The Westside Method Thread

Training Powerlifting
661

[quote]michael_xyz wrote:

[quote]VTTrainer wrote:

[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]

I understand your point. I think you’re looking at it backwards. You are not looking for a certain weight given 3 rep requirement. hit 100x5 then raise the weight and go for broke the next time around. If you remember STB talking about deloads he talked about repping a certain weight for max reps. You also don’t have to hit a 3-5RM, you want to focus there. If you hit 100x5 and try 115 you sure as shit better hit 1 rep, anything after that is gold.

I don’t think the point is to have a 3RM day, the point is to drop the weight some, add time under tension and hit several heavy motions back to back. If you feel like ass and only hit 1 or 2 then so be it, trying to guess what number of reps you can hit will just frustrate you. You never know what day it will be for you, and if you do let us know the secret.

“Master the instrument, master the music, then forget all that shit and play”

662

I’m having trouble with ‘spreading the bar’ when I bench press. Would DE Bench be an appropriate time to use a mini band around my wrists?

663

I would suggest doing it after your DE bench, or even as a warm up before your ME lift on your upper body days. It would also be a great thing to do during an extra workout.

664

[quote]black_angus1 wrote:
I would suggest doing it after your DE bench, or even as a warm up before your ME lift on your upper body days. It would also be a great thing to do during an extra workout.[/quote]

You mean do more benching after my DE work? With the same weight?

665

Do it with whatever weight you feel like doing. It’s a technique thing, doing it with an empty bar would be all you need.

Or maybe try using it during your warmups, and ditch it when you get to your warm ups. Just try it out. Don’t over think it.

666

[quote]michael_xyz wrote:

[quote]VTTrainer wrote:

[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]

The deload is for the intensification block, not the accumulation block.

You are thinking of your prgression the wrong way. You need to look at training as the culmanation of the entire plan and what is going to make you strongest on the platform. Early in training=higher volumes. Gains made with higher volumes are much more stable than gains made with higher intensities. With your situation, not competing for a while, I would suggest limiting the singles to maybe every other intensification block. I know this doesnt sound like a lot of fun because we all like smashing weights, but Westside is set up to compete optimally 3-5 times a year. When you extend the time between competitions, you just need to focus on two things:

  1. Making stable gains
  2. Staying healthy

If you are hitting true 3-5rms and adding weight each time, then you are getting stronger. Singles don’t build strength. They build your ability to be cooridinated enough to showcase the speed and strength you gained throughout the rest of your training.

667

[quote]Chicksan wrote:

Always rotate. I will go a month strait and no two workouts are going to be the same.
[/quote]

Really? You’re always changing the exercises? That would really piss me off if I had to come up with something new every workout.

668

Im trying to gain weight so I was thinking during accumulation block work up to a 5 rep max, and for assitance go for around 8-10 reps on the high intensity exercises and 15-20 reps on low intensity exercises.

In the intensification block work up to a 3 rep max but drop the assistance to 6-8 reps on high intensity exercises and then 10-15 reps for low intensity exercises. All while eating about 3500 calories a day.

Would this be the best way to gain weight?

669

[quote]Vladamir wrote:
Im trying to gain weight so I was thinking during accumulation block work up to a 5 rep max, and for assitance go for around 8-10 reps on the high intensity exercises and 15-20 reps on low intensity exercises.

In the intensification block work up to a 3 rep max but drop the assistance to 6-8 reps on high intensity exercises and then 10-15 reps for low intensity exercises. All while eating about 3500 calories a day.

Would this be the best way to gain weight? [/quote]

Instead of prescribing some random calorie diet to you… get on Amazon.com and buy ‘Power Eating’ and ‘Nutrient Timing.’ Do both of those until you get fucking gigantic.

Max Effort work is not good for size. A lot of people that I put through accumulation block gains 5-10 pounds per cycle just because of the high volume on DE day. My suggestion for using assistance work for size:

Dont worry about reps, they don’t matter. Do sets for time (30s week 1, 45s week 2, 60s week 3) with the heaviest weight you can hold onto for the entire time period. Only do this in the accumulation block, do high rep work for the intensification. Time under tension = size. Set and rep schemes=someone trying to sell you something.

670

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]Vladamir wrote:
Im trying to gain weight so I was thinking during accumulation block work up to a 5 rep max, and for assitance go for around 8-10 reps on the high intensity exercises and 15-20 reps on low intensity exercises.

In the intensification block work up to a 3 rep max but drop the assistance to 6-8 reps on high intensity exercises and then 10-15 reps for low intensity exercises. All while eating about 3500 calories a day.

Would this be the best way to gain weight? [/quote]

Instead of prescribing some random calorie diet to you… get on Amazon.com and buy ‘Power Eating’ and ‘Nutrient Timing.’ Do both of those until you get fucking gigantic.

