How would you incorporate the slingshot as a raw bencher?
Every other week for ME or…?
@ marlboroman
STB : "You don’t need to do a Trans. Block because you don’t want to peak before you test in the gym. At no point in your competetive career do you EVER want your gym max to be more than your competition max.
Does that help?"
[quote]louiek wrote:
More questions.
-
Everyone talks about working up to a heavy triple/double on their DE days if they feel good. Does this mean working up on straight deadlift as well as squat? In the same workout? Only one or the other? Do you ever go heavy on straight deadlifts? If you do, is it for singles, or a heavy triple? Only on non-comp stance deadlifts? Might be a very vague question but it’s something I wonder about since sometimes I feel like going heavy on my squats/deads, but don’t really know the protocols for doing so.
-
A deadlift max is too taxing to pull every week. Why is it that? Shouldn’t a deficit deadlift max be just as stressful? If the exertion is the same, and it’s such a movement with the same knee angle using the same muscle, why is it that the deadlift will kill you, but pulling deadlift variations won’t? Or a good morning. It uses very similar form, so what is it about a straight deadlift max that really fucks up your progress?
-
Somewhat connected to question 2. Deadlift maxes are too taxing to pull every week, while squats are not. Since I don’t squat and use my squat to strengthen my overall strongman capabilities, would it be okay to use competition style raw powerlifting squats for a max? I personally decided that it probably didn’t matter, physically/neurologically, if I squatted raw for my ME work, but the box squats just develop lifts better than a raw squat; therefore, use box squats. Is this right or there something I’m missing?
This system is obviously designed for powerlifters, and I’m cluttering it up with questions about a totally different sport, I realize that. But these are just some things I wonder about while trying to adapt my training. Thanks again to everyone for all their help.[/quote]
- If this actually happened “everytime you felt good” you wouldn’t ever feel good. What you are describing could be considered a strength-speed wave for your DE work. This shouldnt just randomly happen throughout training but, should be planned out in advance to peak for the competition. For me personally, I will do a strength speed wave about 2 months out from my meet. It should only last about 2 weeks (any longer than that and you will be fucked). If you want to set it up, try something like this (for squats):
Week 1: Normal speed work with 50% bar weight and 25% band tensions for 9 sets of 2. Do the final three sets with a slightly higher bar weight
Week 2: Eithter briefs or suit bottoms only- 30-40% in band tension. 5x2 w/ 50% bar weight. Work up to a max double.
Week 3: Same as week 2 but work up to a sinlge in full gear.
Always use a straight bar for this wave.
-
You will get to a point where you will find out what I am talking about. Max Deadlifts require more muscular coordination than any other exercises. When I say coordination I mean the ability to maximally contract and produce maximal tension on many, many different muscles to perform the task. This, in itslef, is extremely stressfull on all working mechanisms of your body. True, a max squat does the same but the difference is, you hold a deadlift in your hands. Your hands are the most tactile part of your body which means they are very dense with nerves and nervous activity. Over working the hands overworks everyhting else. I read an article a long time ago, I think it was Louie, that basically said if you have a foot or hand injury, you are fucked. I really think this is load dependent. For example, novice lifters can get away with heavy deadlifts every week. If I pull heavy more than once a month, I am trashed for the rest of my training cycle.
-
For some reason, box squats are less stressful than raw squats. That being said, your leverages should be worse in a box squat so, your box squat should always be lower than your full squat (raw or equipped… maybe this is why its less stressful?). If you aren’t planning on competing in a PL meet and are just looking for strength development and GPP, then just stick with box squats.
Did any of this help? I am sick as shit today and hung over from cough medicine. I am not sure if anything I am saying is making any sense.
[quote]michael_xyz wrote:
How would you incorporate the slingshot as a raw bencher?
Every other week for ME or…?[/quote]
Just as another variaiton. I havent used mine for a max yet. I have used it for some speed work and assistance stuff. Establish a 5, 3, and 1 rm in it at some point in training, just like any other variation.
