The Westside Method Thread II

Training Powerlifting
561

I’m actually running something like that right now.

I’m 3 weeks in and my bench feels amazing. I’m rotating through 2ct Pause Benches, Touch-n-go Bench, and 2-board Bench as my only three variants. I did throw reverse band with a mini in there instead of 2 board press because I had it available this past week. Maybe I’ll throw that into the rotation too if the set up becomes available. I’m working up to 5s @ a 9 RPE with 5% fatigue drop sets after (from Mike Tuscherer RTS) during accumulation. Intensification will be 3RM but never failing with drop sets as well. Intensification round 2 will probably be doubles with drop sets. And I’m also doing heavier DE work with straight weight between 65-75%. Also alternating in pauses for the DE work (I know this isn’t typical but when I first started Westside and had no idea what I was doing I did this and set a PR in a few weeks after only adding this).

Lower body will probably be a rotation of Back Squats, Front Squats, Deadlifts. A lot of Back Squats though because that’s what really needs the work. 180# better DL than squat so yeah. Although after my first intensification phase I’ll probably go back onto the cube just for lower body. Hit some good PRs with a CUBE setup in my lower body. Didn’t do much for my bench though.

I don’t have any huge numbers but I’ve been training conjugate for almost a year now and looking back through my training logs this past week, my best gains came fast and frequent when the competition lifts were rotated in, the DE percentages were higher with taking the eccentric a little slower on the bench and exploding the concentric so my form stayed strict and keeping my competition grip and flat bench variations for all upper ME work (close grip ME work and incline didn’t seem to help much). When I started getting real fancy and throwing all kinds of different combinations of different chains, bands, boards, I stalled. So we’ll see what happens.

Maybe this is the way it should be when you start out on Westside with less than 5 years of PL specific training under your belt? Your technique isn’t flawless so that motor pattern needs to be grooved often enough?

562

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
I sure wish Louie was the writer that Wendler is. He seems like he was really scatter brained when he wrote TBOM. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a ton of information in there, but you really gotta dig. [/quote]

Try talking to him in real life. It is bat shit insane the way his brain works.[/quote]

That reminds me of something that I think is relevant to the thread.

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to speak to a real live 800+ DLer in person. He’s also spoken to Louie on the phone. I know he’s legit because I saw him pull close to 700 with quite a bit in the tank while coming back from a back injury.

He said he used a modified Westside split. He said he almost never failed on ME lifts. He rarely went for a 1RM on exercises and usually went for a 2-3 rep almost to full max. Sometimes he would even go as high as 6 or 7.

He alternated between doing DE work and repetition work for the main lifts or very close variants. He like GMs for rep work but not so much for ME work.

Something else he told me is that he did very close variants of the powerlifts for ME days. He usually included the powerlifts themselves as ME variants about once a month. I forgot to pick his brain about why, but he changed the ME movement every week for lower and stuck with the same one for 2-3 weeks for upper body. [/quote]

Everyone who runs westside for any length of time comes to the same conclusions eventually. I think you have to use the system for 2-4 years before you figure out exactly what exercises, methods, and programming works for directly improving your own competition lifts. Everyone starts off on the same, fairly basic programming then it gets extremely specific as strength and sport mastery become developed.

563

[quote]cmchan wrote:
I’m wondering whether Joe Defranco uses these phases in his WS4SB (Westside for Skinny Bastards) program. There is no mention of it in his articles. From what I see, his entire program is based on the intensification phase, and in some cases, is a combo of accumulation/intensification; throughout the program, the athletes go for a 3-5 RM, but can also choose to go for a 1RM in ME lifts. Assistance work varies, and can be done using DBs, BB’s, KBs, etc, which reminds me of the accumulation phase of the Westside Method.

Volume and intensity seems to stay consistent year-round on this program, in the sense that there are no blocks/phases with different intensities/volume. They seem to be in the intensification phase year-round.

Can somebody clarify? I’m currently doing version 3 of WS4SB ( Westside for Skinny Bastards, Part III - Official Website of Joe DeFranco & DeFranco’s Gym! ).