Max Effort work is not good for size. A lot of people that I put through accumulation block gains 5-10 pounds per cycle just because of the high volume on DE day. My suggestion for using assistance work for size:

Dont worry about reps, they don’t matter. Do sets for time (30s week 1, 45s week 2, 60s week 3) with the heaviest weight you can hold onto for the entire time period. Only do this in the accumulation block, do high rep work for the intensification. Time under tension = size. Set and rep schemes=someone trying to sell you something.[/quote]

Lol I noticed that. I was hungry as hell after the 20-25 sets of DE squats and benches. And I did gain about 7lbs when I finished my 6 week accumulation block. And now that I’m doing the intensification block, I’m just maintaining weight and don’t have the massive appetite.

671

Question: Is it normal to be feeling kinda beat up and not have all my typical ‘snap’ towards the end of the intensification block? Not like joint pain, just a certain kinda tiredness that I can’t quite put my finger on.

672

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Question: Is it normal to be feeling kinda beat up and not have all my typical ‘snap’ towards the end of the intensification block? Not like joint pain, just a certain kinda tiredness that I can’t quite put my finger on. [/quote]

To put it as scientifically as I possibly can, you should feel like a bag of smashed assholes by the end of that thrid week. This is why I suggest a deload before starting the accumulation block back up and really push an at least 2 week deload before a meet.

673

[quote]Razamataz wrote:

[quote]Chicksan wrote:

Always rotate. I will go a month strait and no two workouts are going to be the same.
[/quote]

Really? You’re always changing the exercises? That would really piss me off if I had to come up with something new every workout. [/quote]

Its really only 4 workouts for each of the days. There are more than enough exercises to rotate in and have 4 different workouts. I just have to plan ahead a bit

674

Why is it that I can’t find any of this information in the Westside Barbell Book of Methods? Been looking and I can’t find mention of this stuff anywhere. Any idea where I could read more?

675

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Question: Is it normal to be feeling kinda beat up and not have all my typical ‘snap’ towards the end of the intensification block? Not like joint pain, just a certain kinda tiredness that I can’t quite put my finger on. [/quote]

To put it as scientifically as I possibly can, you should feel like a bag of smashed assholes by the end of that thrid week. This is why I suggest a deload before starting the accumulation block back up and really push an at least 2 week deload before a meet.[/quote]

Feel like a smashed bag of assholes, doing it right I guess on this last week of intensification!

676

[quote]louiek wrote:
Why is it that I can’t find any of this information in the Westside Barbell Book of Methods? Been looking and I can’t find mention of this stuff anywhere. Any idea where I could read more?[/quote]

You can get the book off westsides website.

677

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]louiek wrote:
Why is it that I can’t find any of this information in the Westside Barbell Book of Methods? Been looking and I can’t find mention of this stuff anywhere. Any idea where I could read more?[/quote]

You can get the book off westsides website.[/quote]

I have a 2007 version, is there a more recent edition?

678

Would be nice if you could reply within 45 minutes before I go to the gym lol.

You say to not really use any barbell exercises for accumulation phase apart from for ME/DE main lifts. Is that something that is just what you’ve seen is good or is it really recommended? Dumbbells suck at my gym and nothing else to really use for lower body lifts unless I want to use a lot of machines. I will use some (a lot more often that before where I’d rarely if ever use them) but still. Thanks.

679

[quote]michael_xyz wrote:
Would be nice if you could reply within 45 minutes before I go to the gym lol.

You say to not really use any barbell exercises for accumulation phase apart from for ME/DE main lifts. Is that something that is just what you’ve seen is good or is it really recommended? Dumbbells suck at my gym and nothing else to really use for lower body lifts unless I want to use a lot of machines. I will use some (a lot more often that before where I’d rarely if ever use them) but still. Thanks.[/quote]

If the the dbs suck in the sense you don’t have much weight these might work.

-back extensions
-swiss ball leg curls
-tons of non-bb ab work to do
-one leg deadlift with db
-reverse hypers
-glute-ham raise
-leg presses
-leg curls (band, db, or machine)
-leg extensions
-goblet squats
-stiff legged db deadlifts
-db swings (one or two db)
-db snatch (one or two)
-push ups (one arm, band, weight vest, chains, elevate feet
-one leg squat/pistol (I can’t do these free, but I can to them to a bench and they work the crap out of my glutes and hamstrings, tried them as part of an extra workout and they were too strenuous for that)
-bodyweight extensions (like a bb extension, except you use your bodyweight)
-bulgarian split squats (the weight can be humbling so perfect if your dbs are light)
-db lunges (goblet, at sides, in the clean position, walking, static, reverse, forward, on a platform, etc)
-db presses of all varieties,
-hand stand presses (if your coordinated and have strong shoulders)
-db clean (one or two db)
-flies, reverse flies
-sissy squats
-cable squats
-cable pull throughs
-lateral raises (dbs, cables, heavy rocks, whatever)
-some strongman exercises
-sled pulling/dragging

All I can think of for now

680

Would something like this work: