[quote]cscsDPT17 wrote:
STB, and others. What are your thoughts on Oly lifts as extra workouts or perhaps at the beginning of workouts? I made the mistake of getting back on calstrength.com and it somewhat reignited my obsession. I started out on this site in the Oly section but after realizing it would take a while for me to be competitive compared to being able to compete in powerlifting now, I just switched over to PL. So basically if I wanted to throw some snatches and Cleans and Jerks in, where would you or is it not worth the time? I feel like there could be some carryover to deadlift pulling snatches and cleans from the weak spot of the deadlift on DE day a few sets before and a few sets after DE squats[/quote]
STB commented on this earlier in the thread and recommended doing them following your DE work working up to a rep max I believe rotating exercises like you said; cleans from varying heights, high pulls, snatch grip stuff etc
If it was painful to bench normally, would it be a better idea to 1/2-board press for DE bench? So I can at least get in some speed work, even if it’s not my competition lift.
[quote]michael_xyz wrote:
If it was painful to bench normally, would it be a better idea to 1/2-board press for DE bench? So I can at least get in some speed work, even if it’s not my competition lift.[/quote]
Could throw reverse bands in there. I like reverse bands and using a one board when my shoulder feels iffy. I read somewhere to do an extra rep for every board so I do that when I use the one board
On the matter of reverse bands for DE work, do you stick with the normal DE wave percentages? I’ve been increasing the bar weight from what I normally use but I’m not sure if that’s the most optimal way of doing it.
[quote]marlboroman wrote:
I just got caught up with this thread . wow , lots of info here .
if I recall , STB you recommend doing most or all DE squatting to a box (as do the fellas who wrote up the training manual from EFS). so heres my question… and apologies if it was asked before as I may have missed it… is there anything wrong with DE free-squatting mainly against bands (no box , normal stance) while using box variations for ME day ?
my current (and first in a while) cycle is set up as mentioned for the following reasons :
free-squatting regularily is a must as I get rusty pretty quick (low training age)
I feel slow as fuck out of the hole , so free-squattin against bands DE style should help with this
I suck at box squats…sitting back was the issue . and it seems a better idea to strengthen the weak link rather than making it perform faster…know what I mean ?
not that Im trying to out think those who are stronger than myself , but it seems this protocol better addresses my weaknesses .
or is my reasonong flawed ?[/quote]
The box is key for speed work. Breaking up the eccentric and concentric actions is vital for building explosive, reversal, and speed strength. The eccentric stress of the bands will be EXTREME without the box and with such high training volumes. In other words, your legs will be sore and big but slow and not strong.
Assistance work and repeated effforts are what you use to develop weaknesses. ME and DE work are used to increase coordination, increase speed, and increase your ability to strain under heavy loads. So, if you feel like you need to free squat in order to get your competition squat stronger, do it at the point in your training that is directed towards developing your weaknesses.
Personally, I use pause squats often for assistance work. They are brutal.
[quote]cscsDPT17 wrote:
STB, and others. What are your thoughts on Oly lifts as extra workouts or perhaps at the beginning of workouts? I made the mistake of getting back on calstrength.com and it somewhat reignited my obsession. I started out on this site in the Oly section but after realizing it would take a while for me to be competitive compared to being able to compete in powerlifting now, I just switched over to PL. So basically if I wanted to throw some snatches and Cleans and Jerks in, where would you or is it not worth the time? I feel like there could be some carryover to deadlift pulling snatches and cleans from the weak spot of the deadlift on DE day a few sets before and a few sets after DE squats[/quote]
Any kind of explosive work before your main lift of the day will be beneficial. Cleans and oly lifts are great because of their lack of eccentric stress. I’ve worked up to 1 and 3rms on cleans before heavy squatting and still smashed PR’s.
Definitely do them in the beggining of the work out. You can’t develop speed when fatigued.
As far as extra workouts, oly lifts are awesome for conditioning. I hate all of the ‘sport specific’ bullshit there is out there but conditioning with a barbell in your hands will not only wreck your shit, it will make you better at the competition lifts… which also require a barbell.
On a side note, if calstrength.com is making you go nuts, check out XLAthlete.com… have fun not sleeping for the next month.