I assume this is because he is training athletes, and not powerlifters, and the GPP/conditioning work that would be done during the accumulation phase, is done during the athletes’ sports training instead.[/quote]

A couple things:

  1. Joe gets paid to train athletes and make programs. There is no way in hell he would post absolutely every aspect of his programming for free because then there would be no need to pay him for his services.

  2. Yes, the yearly training plan is going to be much much different for a competition powerlifter (MAYBE 5 meets a year) and a team sport athletes (up to 16 straight weeks of competition). Our skill work is i the weightroom. A team sport athlete requires a variety of skills in a variety of chaotic enviroments.

I have read a ton of Joe’s stuff and actually played college football with one of his original clients (he was a ridiculous football player, but he just signed his WWE talent agreement instead) and what he posts as his program is only a small part of his offseason training. Training has to change when skill work starts to be introduced, which Joe does around early July/ late June for his football players, and when the season actually starts. All I know is if I had to hit 3-5rms 4 times during a 2 week, hell-like training camp and was then expected to move 50% of my max at 0.8-1.0 m/s (speed strength zone) the coches would have found me hanging from a powerrack with a noose around my neck.

564

STB, I have read the book of methods, and the EFS basic training manual and wendlers max effort. I still can’t find where you are coming up with the accumulation, intesification etc. blocks. Aren’t these for block periodization ? I recall one article I read from loui in which he talked about how to apply certain blocks to westside training but besides that I cannot find anything with these blocks.

565

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]cmchan wrote:
I’m wondering whether Joe Defranco uses these phases in his WS4SB (Westside for Skinny Bastards) program. There is no mention of it in his articles. From what I see, his entire program is based on the intensification phase, and in some cases, is a combo of accumulation/intensification; throughout the program, the athletes go for a 3-5 RM, but can also choose to go for a 1RM in ME lifts. Assistance work varies, and can be done using DBs, BB’s, KBs, etc, which reminds me of the accumulation phase of the Westside Method.

Volume and intensity seems to stay consistent year-round on this program, in the sense that there are no blocks/phases with different intensities/volume. They seem to be in the intensification phase year-round.

Can somebody clarify? I’m currently doing version 3 of WS4SB ( Westside for Skinny Bastards, Part III - Official Website of Joe DeFranco & DeFranco’s Gym! ).

I assume this is because he is training athletes, and not powerlifters, and the GPP/conditioning work that would be done during the accumulation phase, is done during the athletes’ sports training instead.[/quote]

A couple things:

  1. Joe gets paid to train athletes and make programs. There is no way in hell he would post absolutely every aspect of his programming for free because then there would be no need to pay him for his services.

  2. Yes, the yearly training plan is going to be much much different for a competition powerlifter (MAYBE 5 meets a year) and a team sport athletes (up to 16 straight weeks of competition). Our skill work is i the weightroom. A team sport athlete requires a variety of skills in a variety of chaotic enviroments.

I have read a ton of Joe’s stuff and actually played college football with one of his original clients (he was a ridiculous football player, but he just signed his WWE talent agreement instead) and what he posts as his program is only a small part of his offseason training. Training has to change when skill work starts to be introduced, which Joe does around early July/ late June for his football players, and when the season actually starts. All I know is if I had to hit 3-5rms 4 times during a 2 week, hell-like training camp and was then expected to move 50% of my max at 0.8-1.0 m/s (speed strength zone) the coches would have found me hanging from a powerrack with a noose around my neck.[/quote]

This is pretty much what I thought. It explains why a lot of this information is hard to find even on Westside’s website; although these phases are mentioned, they don’t go into as much detail as these threads do. I skimmed through the book of methods, and couldn’t find this kind of information. I was considering getting their DVD’s, but I’m sure they don’t reveal EVERYTHING either… Makes me wonder if exposing such information on these forums can put you into danger lol

566

Here’s a vid of a failed max squat attempt with 395 lbs:

How is my technique?
What are my weaknesses?
What ME movements should I rotate?

