The Westside Method Thread II

Training Powerlifting
101

[quote]pbclax1 wrote:

[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?[/quote]

My answer is probably going to be a bit different due to the fact that I havent competed in a while and due to getting married, I dont have one planned. I basically run 5 weeks of Accumulation, 2 weeks of Intensification then one week of Transformation, then repeat. During my Transformation, its basically “heavy but not to the point of failure.” I pick weights I know I can get, even if I were on my death bed. I do this for a week, just to give my mind and body a bit of rest and then its Accumulation time again.

102

Well after a few months of Westside training, I had a meet this past Saturday. Results were mixed, if you guys would like I could give a write up when the videos are edited and ready.

103

Do it! I am on the fence of signing up for a June 2nd meet, so I am curious to see how yo udid. I’ve been working up to heavier weights as part of my warm-up for each lift (e.g., if I am Rev Band Benching as ME Lift, I am working up to heavier and heavier regular bench before putting on the bands) and have mixed feelings - my bench seems pretty good and I am comfortable with the weights, but for the dead lift it feels heavy as shit once I hit 405 which is ridiculous considering I smoked 465 in a meet in November with tons left in the tank. I am not sure if I need to start working up to heavier weights to get used to it again.

104

[quote]Chicksan wrote:

[quote]pbclax1 wrote:

[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?[/quote]

My answer is probably going to be a bit different due to the fact that I havent competed in a while and due to getting married, I dont have one planned. I basically run 5 weeks of Accumulation, 2 weeks of Intensification then one week of Transformation, then repeat. During my Transformation, its basically “heavy but not to the point of failure.” I pick weights I know I can get, even if I were on my death bed. I do this for a week, just to give my mind and body a bit of rest and then its Accumulation time again. [/quote]
Thanks for the input Chicksan!

105

I remember people talking about working up to a heavy double in the competition lifts during the accumulation phase. I for the life of me cant find that in this thread. SO if anyone remembers what STB or whoever suggested to do can you say it here.

106

[quote]Vladamir wrote:
I remember people talking about working up to a heavy double in the competition lifts during the accumulation phase. I for the life of me cant find that in this thread. SO if anyone remembers what STB or whoever suggested to do can you say it here.[/quote]

In all the weeks of Accumulation Ive ran, Ive never worked up to a heavy double in the competition lifts. Now I have dont the three lifts against chains or bands, but never with straight weight. Those weeks, for me, are about less weight, slightly higher reps and moving the weight as fast as possible. I do know that STB talked about working up to 75% for a few singles the week before a meet, during the Transformation Phase.

I wouldnt recommend doing those heavy doubles. Keep it lighter, work or explosion and 5-6 rep maxes on core lifts. The best of luck to you

107

[quote]Chicksan wrote:

[quote]Vladamir wrote:
I remember people talking about working up to a heavy double in the competition lifts during the accumulation phase. I for the life of me cant find that in this thread. SO if anyone remembers what STB or whoever suggested to do can you say it here.[/quote]

In all the weeks of Accumulation Ive ran, Ive never worked up to a heavy double in the competition lifts. Now I have dont the three lifts against chains or bands, but never with straight weight. Those weeks, for me, are about less weight, slightly higher reps and moving the weight as fast as possible. I do know that STB talked about working up to 75% for a few singles the week before a meet, during the Transformation Phase.

I wouldnt recommend doing those heavy doubles. Keep it lighter, work or explosion and 5-6 rep maxes on core lifts. The best of luck to you[/quote]

Yeah I would do the accumulation phase like you ran it and saw a lot of success in gaining size and increasing my gpp. I was just wondering if I keep work up to heavy doubles it gives me more experience working with heavy weight in the main 3 lifts. I wondered if that would help me increase them when i re test them

108

[quote]Vladamir wrote:

[quote]Chicksan wrote:

[quote]Vladamir wrote:
I remember people talking about working up to a heavy double in the competition lifts during the accumulation phase. I for the life of me cant find that in this thread. SO if anyone remembers what STB or whoever suggested to do can you say it here.[/quote]

In all the weeks of Accumulation Ive ran, Ive never worked up to a heavy double in the competition lifts. Now I have dont the three lifts against chains or bands, but never with straight weight. Those weeks, for me, are about less weight, slightly higher reps and moving the weight as fast as possible. I do know that STB talked about working up to 75% for a few singles the week before a meet, during the Transformation Phase.