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
I am sick as shit today and hung over from cough medicine. I am not sure if anything I am saying is making any sense.[/quote]
good luck with that . I had that shit last weekend ; still coughing up lung cheese today .
I put off lifting 3 consecutive days , finally just bailing on the last intensification week and going into deload ( I knew there was no way I would be ME anything ) . felt good in the gym by thursday .
edited in…TheraFlu is your friend
how would you plan out a strength speed wave for the bench? Would the squat strength-speed wave be different if you were planning on competing raw?
[quote]marlboroman wrote:
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
I am sick as shit today and hung over from cough medicine. I am not sure if anything I am saying is making any sense.[/quote]
good luck with that . I had that shit last weekend ; still coughing up lung cheese today .
I put off lifting 3 consecutive days , finally just bailing on the last intensification week and going into deload ( I knew there was no way I would be ME anything ) . felt good in the gym by thursday .
edited in…TheraFlu is your friend[/quote]
Yea, everybody has something right now. Its ridiculous.
Alka Seltzer started making some cough and cold stuff that is the shit. Usually over the counter stuff doesnt help me but that stuff knocks me on my ass and stops all the heaving and dying.
[quote]budreiser wrote:
how would you plan out a strength speed wave for the bench? Would the squat strength-speed wave be different if you were planning on competing raw?[/quote]
For the bench, just use more accomodated resistance for 2 weeks. It doesnt need to be more complicated then that. So, say you use a mini band to bench with, use 2 the first week for your speed sets, then hit a single the second week ONLY if you are feeling good. It is very easy to trash your shoulders with high volumes of band benching.
The only difference for the squats would be using percenatages of your best competitiong raw squat intsead of your suited. Also, you wouldnt use full gear week 3. Even if you are a raw lifter, you should still seriously consider some briefs or loose suit bottoms for the majority of your speed work.
Pretty broad question here, but how do you plan out your cycles STB (how many weeks do you plan at a time)? Do you basically just plan your main and secondary movement and then the accessories you have muscle groups you want to hit but just do what you feel at the time?
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
Pretty broad question here, but how do you plan out your cycles STB (how many weeks do you plan at a time)? Do you basically just plan your main and secondary movement and then the accessories you have muscle groups you want to hit but just do what you feel at the time?[/quote]
I start very big and work my way down. I will plan out, usually, for my next two competitions. For simplicities sake, lets just say I signed up for a meet that is 12 weeks away. My outline is always the same regardless of the time I have to actually train:
Accumulation
Intensification
Transformation
For 12 weeks:
3 weeks accumulation
3 weeks int.
1 week deload
3 week int.
2 week tran.
From there, I pick and chose weak spots to work on from cycle to cycle. Its always upper back and triceps. So, I build my exercise selection around making those two areas as strong as possible. It’s less of a plan and more of a bank of exercises to pick from.
I used to be a lot more structured, thinking about my exercises well in advance but, nothing ever really went how I planned. I stopped thinking about it so much and made it more of a week by week desicion.
The only way this works is if you have a structure to follow. For my ME Upper workouts, my whole session looks like this:
Mobility
Dynamic Warm-up
Explosive Movments (push and pull)
Max Effort Lift
High Rep Tricpe work to failure
Heavy Tricep Ext.
Lats
Upper Back
Delts/Bi’s
Something cyclic for a cool down (this usually doesnt happen).
When the structure is already set-up, you just fill in the blanks. You don’t need to think of your exercises too far in advance. You just pull them out of the bank based on what you are working on.
Anyone care to comment on my form? It’s quite a poor show from me and I think usually it is better. I think it’s better to look at first few reps than all. I fail suddenly even though I should have got a few more just because I lose my positioning. I do find it hard to keep very tight for many reps - I suspect most would also have this to a degree.
The bench is a very crappy one though and that definitely doesn’t help.