[quote]marlboroman wrote:
I just got caught up with this thread . wow , lots of info here .
if I recall , STB you recommend doing most or all DE squatting to a box (as do the fellas who wrote up the training manual from EFS). so heres my question… and apologies if it was asked before as I may have missed it… is there anything wrong with DE free-squatting mainly against bands (no box , normal stance) while using box variations for ME day ?
my current (and first in a while) cycle is set up as mentioned for the following reasons :
free-squatting regularily is a must as I get rusty pretty quick (low training age)
I feel slow as fuck out of the hole , so free-squattin against bands DE style should help with this
I suck at box squats…sitting back was the issue . and it seems a better idea to strengthen the weak link rather than making it perform faster…know what I mean ?
not that Im trying to out think those who are stronger than myself , but it seems this protocol better addresses my weaknesses .
or is my reasonong flawed ?[/quote]
The box is key for speed work. Breaking up the eccentric and concentric actions is vital for building explosive, reversal, and speed strength. The eccentric stress of the bands will be EXTREME without the box and with such high training volumes. In other words, your legs will be sore and big but slow and not strong.
Assistance work and repeated effforts are what you use to develop weaknesses. ME and DE work are used to increase coordination, increase speed, and increase your ability to strain under heavy loads. So, if you feel like you need to free squat in order to get your competition squat stronger, do it at the point in your training that is directed towards developing your weaknesses.
Personally, I use pause squats often for assistance work. They are brutal.[/quote]
got it . I’ll set up next cycle as recommended . I actually had planned on adding in pause-squats as supplemental (heavyish 5’s and 3’s) or higher rep assistance in the 3 to 5 x 8 neighborhood …cause they suck and I hated them the couple times I tried them .
Hey STB, I know you’ve gone into it already but I wanted to be annoying and ask if it could be altered slightly lol.
With regards to intensification and accumulation phase/blocks. If I don’t have a meet in mind, you said to just alternate forever. Would it be okay to do 2 weeks accumulation, 4 weeks intensification and then deload (if required)?
I know you can customise it a lot to your needs but just wondering if that sounds okay. Accumulation block sounds good but I personally would prefer to do singles on ME work like in intensification block.
[quote]michael_xyz wrote:
Hey STB, I know you’ve gone into it already but I wanted to be annoying and ask if it could be altered slightly lol.
With regards to intensification and accumulation phase/blocks. If I don’t have a meet in mind, you said to just alternate forever. Would it be okay to do 2 weeks accumulation, 4 weeks intensification and then deload (if required)?
I know you can customise it a lot to your needs but just wondering if that sounds okay. Accumulation block sounds good but I personally would prefer to do singles on ME work like in intensification block.
Thanks.[/quote]
I PMed him about the phase sched. actually. Here’s his response "If you are going a whole year without competing just keep alternating between 4 week cycles of accumulation and intensification. Deload on the 4th week, and start over again. Throw in different dynamic waves whenever you want, just change it up a lot. "
AS far as 1RM vs 3-5RM. Why? Is personal preference going to help you get stronger or is it that you don’t like grinding out the weights (=me, so take it for what its worth). I’d imagine if you wanna get stronger I would avoid doing just 1RMs. The idea is to strain. Id rather have my clients hit proper form and max weight for 1-8 seconds-ish than just 1s each week. Just my opinion.
[quote]michael_xyz wrote:
Hey STB, I know you’ve gone into it already but I wanted to be annoying and ask if it could be altered slightly lol.
With regards to intensification and accumulation phase/blocks. If I don’t have a meet in mind, you said to just alternate forever. Would it be okay to do 2 weeks accumulation, 4 weeks intensification and then deload (if required)?
I know you can customise it a lot to your needs but just wondering if that sounds okay. Accumulation block sounds good but I personally would prefer to do singles on ME work like in intensification block.
Thanks.[/quote]
I PMed him about the phase sched. actually. Here’s his response "If you are going a whole year without competing just keep alternating between 4 week cycles of accumulation and intensification. Deload on the 4th week, and start over again. Throw in different dynamic waves whenever you want, just change it up a lot. "
AS far as 1RM vs 3-5RM. Why? Is personal preference going to help you get stronger or is it that you don’t like grinding out the weights (=me, so take it for what its worth). I’d imagine if you wanna get stronger I would avoid doing just 1RMs. The idea is to strain. Id rather have my clients hit proper form and max weight for 1-8 seconds-ish than just 1s each week. Just my opinion.
Hope that helped some
[/quote]
In the initial pages though he says the accumulation phase doesn’t require a deload?
It’s a good point. You’re right, preference isn’t necessarily going to get me stronger. I just feel that working with low reps like that would help more for when I do compete.
Also, I feel 1RMs are easier to calculate. In the sense that you hit 200kg this week, you just need to do more than 200kg next week - simple. With 3-5RMs, I feel it’s harder to judge progression. You do 100kg for 5 reps, you then raise the weight to 102.5kg at some later point and hit 3 or 4 reps. Have you gotten stronger though? It’s harder to tell. Whereas with singles it’s easy to see whether you beat that number or not. Do you see what I mean?
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
What I’ve been doing is hitting multiple singles and 3-5RM during the accumulation and and working up to 1RM during the intensification. [/quote]
thats what I got worked out too . accumulation will be rotating every week for ME/5RMs for 5 weeks . intensifacation I’ll probably hit the comp lifts for 1RM’s for 3 weeks…or maybe 3RM/2RM/1RM . its the only way I can think of to get in heavy reps on the main lifts .
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
What I’ve been doing is hitting multiple singles and 3-5RM during the accumulation and and working up to 1RM during the intensification. [/quote]
thats what I got worked out too . accumulation will be rotating every week for ME/5RMs for 5 weeks . intensifacation I’ll probably hit the comp lifts for 1RM’s for 3 weeks…or maybe 3RM/2RM/1RM . its the only way I can think of to get in heavy reps on the main lifts .[/quote]
Use non competition lifts on ME days, it is important to strain under different leverages and motions than to ‘lift heavy’ in the competition lifts on these days. If you want to continue doing the competition lifts during training, work up to a few heavy doubles or triples in the competition lifts following your DE sets (specifically in the intensification block). Following max effort work you can also use the competition lifts as accessory work using submaximal loads, I think I read STB using paused squats as an accessory lift. You can also do extra workouts with very little bar weight and do 100 reps squatting or benching.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
What I’ve been doing is hitting multiple singles and 3-5RM during the accumulation and and working up to 1RM during the intensification. [/quote]
thats what I got worked out too . accumulation will be rotating every week for ME/5RMs for 5 weeks . intensifacation I’ll probably hit the comp lifts for 1RM’s for 3 weeks…or maybe 3RM/2RM/1RM . its the only way I can think of to get in heavy reps on the main lifts .[/quote]
Use non competition lifts on ME days, it is important to strain under different leverages and motions than to ‘lift heavy’ in the competition lifts on these days. If you want to continue doing the competition lifts during training, work up to a few heavy doubles or triples in the competition lifts following your DE sets (specifically in the intensification block). Following max effort work you can also use the competition lifts as accessory work using submaximal loads, I think I read STB using paused squats as an accessory lift. You can also do extra workouts with very little bar weight and do 100 reps squatting or benching.[/quote]
cool…I’ll stir the heavy comp-reps in after DE work-sets during the intensification phase . damn , I musta missed that too .
do you guys rotate your assistance a lot? Also I was thinking for high stress days of assistance its alright to use ME lifts for like a 6 rep max right? If it is should I rotate them regularly like you do the main lift of the day.
[quote]Vladamir wrote:
do you guys rotate your assistance a lot? Also I was thinking for high stress days of assistance its alright to use ME lifts for like a 6 rep max right? If it is should I rotate them regularly like you do the main lift of the day. [/quote]
STB touched on this earlier in the thread, so it may benefit you to go back and re-read it as he is much more detailed about it, but I will give you the short version…yes you should. Always rotate. I will go a month strait and no two workouts are going to be the same.
As far as using the ME lifts, I suppose you could, but I really prefer to stay away from main lift variations…sticking mostly with “bodybuilding” type exercises on DE day.
I don’t completely rotate my assistance work, but I do change it slightly from week to week. For example, one week I’ll do DB bench, then the next I’ll do Spoon press. Maybe I’ll use an EZ bar for tricep extensions, the next week I’ll use a dumbbell. Maybe I’ll cut rest periods, or superset some stuff.
Do what works, but don’t let your body adapt to it. Once that happens, it won’t work.