I wouldnt recommend doing those heavy doubles. Keep it lighter, work or explosion and 5-6 rep maxes on core lifts. The best of luck to you[/quote]

Yeah I would do the accumulation phase like you ran it and saw a lot of success in gaining size and increasing my gpp. I was just wondering if I keep work up to heavy doubles it gives me more experience working with heavy weight in the main 3 lifts. I wondered if that would help me increase them when i re test them[/quote]

Use the accumulation block to get very very good at 5rms and 3rms with exercises you suck at. Save the highest relative training volumes and intensities (overload work, straight bar work, gear work) and 1rms and 2rms for the intensification block. The accumulation block needs to be 100% on focused on a few goals as possible. Get in better lifting shape to prepare for the weeks of insane training leading up to the meet. Work on weaknesses. That’s about it.

109

Yeah I found it and people talked about it in the intensification block. I got the names confused.

110

What is your (and any others) view on beginners doing smaller movements - face pulls, DB extensions, side raises etc.?

I do them at times but I feel as though as a beginner everything is a weakness and thus I should be doing “bigger” movements such as JM Press instead of DB extensions or barbell rows not face pulls or OHP not side raises.

Is this a good or bad way to look at it? It’s more because at times I am a little strained for time and I don’t know how useful these smaller movements are compared to larger, more general movements. My understanding is that for someone who is advanced they couldn’t simply just do a lot of pin pressing for tricep strength as doing that often would be hard on their body due to the poundages they would use. However, as I’m weaker than that, it’s easier for me to do that instead of, say, DB extensions and get away with it.

What do you guys think?

111

Alright guys, the video is finally done, so here we are.

Overall, this meet was a bit of good, and a bit of bad. I weighed in Friday at 195, and immediately began rehydrating and eating as much as I could to get back to my normal weight. However, ribs and cheese curds tend to make your asshole turn into a volcano the next morning, so I could only get back to about 201 by the next morning, even after an IHOP breakfast. I started the week around 204.

After the world’s longest rules meeting, warmups began. My squat warmups felt pretty damn slow and it took me longer than usual to get loose and start hitting depth, but my opener felt pretty good. I opened at about 430, then made the jump to 473 for a 17lb PR, this also felt pretty good, although I still need to work on my bar speed. When I get back to Westside, dynamic work will become even more important. After the 473, I didn’t think I could get 500, but I knew I could safely get a 1300 with 485. Got that out of the hole, but my hips rose and I just wasn’t fast enough.

Bench pressing has been my fucking nightmare all through my young powerlifting career. I opened at 237, got that pretty easy. However, when I jumped to 275 for an 11lb PR, my lower back started cramping something awful when I got into my arch. I just wasn’t focused on the lift enough, and ended up losing it just short of lockout. I tried the same weight again, and I just couldn’t get it going. For the 2nd meet in a row, my bench is going backwards. I know that this is a big mental thing for me, as I know I’m more than strong enough to hit a PR. This is actually the case with a lot of my lifts, but even more so on the bench.

On the deadlift, my warmups again felt a bit slow, but my last warm up at 425 felt the fastest, so I knew I would be okay. I opened at 460 for a pretty easy opener. I like to open the lightest on deadlifts and make a big jump for my 2nd. For my second, I took 518 and got it for an 11lb PR. I got more psyched up for this lift than any other, because I knew I needed it, as I was beginning to run out of energy for the day. I took 545 for my third and couldn’t get it to my knees. I was just psychologically and physically worn out, and I should have tried something a bit lighter.

