets 10reps progressive weight)
crunches (2sets 10reps)
30seconds rest between all assistance.
15min treadmill alternating sprint and walking.
I will do this 3-4 times a week alternating doing deadlifts ever other workout. Like I said please tell me if I am doing to much or not doing enough of something or if the workout is altogether wrong feel free to tell me that as well.
Thanks for the help.
GET BIG.
DA
First thing is you need higher volume on your main lifts. Try 8,5,5,5,3,3,3 where your last is as close to 3 rep as safe to do so (you should be straining).
Progressively increasing the load each set.
Also I wouldn’t do deads with squats as this can lead to overtraining even if only doing the deads every other workout. The DL uses the same muscles as the squat. Choose either the dead or squat but make squats your staple and maybe every other week do DL’s. Doing bench on same day is hard on your CNS as you are already doing ME work on lower body. I would try and alternate this with lower body.
If you are able to get to the gym 3-4 times a week then you could make a good case for following the standard WSB program as outlined by Tommygun.
Assistance work needs more horizontal pulling i.e. barbell rows another good reason to go easy on the deads. One set of chins is not enough. And rather than do 1 set to failure try and do 3 sets but less reps so that you can complete three sets.
For your triceps you would be better off doing heavier movements like lying tricep extensions or close grip bench or high board presses.
You have no posterior chain assistance exercises, you need to hit your glutes and hamstrings with movements like stiff leg DL’s, Pullthroughs, glute-raises (if you have a machine) and Good mornings which can actually be used instead of squats on max effort. Training the posterior chain is vital for big DL’s and squats.
Generally your assistance work should be 12-15 reps and not taken to failure. WSB would be good as you can do ME and DE days which aim at increasing your speed in the main lifts using ~60% of your 1 rep max but just use the heaviest weight you can while still keeping the bar moving fast. Speed is very important for lifting big weights. Also if you did DE days you could train your DL’s with speed DL’s which are much less fatiguing on your CNS.
Sorry for the long post but I am sure this will be help you to achieve your goals.
No Smith machine. Do pushups.
Creed thanks a lot for all the info, there is no such thing as too long of a post when your helping me fine tune anything I do.
I left the volume so low on my main lifts because I was going to be doing them 3 and 4 times a week but, I will do as you said and alternate my three big lifts so I can up the volume a little; maybe find a fourth one to put in there so i can alternate them better (any suggestion on another big lift?). I will also add straight leg deads to leg days, barbell rows to days with deads, and put in close grip bench on bench days. Also I will go back to pull ups with 3 to 4 sets of mid range reps without going to failure.
I do not know how to do good mornings so any help on those would be appreciated.
Well, thanks for the info, I already went in today and did close to the workout I already posted just took out the deads and cable cross overs (my chest was feeling weak for some reason) and also did higher reps on tricep cable pushdowns and on pull ups.
Thanks for all of the help again. I will go in Thursday and post what I do and up date with any progress. GET BIG. DA
Tommygun, you said to get mini bands. I don’t really know how to use these and was wondering if you could tell me how or point me in the right direction?
Thanks for the info, I will stick to the full body for a little while longer and then probably go to the split you laid out for me or one similar to it.
GET BIG. DA
Darkangel
'and alternate my three big lifts ’
Not sure if you understood me. You wouldn’t alternate bench with squats. You would only alternate squats with DL’s as they use alot of the same muscle function.
If you wanted an alternative to bench try incline bench.
The suggestion of using bands should be taken with caution as these are very tough and you should have a good strength foundation before using these.
They are really only recommended for intermediate to advanced lifters.
Alot of your questions pertain to the westside barbell method of training, the best place to find out about this is to start with the T-mag articles ‘Eight keys’ by Dave Tate. Everything is explained there.
From only being on WSB method for 3 mths I can honestly say that I have had almost as much progress with my lifts as I’ve had in the previous three years.
For description of Good mornings check out Coach Davies ‘Hamstrings from Hell’
Whatever you decide to do good luck.
I got you on the alternating creed. But yesterday(thursday) I did alternate and just do deads since my bench was really weak on the previous workout I thought I would give it the day off and pound it this weekend and try to push up my single rep numbers alittle. So here is what I did yesterday.
warm up:
5min walk on tread
legs extentions1 set 12reps
pull ups 1 set 10 reps
workout:
Deads 10, 6,3,3,2reps
straight legs deads 3 sets 6
pull ups 3 sets 6reps
leg extentions 3sets 12reps
hypers 3 sets 10 reps
dumbell curls 3sets 15
decline crunches 2sets 20reps
10 min tread increasing incline by 0.5 every 30sec. This kills my calves and puts up my heart rate enough for my cardio.
I don’t think I will every do anything except some tread before my workout ever again. I put up the lowest numbers I have done in a month for my deads only getting up to 275lbs and then failing at 315lbs. The rest of my lifts were fine but, the deads were not up to par, even for me.
Does anyone do warm up sets before they do their big three?
GET BIG
DA
Darkangel what exactly did you do before your deads?
If you only did one set of leg extensions and one set of pullups I wouldn’t think that was too much. Are you maxing out on the pullups?
It could just be you need to build up your work capacity more. But what I suspect could be the most probable reason is that you have trained the dead for too many weeks and now your strength on DL’s is regressing. How many DL max workouts have you hit consectively prior to this workout? If this continues you will need to take a break from deads.