A week before this, I did a successful 385x1:

567

To me it looks like the bar travels too far over your knees. Disclaimer: I realize max effort lifts usually don’t look pretty That being said, even at the very start you are “chicken winging” – meaning that your elbows are not under the bar and you’re not engaging your lats to create a “shelf”. If on your 385 video you pause it at 8 seconds in, you’ll notice a few things.

Your neck is extended forward and your elbows are waaaay back behind you. Driving your elbows underneath the bar will create much more upper back tightness and prevent the forward bar motion. It will also allow you to stay more upright.

In terms of your ME movements, personally I would say use some chains or reverse bands to get used to the feeling of heavy weight at the top. If you are getting used to heavy bar weight with copious amounts of accommodating resistance, when you go back to straight weight it’s not going to feel that heavy. This is a method we have used with great success. If you can unrack and stabilize 500 pounds at the top, what’s 405 going to feel like?

Because you’re slow out of the bottom, you should try to strengthen the hips. Box squats, low box squats and sumo deadlifts are great for this. The increased work on your glutes will not only help your squat, but it will usually cause your conventional deadlift to go up as well.

If you’re going to squat beltless, be sure to do plenty of abdominal work too. Planks, weighted planks, front squat holds, yadda yadda yadda.

568

[quote]frankjl wrote:
To me it looks like the bar travels too far over your knees. Disclaimer: I realize max effort lifts usually don’t look pretty That being said, even at the very start you are “chicken winging” – meaning that your elbows are not under the bar and you’re not engaging your lats to create a “shelf”. If on your 385 video you pause it at 8 seconds in, you’ll notice a few things.

Your neck is extended forward and your elbows are waaaay back behind you. Driving your elbows underneath the bar will create much more upper back tightness and prevent the forward bar motion. It will also allow you to stay more upright.

In terms of your ME movements, personally I would say use some chains or reverse bands to get used to the feeling of heavy weight at the top. If you are getting used to heavy bar weight with copious amounts of accommodating resistance, when you go back to straight weight it’s not going to feel that heavy. This is a method we have used with great success. If you can unrack and stabilize 500 pounds at the top, what’s 405 going to feel like?

Because you’re slow out of the bottom, you should try to strengthen the hips. Box squats, low box squats and sumo deadlifts are great for this. The increased work on your glutes will not only help your squat, but it will usually cause your conventional deadlift to go up as well.

If you’re going to squat beltless, be sure to do plenty of abdominal work too. Planks, weighted planks, front squat holds, yadda yadda yadda.[/quote]

Thanks Frank :slight_smile:
I’ll definitely work on keeping the elbows down; I’ll probably need to widen my grip.
How does this rotation look?

Week 1: Sumo Deadlift
Week 2: Reverse band, Below Parallel Box Squat
Week 3: Reverse Band, Above Parallel Box Squat
(all wide stance)
repeat

For abs, I’ve been doing high-rep standing crunches against bands.

569

cmchan…just out of curiosity…whats the reasoning behind hitting 1RM on back squat 2 weeks in a row ?

570

I’ve decided to go back to Westside. I screwed up last time because I think I overcomplicated things for the level I’m at.

These are the changes I’m making:

-I’m going to do ME exercises closer to the comp. lifts
-I’ll stick with an ME exercise for 3 weeks doing 5 reps 1st week, 3 reps 2nd, and 1rm 3rd. This is to better be able to tell which exercises work and which don’t.
-stick with full or near full ROM ME exercises since I’m going for raw strength
-half of my squat DE work as free squats since last time I had no bounce out of the hole when I maxed
-stick with the lower end of Prilepin’s table for ME work and make smaller jumps for more volume for practice grinding (i.e. go for 3-4 reps in 90percent up range)
-do an RE day instead of ME every 4th week

Here are the ME exercises I was thinking of for the next 12 weeks and weaknesses I hope they address

ME bench (weakness: everything)
-CGBP for 3 weeks
-crazy weight BP for 3 weeks (just start adding crazy weight after 80 percent of max bar weight)
-1 board press for 3 weeks

ME squat (weakness: quads)
-front squat for 3 weeks
-olympic style squat for 3 weeks
-crazy weight squat for 3 weeks

Is there anything that looks like a bad idea here?

571

[quote]cmchan wrote:

Thanks Frank :slight_smile:
I’ll definitely work on keeping the elbows down; I’ll probably need to widen my grip.
How does this rotation look?

Week 1: Sumo Deadlift
Week 2: Reverse band, Below Parallel Box Squat
Week 3: Reverse Band, Above Parallel Box Squat
(all wide stance)
repeat

For abs, I’ve been doing high-rep standing crunches against bands.[/quote]

That’s a good start. I don’t think there is enough variety in there though. Where’s the good mornings or pin pulls? You’re also not doing any free squatting in this setup. I would suggest doing reverse band squats without the box. The purpose of the reverse bands is to really feel some heavy weight on your back. Because you’re limited by how much you can box squat (typically 90% of your free squat) – it conflicts with the purpose of the reverse bands. That way you’re still free squatting (kind of) and you can get used to the heavier weights.

Do you pull conventional or sumo? If you’re conventional you’ll definitely need to work those in there too. I would suggest a rotation of 5-6 ME movements at first, that way by the time you get back around to a particular movement, you’ll have spent enough time under the bar to make some progress. With only 3 ME movements, it will be difficult to progress from cycle to cycle.

One last thing you’ll need to keep in mind is the proximity of the meet. You should pick movements that are more specific to the competition lifts (as you choose to do them) closer to the meet. Farther out, you should pick ones that you suck at (or just ones you are looking to improve).

572

[quote]marlboroman wrote:
cmchan…just out of curiosity…whats the reasoning behind hitting 1RM on back squat 2 weeks in a row ?[/quote]

I was doing defranco’s WS4SB at that time. I figured I would be able to hit PR’s 2 weeks in a row. I guess I was wrong lol. I shouldn’t have made such a huge jump in weight (10 lbs).

[quote]frankjl wrote:

[quote]cmchan wrote:

Thanks Frank :slight_smile:
I’ll definitely work on keeping the elbows down; I’ll probably need to widen my grip.
How does this rotation look?

Week 1: Sumo Deadlift
Week 2: Reverse band, Below Parallel Box Squat
Week 3: Reverse Band, Above Parallel Box Squat
(all wide stance)
repeat

For abs, I’ve been doing high-rep standing crunches against bands.[/quote]

That’s a good start. I don’t think there is enough variety in there though. Where’s the good mornings or pin pulls? You’re also not doing any free squatting in this setup. I would suggest doing reverse band squats without the box. The purpose of the reverse bands is to really feel some heavy weight on your back. Because you’re limited by how much you can box squat (typically 90% of your free squat) – it conflicts with the purpose of the reverse bands. That way you’re still free squatting (kind of) and you can get used to the heavier weights.

Do you pull conventional or sumo? If you’re conventional you’ll definitely need to work those in there too. I would suggest a rotation of 5-6 ME movements at first, that way by the time you get back around to a particular movement, you’ll have spent enough time under the bar to make some progress. With only 3 ME movements, it will be difficult to progress from cycle to cycle.

One last thing you’ll need to keep in mind is the proximity of the meet. You should pick movements that are more specific to the competition lifts (as you choose to do them) closer to the meet. Farther out, you should pick ones that you suck at (or just ones you are looking to improve).[/quote]

I appreciate the responses :slight_smile:

I pull conventional. I’ve never pulled Sumo before. I was thinking of doing Sumo during the accumulation phase only, and then maxing out on conventional during the intensification phase. Should I do my speed pulls on DE Lower day sumo style throughout the cycle?

I’ll definitely add in GM’s as an ME movement. I’ve never considered doing pin-pulls before; I always thought they were for more advanced lifters. Where do you suggest I set the pins? I’ll ditch the box for ME Reverse Band Squats, and I’ll use it for DE squats only… unless I should add Box Squats with no bands, or against bands to the rotation.

Also, I don’t plan on competing anytime soon, and if I do, it will be raw. As a non-competitive lifter, the way I see it: the accumulation phase will help build the lifts, and the intensification phase will be used as a tester, where I perform indicator movements (powerlifts) to see whether I’m doing things properly… is this a correct way to approach it for somebody who isn’t competing?

Would a rotation like this be good to start out with? What do you suggest?

Accumulation (5-10 weeks):
wk1: Sumo Deadlift
wk2: Reverse Band Free Squat (regular stance)
wk3: Pin Pulls (pins @ right below knee?)
wk4: Box Squat (wide stance, change box height each time)
wk5: Good Morning (free squat regular stance)
Repeat, and then go to intensification.

Intensification (2-4 weeks):
wk6: Conventional Deadlift
wk7: Free Squat
wk8: Conventional Deadlift
wk9: Free Squat

573

I would throw in some more movements at least to where you PR every 6 weeks.

574

[quote]Ironsmasher wrote:
I would throw in some more movements at least to where you PR every 6 weeks.[/quote]

What do you mean? During the accumulation phase, if I’m rotating 5 different movements each week, I should be attempting 3-5RM PR’s from weeks 6-10.

575

Today (Sunday) was my first day on this program. It was DE bench day.
I did 20x3 in about 16:34 minutes. I started timing as soon as I unracked the first set, and racked the last set.
I didn’t go by percentage as it has been a while since I last tested my 1RM bench.
I decided to just start the wave with 135 and go from there.
I also used mini bands. OP states that accommodating resistance should be avoided during this phase, so should I remove the bands for the next DE bench session?

The bar speed began to slow down as the sets progressed. I still tried to press as fast as possible.
Is the bar speed too slow? The first few sets, I rested about 20 seconds, the longest rest I had to take, near the end of the speed work, was around 40 seconds.
How is my technique? Any criticism and advice is greatly appreciated.

After the 20x3 speed sets, I did the following:
5 sets of 12-15 DB Rows
5 supersets of Band Tricep Pushdowns + DB curls (about 10-15 reps each exercise)
5 supersets of rear delts and lateral side raises with DBs (about 10 reps per exercise)

576

Today was my first time pulling Sumo style.
It was ME lower today, and I did 405x2.
My best conventional Deadlift is 440x1, which I did a few weeks ago; is this a normal ratio?

I’ll be using Sumo as an ME movement, while using conventional during my speed pulls. I look forward to the gains :smiley:

577

cmchan

it’s mostly recommended to use straight weight during the accumulation phase…as in NO chains or bands .

probably not relevant , but one change I found necessary for DE bench (especially when using bands) was to slow the descent. I know that everybody preaches speed , but benching the way you do just tore my elbows/fore-arms to shit .

578

[quote]cmchan wrote:

[quote]Ironsmasher wrote:
I would throw in some more movements at least to where you PR every 6 weeks.[/quote]

What do you mean? During the accumulation phase, if I’m rotating 5 different movements each week, I should be attempting 3-5RM PR’s from weeks 6-10.
[/quote]
That comment was for fletch. Also I didn’t see that he was using the same movement for 3 weeks.

579

[quote]Ironsmasher wrote:
I would throw in some more movements at least to where you PR every 6 weeks.[/quote]

I’m sticking with the same movement for 3 weeks in a row. I know my 1 board and CGBP are really good indicator lifts. I should probably pick a better indicator lift for my squat.

What do you mean PR every 6 weeks? Like PR on the same exercise every 6 weeks?

Like PR on CGBP week 1, then week 5 or 6 go back to CGBP and try to beat my last record?

580

Yes. I was just suggesting more variety. I use to hit the same movement like every 4 months when I was training in gear. Now that I’ve been training raw and had to bring my stance in close for my squat I found that I don’t need as much variety. I have about 6-8 variations per lift now and just add chain or band when I feel it’s needed or I change the reps. I’ll train only singles leading up to a meet though. I’m not sure what your current maxes are or what your goals are but at some point I would think maxing the same movement 3 weeks in a row will either result in injury or you working backwards.