Here’s what my warmups looked like (approximately) for all my lifts:

squat-
135x2x5
225x3
275x2
315x1
345x1
395x1

bench-
barxlots
95x5
125x5
135x3
165x2
185x1
205x1

deadlift-
135x2x5
225x5
315x3
365x1
405x1
425x1

And now for the main attraction, what you’ve all been dying (ha!) to see:

Overall, I learned a lot as far as what I need to do in training from this meet, and reinforced some things I already knew. I know that I have to do more heavy squat variants in my max effort work (box squats and reverse band variations), and do more full ROM bench max effort work.

In my accumulation block I’ll have to do even more volume and work towards maximizing GPP. Intensification needs to be even higher intensity, with more singles and 6rm’s for my assistance work. 3x3 or 3x5 won’t cut it. As always, I need more upper back and posterior chain work.

Dynamic work is becoming more and more important, and I will definitely take more time planning out my strength-speed cycles.

The bad news is that this will be my last meet for a year, as I’ll be joining the National Guard and Basic+AIT will last at least through November or so. The good news is that I’ll probably be able to go 181, and maybe even have some room to bulk up. Training will be done with reckless abandon when I’m back.

I’d definitely like to thank my federation and everybody who participated in this meet. There were over 120 entries, which made for a very long but fun day. This was the biggest meet in Iowa in over a decade, and hopefully they can get even bigger. I look forward to multiple decades in this sport and this federation.

112

Does anyone else have valgus issues on the ascent of a squat on DE work. It doesn’t happen on ME work, just DE. I keep good form on the descent. And I’m pushing my knees out as hard as I can. Foot flare is moderate, between 30 and 45 degrees. Any less angle than that I feel like I lose out on adductor contribution and I have a really hard time reaching depth without major back rounding (lower and upper).

113

@ Angus

nice write up .

your stronger than me , so take that for what it’s worth .but maybe taking a press around 255/260 for your second may have been a better idea .

not pickin’ at ya…just something I noticed .

good meet still

114

@Angus: Good shit, sounds like a pretty good meet overall. Good to know the system is coming through for people around my strength levels.

More questions for STB or anyone:

SPEED 1) I was doing my DE work and I feel like I’m kind of slow, even though I’ve been breaking tons of records and I feel very strong with the weights I’m using. My only “fast days” are my C&J day and my DE lower day. Should I just keep the weight on DE squats low enough to be fast and do box jumps? I remember that being recommended last thread.

WEAKNESS’ 2) I think my low back is my new weakness, since during my 25x2x50% on DE lower my low back was ridiculously pumped but my legs were perfectly fine. I was barely breathing hard also. Any advice on lower back ME movements? I’m planning on adding in pin-squats to help explosiveness and get some weight on my spine, and zercher deadlifts/squats (for 3RM in acc. and 1RM in int.) to strengthen my round back lifting.

WORK CAPACITY 3) After re-reading some Dave Tate articles and doing some research on my own (dangerous, I know) I’ve been adding in and trying to advance in some work capacity specific exercises, placed before each workout. Looks like this right now:

(feet touching) squat - bw x10x3
conv. GM - 115x6x2
pushups - bx x10x2
chins - bw x3x2
band PA - fierce x15x3

I’ve noticed it’s working on my chin-ups and band pull-aparts, and helps with soreness in my hamstrings. But the rest seems to stay the same difficulty. Do you think it’s necessary to do these kind of movements if I’m already doing my work capacity 25x2 on my DE days? Or am I just setting myself up for over training? My only real concern is that next year I’ll have spent a year NOT advancing my work capacity and regret it. So if you could expand on this a bit and tell me how you would implement it, or if I even need to implement it in my programming.

Thanks again to anyone who can help me out.

115

For #2 you can do back hyper extensions, reverse hyper extensions those are my favorite.