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
Pretty broad question here, but how do you plan out your cycles STB (how many weeks do you plan at a time)? Do you basically just plan your main and secondary movement and then the accessories you have muscle groups you want to hit but just do what you feel at the time?[/quote]
I start very big and work my way down. I will plan out, usually, for my next two competitions. For simplicities sake, lets just say I signed up for a meet that is 12 weeks away. My outline is always the same regardless of the time I have to actually train:
Accumulation
Intensification
Transformation
For 12 weeks:
3 weeks accumulation
3 weeks int.
1 week deload
3 week int.
2 week tran.
From there, I pick and chose weak spots to work on from cycle to cycle. Its always upper back and triceps. So, I build my exercise selection around making those two areas as strong as possible. It’s less of a plan and more of a bank of exercises to pick from.
I used to be a lot more structured, thinking about my exercises well in advance but, nothing ever really went how I planned. I stopped thinking about it so much and made it more of a week by week desicion.
The only way this works is if you have a structure to follow. For my ME Upper workouts, my whole session looks like this:
Mobility
Dynamic Warm-up
Explosive Movments (push and pull)
Max Effort Lift
High Rep Tricpe work to failure
Heavy Tricep Ext.
Lats
Upper Back
Delts/Bi’s
Something cyclic for a cool down (this usually doesnt happen).
When the structure is already set-up, you just fill in the blanks. You don’t need to think of your exercises too far in advance. You just pull them out of the bank based on what you are working on.
[/quote]
That is great advice, having a structure and just filling in the blanks. Would you mind putting up what your other days look like? Also, why do you do the high rep tricep work to failure before the heavy extensions?
Also, I remember Chicksan mentioning the heavy shit and light shit, which would be supplementary work and accessory work respectively. Say on an ME Bench day you hit a max effort floor press, do you typically do a supplementary movement for a 6RM like you had spoke about previously? If so, how long do you keep doing this same movement as your supplementary on this day? Same question for ME Lower as well as both DE days…
Shit thats alot of questions
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
Pretty broad question here, but how do you plan out your cycles STB (how many weeks do you plan at a time)? Do you basically just plan your main and secondary movement and then the accessories you have muscle groups you want to hit but just do what you feel at the time?[/quote]
I start very big and work my way down. I will plan out, usually, for my next two competitions. For simplicities sake, lets just say I signed up for a meet that is 12 weeks away. My outline is always the same regardless of the time I have to actually train:
Accumulation
Intensification
Transformation
For 12 weeks:
3 weeks accumulation
3 weeks int.
1 week deload
3 week int.
2 week tran.
From there, I pick and chose weak spots to work on from cycle to cycle. Its always upper back and triceps. So, I build my exercise selection around making those two areas as strong as possible. It’s less of a plan and more of a bank of exercises to pick from.
I used to be a lot more structured, thinking about my exercises well in advance but, nothing ever really went how I planned. I stopped thinking about it so much and made it more of a week by week desicion.
The only way this works is if you have a structure to follow. For my ME Upper workouts, my whole session looks like this:
Mobility
Dynamic Warm-up
Explosive Movments (push and pull)
Max Effort Lift
High Rep Tricpe work to failure
Heavy Tricep Ext.
Lats
Upper Back
Delts/Bi’s
Something cyclic for a cool down (this usually doesnt happen).
When the structure is already set-up, you just fill in the blanks. You don’t need to think of your exercises too far in advance. You just pull them out of the bank based on what you are working on.
[/quote]
That is great advice, having a structure and just filling in the blanks. Would you mind putting up what your other days look like? Also, why do you do the high rep tricep work to failure before the heavy extensions?[/quote]
The structure changes based on the block I am in. But DE upper day is about the same. ME/DE Lower look something like this:
Mobility
Dynamic warm-up
Something explosive
Main movment (Max Effort or DE SQ/DL)
Something hip dominant for a 6rm or rep max
High Rep Shrugs
Hamstrings/low back- high rep
Abs- Usually heavy as shit
Condition (sometimes)
Personally, I do the heavy extensions after the high rep stuff because I am trying to get stronger for the competition, not get better at training. People seem to lose sight of this sometimes:
Training is used to win a competition. Training to get better in training will yeild sub par results.
Hitting a PR on some kind of heavy extension work after doing some kind of press to failure means that my triceps are getting much stronger. I think body builders call this ‘pre-exhaust.’ Their whole reasoning behind it is if you work a lagging muscle to failure then go immediately into another exercise where that muscle is the prime mover, you will recruit muscle fibers that are not usually active when you are fresh. Is there any truth to it? Fuck if I know. All I know is the more I push my DB work to failure and the more I push the weight on my extensions, the better my bench gets.
I really should do some research and figure out why this is happening. haha.
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
Pretty broad question here, but how do you plan out your cycles STB (how many weeks do you plan at a time)? Do you basically just plan your main and secondary movement and then the accessories you have muscle groups you want to hit but just do what you feel at the time?[/quote]
I start very big and work my way down. I will plan out, usually, for my next two competitions. For simplicities sake, lets just say I signed up for a meet that is 12 weeks away. My outline is always the same regardless of the time I have to actually train:
Accumulation
Intensification
Transformation
For 12 weeks:
3 weeks accumulation
3 weeks int.
1 week deload
3 week int.
2 week tran.
From there, I pick and chose weak spots to work on from cycle to cycle. Its always upper back and triceps. So, I build my exercise selection around making those two areas as strong as possible. It’s less of a plan and more of a bank of exercises to pick from.
I used to be a lot more structured, thinking about my exercises well in advance but, nothing ever really went how I planned. I stopped thinking about it so much and made it more of a week by week desicion.
The only way this works is if you have a structure to follow. For my ME Upper workouts, my whole session looks like this:
Mobility
Dynamic Warm-up
Explosive Movments (push and pull)
Max Effort Lift
High Rep Tricpe work to failure
Heavy Tricep Ext.
Lats
Upper Back
Delts/Bi’s
Something cyclic for a cool down (this usually doesnt happen).
When the structure is already set-up, you just fill in the blanks. You don’t need to think of your exercises too far in advance. You just pull them out of the bank based on what you are working on.
[/quote]
That is great advice, having a structure and just filling in the blanks. Would you mind putting up what your other days look like? Also, why do you do the high rep tricep work to failure before the heavy extensions?[/quote]
The structure changes based on the block I am in. But DE upper day is about the same. ME/DE Lower look something like this:
Mobility
Dynamic warm-up
Something explosive
Main movment (Max Effort or DE SQ/DL)
Something hip dominant for a 6rm or rep max
High Rep Shrugs
Hamstrings/low back- high rep
Abs- Usually heavy as shit
Condition (sometimes)
Personally, I do the heavy extensions after the high rep stuff because I am trying to get stronger for the competition, not get better at training. People seem to lose sight of this sometimes:
Training is used to win a competition. Training to get better in training will yeild sub par results.
Hitting a PR on some kind of heavy extension work after doing some kind of press to failure means that my triceps are getting much stronger. I think body builders call this ‘pre-exhaust.’ Their whole reasoning behind it is if you work a lagging muscle to failure then go immediately into another exercise where that muscle is the prime mover, you will recruit muscle fibers that are not usually active when you are fresh. Is there any truth to it? Fuck if I know. All I know is the more I push my DB work to failure and the more I push the weight on my extensions, the better my bench gets.
I really should do some research and figure out why this is happening. haha.[/quote]
Great, this all makes a ton of sense haha. When you say the structure changes based on the block you are in, this refers to the volume, exercise selection, amount of exercises or all of the above?
Is that for the intensification phase STB? What would your accumulation phase look like?
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
Pretty broad question here, but how do you plan out your cycles STB (how many weeks do you plan at a time)? Do you basically just plan your main and secondary movement and then the accessories you have muscle groups you want to hit but just do what you feel at the time?[/quote]
I start very big and work my way down. I will plan out, usually, for my next two competitions. For simplicities sake, lets just say I signed up for a meet that is 12 weeks away. My outline is always the same regardless of the time I have to actually train:
Accumulation
Intensification
Transformation
For 12 weeks:
3 weeks accumulation
3 weeks int.
1 week deload
3 week int.
2 week tran.
From there, I pick and chose weak spots to work on from cycle to cycle. Its always upper back and triceps. So, I build my exercise selection around making those two areas as strong as possible. It’s less of a plan and more of a bank of exercises to pick from.
I used to be a lot more structured, thinking about my exercises well in advance but, nothing ever really went how I planned. I stopped thinking about it so much and made it more of a week by week desicion.
The only way this works is if you have a structure to follow. For my ME Upper workouts, my whole session looks like this:
Mobility
Dynamic Warm-up
Explosive Movments (push and pull)
Max Effort Lift
High Rep Tricpe work to failure
Heavy Tricep Ext.
Lats
Upper Back
Delts/Bi’s
Something cyclic for a cool down (this usually doesnt happen).
When the structure is already set-up, you just fill in the blanks. You don’t need to think of your exercises too far in advance. You just pull them out of the bank based on what you are working on.
[/quote]
That is great advice, having a structure and just filling in the blanks. Would you mind putting up what your other days look like? Also, why do you do the high rep tricep work to failure before the heavy extensions?[/quote]
The structure changes based on the block I am in. But DE upper day is about the same. ME/DE Lower look something like this:
Mobility
Dynamic warm-up
Something explosive
Main movment (Max Effort or DE SQ/DL)
Something hip dominant for a 6rm or rep max
High Rep Shrugs
Hamstrings/low back- high rep
Abs- Usually heavy as shit
Condition (sometimes)
Personally, I do the heavy extensions after the high rep stuff because I am trying to get stronger for the competition, not get better at training. People seem to lose sight of this sometimes:
Training is used to win a competition. Training to get better in training will yeild sub par results.
Hitting a PR on some kind of heavy extension work after doing some kind of press to failure means that my triceps are getting much stronger. I think body builders call this ‘pre-exhaust.’ Their whole reasoning behind it is if you work a lagging muscle to failure then go immediately into another exercise where that muscle is the prime mover, you will recruit muscle fibers that are not usually active when you are fresh. Is there any truth to it? Fuck if I know. All I know is the more I push my DB work to failure and the more I push the weight on my extensions, the better my bench gets.
I really should do some research and figure out why this is happening. haha.[/quote]
Great, this all makes a ton of sense haha. When you say the structure changes based on the block you are in, this refers to the volume, exercise selection, amount of exercises or all of the above? [/quote]
All of the above. Just slight tweaks though. All of the principals and methods are exactly the same. Just the emphasis and focuse switches around a little bit.
[quote]Vladamir wrote:
Is that for the intensification phase STB? What would your accumulation phase look like? [/quote]
Yea, those examples are more typical for intensification work. I don’t have a ton of equipment at my disposal so the only real difference between that and my accumulation structure is all of my heavy stuff, extensions and 6-10rms, are repleaced with super high reps (4x25 or 5-6 sets of 12-15). The rest is also shorter. That whole block is 100% focused on developing a bas strength, increasing GPP, and getting my limp noodle arms bigger.
Make sense?
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
[quote]pbclax1 wrote:
Pretty broad question here, but how do you plan out your cycles STB (how many weeks do you plan at a time)? Do you basically just plan your main and secondary movement and then the accessories you have muscle groups you want to hit but just do what you feel at the time?[/quote]
I start very big and work my way down. I will plan out, usually, for my next two competitions. For simplicities sake, lets just say I signed up for a meet that is 12 weeks away. My outline is always the same regardless of the time I have to actually train:
Accumulation
Intensification
Transformation
For 12 weeks:
3 weeks accumulation
3 weeks int.