Also I retested my big 3 lifts and I saw a 20 pound increase in bench press. Thank you to all in this thread who helped me. Now I wonder should I keep my workout the same. Same ME lifts, same lifts worked up to a 6rep max etc. or should I still change things up a bit. What do you guys usually do?

116

I was thinking of running BB complexes like that last article suggested either at the beginning or the end of the workout. Haven’t really decided where I’m going to place them.

117

anybody flip tires for GPP / conditioning purposes ? or know anything about it ?

is it a good alternative to prowler/sled work ?

I just found out that a kid I lifted with a few times has a tractor tire sittin’ around .and gettin’ in some conditioning work at times definitely wouldnt suck , as I hate running and cant sprint worth a fuck . dont know what size it is …or anything about flippin’ em . anybody know a good place to start for a 400 lb DLer ?

118

[quote]marlboroman wrote:
anybody flip tires for GPP / conditioning purposes ? or know anything about it ?

is it a good alternative to prowler/sled work ?

I just found out that a kid I lifted with a few times has a tractor tire sittin’ around .and gettin’ in some conditioning work at times definitely wouldnt suck , as I hate running and cant sprint worth a fuck . dont know what size it is …or anything about flippin’ em . anybody know a good place to start for a 400 lb DLer ?[/quote]

Depends on your conditioning level. I have a 600+lb tire and one that’s even heavier. I deadlift about 440lb and can flip the 600lb for about 12 reps.

I’d start by seeing how 10 flips feel, then try to work up to 10x10. All depends on what I’m preparing for. Could try flipping for distance as fast as possible, or as many reps as fast as possible in 60 seconds, or just as many as you can in 10 minutes. Same as everything else. Set records, break records.

119

[quote]louiek wrote:

WEAKNESS’ 2) I think my low back is my new weakness, since during my 25x2x50% on DE lower my low back was ridiculously pumped but my legs were perfectly fine. I was barely breathing hard also. Any advice on lower back ME movements? I’m planning on adding in pin-squats to help explosiveness and get some weight on my spine, and zercher deadlifts/squats (for 3RM in acc. and 1RM in int.) to strengthen my round back lifting.

[/quote]

I have noticed the exact same thing this week, eventhough my question is a bit different : does having a massive lower back pump necessarily mean it’s a weakness? The pump in itself is annoying/painful but I can still go through the workout so it’s not a problem in itself. What I want to know though is if it’s a weakness, so I can correct it (and if it is, then I’d have the same questions as you do). My lower back tends to get pumped quickly for ME days too but by taking longer rests in between sets it’s not a problem. Also, if this means anything, my lower back is never ever sore, I don’t use a belt for DE days and I don’t think it’s a technique issue.

120

[quote]Kraky wrote:

[quote]louiek wrote:

WEAKNESS’ 2) I think my low back is my new weakness, since during my 25x2x50% on DE lower my low back was ridiculously pumped but my legs were perfectly fine. I was barely breathing hard also. Any advice on lower back ME movements? I’m planning on adding in pin-squats to help explosiveness and get some weight on my spine, and zercher deadlifts/squats (for 3RM in acc. and 1RM in int.) to strengthen my round back lifting.

[/quote]

I have noticed the exact same thing this week, eventhough my question is a bit different : does having a massive lower back pump necessarily mean it’s a weakness? The pump in itself is annoying/painful but I can still go through the workout so it’s not a problem in itself. What I want to know though is if it’s a weakness, so I can correct it (and if it is, then I’d have the same questions as you do). My lower back tends to get pumped quickly for ME days too but by taking longer rests in between sets it’s not a problem. Also, if this means anything, my lower back is never ever sore, I don’t use a belt for DE days and I don’t think it’s a technique issue.

[/quote]

I used to have this problem a lot, but then I started foam rolling my back and stretching my hip flexors. That helped my low back not get pumped for no reason. Now it only gets pumped when I’m doing DE work.

Currently, I believe it’s a weakness due to not getting direct strength work. And I think that doing events and round back ME movements will help that.