1 week deload
3 week int.
2 week tran.
From there, I pick and chose weak spots to work on from cycle to cycle. Its always upper back and triceps. So, I build my exercise selection around making those two areas as strong as possible. It’s less of a plan and more of a bank of exercises to pick from.
I used to be a lot more structured, thinking about my exercises well in advance but, nothing ever really went how I planned. I stopped thinking about it so much and made it more of a week by week desicion.
The only way this works is if you have a structure to follow. For my ME Upper workouts, my whole session looks like this:
Mobility
Dynamic Warm-up
Explosive Movments (push and pull)
Max Effort Lift
High Rep Tricpe work to failure
Heavy Tricep Ext.
Lats
Upper Back
Delts/Bi’s
Something cyclic for a cool down (this usually doesnt happen).
When the structure is already set-up, you just fill in the blanks. You don’t need to think of your exercises too far in advance. You just pull them out of the bank based on what you are working on.
[/quote]
That is great advice, having a structure and just filling in the blanks. Would you mind putting up what your other days look like? Also, why do you do the high rep tricep work to failure before the heavy extensions?[/quote]
The structure changes based on the block I am in. But DE upper day is about the same. ME/DE Lower look something like this:
Mobility
Dynamic warm-up
Something explosive
Main movment (Max Effort or DE SQ/DL)
Something hip dominant for a 6rm or rep max
High Rep Shrugs
Hamstrings/low back- high rep
Abs- Usually heavy as shit
Condition (sometimes)
Personally, I do the heavy extensions after the high rep stuff because I am trying to get stronger for the competition, not get better at training. People seem to lose sight of this sometimes:
Training is used to win a competition. Training to get better in training will yeild sub par results.
Hitting a PR on some kind of heavy extension work after doing some kind of press to failure means that my triceps are getting much stronger. I think body builders call this ‘pre-exhaust.’ Their whole reasoning behind it is if you work a lagging muscle to failure then go immediately into another exercise where that muscle is the prime mover, you will recruit muscle fibers that are not usually active when you are fresh. Is there any truth to it? Fuck if I know. All I know is the more I push my DB work to failure and the more I push the weight on my extensions, the better my bench gets.
I really should do some research and figure out why this is happening. haha.[/quote]
Great, this all makes a ton of sense haha. When you say the structure changes based on the block you are in, this refers to the volume, exercise selection, amount of exercises or all of the above? [/quote]
All of the above. Just slight tweaks though. All of the principals and methods are exactly the same. Just the emphasis and focuse switches around a little bit.[/quote]
Got it. Now when you are in the phase of doing the 6RM’s on lower day or heavy tricep ext’s on upper day, are these done on both DE and ME day? Ex. 6RM on exercise a on ME lower and then 6RM on exercise b on DE Lower…same idea for DE/ME bench.
During the Intensification Phase, the point is to basically kill yourself. 6RM’s for me were done on both days, but for different exercises. ME Day may be CG Floor Press and DE Day would have been a shoulder press or something like that. Beat yourself into the the dirt with as much weight as you can for a max of 5-6 reps and then go eat a large pizza with some bread sticks. Sorry it wasnt as specific as STB’s but it works
[quote]Chicksan wrote:
During the Intensification Phase, the point is to basically kill yourself. 6RM’s for me were done on both days, but for different exercises. ME Day may be CG Floor Press and DE Day would have been a shoulder press or something like that. Beat yourself into the the dirt with as much weight as you can for a max of 5-6 reps and then go eat a large pizza with some bread sticks. Sorry it wasnt as specific as STB’s but it works[/quote]
Hahaha, specifics were not needed! Makes perfect sense, thanks man.
How would things then be modified for the Transformation Phase?