The Westside Method Thread

Training Powerlifting
1081

[quote]Vladamir wrote:
Also from what I read people usually try to hit 3 reps of 90% or greater of there one rep max for that day.

Also since I train at a sketchy college gym there aren’t a lot of bands or bars for max effort. I was thinking since I am weak off the chest could I do weighted dips for a 3 rep max but make sure I lean over to really hit my chest. [/quote]

Give it a go. Personally I don’t get much from dips. I’ve found that DB presses (various inclines), BB incline (when my shoulders can manage it), DB front raises, and DB flat bench flyes seem to have better carry over. That’s just for me. I like dips but sadly don’t get much benefit from them.

1082

[quote]Vladamir wrote:
My lower part of my hamstring is always sore. What are some good assistance lifts to hit that part of my hamstring? [/quote]

www.mobilitywod.com. I should have a video up soon of the best hamstring stretch ever that I came up with after a bunch of small sprains and a huge tear. Until then, mobilitywod-the-shit out of it.

1083

[quote]michael_xyz wrote:
So I did the plyo pushups today - did 3x5. However, my triceps felt very, very, very hurt afterwards. A very achey kind of pain.

Is this natural/does it go away or what? It kind of messed up the rest of things to be honest because my triceps were hurting so it kind of messed up my bench and everything.[/quote]

Your fibrous connective tissue is not used to being banged around and dealing with reactive forces. Next time you do them either do them on a softer surface, like a balance pad, or do them with your hands up on a bench or some kind of incline. Do these for a couple weeks before you get down to a normal gym floor.

1084

[quote]black_angus1 wrote:
STB, I want you to take a look at my transformation phase, which I will be starting next week:

First, I plan on doing this for two weeks, then taking a deload for the third week, which is the week of my meet. During my deload I’m basically going to be doing some light (50% or less) technique work, as well as practicing my commands some more.
All dynamic work is planned with no bands/chains/box, and I plan on doing my competition lifts for my max effort days. I am a raw lifter.

Anyway:

Week one:
Upper DE
Speed bench 10x3@55%
DB bench 3x10
Curl variation 3x10
Face pulls 5x10

Lower ME
Squat- work up to 85% for a single
Deadlift- same
Heavy front squat holds
Maybe back raises

Upper ME
Bench- work up to 90% for a single
Press 3x5
Barbell rows 3x5

Lower DE
Speed squats: 8x2@50%
Speed deads: 10x1@50%
Back raises 3x10
Maybe front squat holds for time

Week two:

Upper/Lower DE days same as above

Upper ME:
Bench- 75% for 1x5
Press 3x5
Barbell rows 3x5

Lower ME:
Squat- 75% for 2x3
Deadlift 75% for 2x3
Heavy front squat holds
Back raises maybe

I plan on using full gear (i.e. knee/wrist wraps) for the top set of all my max effort work. Assistance work will be limited to ~75% of the weights I use in my intensification phase.

My questions mainly center around my max effort days. Is it wise, even as a raw lifter, to do my competition lifts for my max effort days? Or, should I stick to using a special exercise, maybe a regular box squat?

I plan on squatting and deadlifting for my lower body ME days, so I plan on lowering the percentages/volumes for those days as compared to my upper body ME days. However, the numbers I decided to go with on those days are rather arbitrary. Is there a certain percentage I should be aiming for? Or, as another thought, could I just work up to my planned opener? I’ve done this in the past with some degree of success.

Just give me your thoughts/suggestions (anything from other posters is greatly appreciated as well), thanks a lot. Hopefully the information here will help me hit some PR’s at my meet.[/quote]

Alright, a couple things:

Week one, still do a true max effort. You want to keep the intensity up as close to the meet as possible while SLIGHTLY dropping volume. Week 2 and meet week look pretty solid. It’s hard to tell exactly what will work for you becuase you need to run through it a few times and do a couple meets before you can really dial it in.

There is no reason to ever do the competition lifts in training. Ever. Stick with special exercises that hammer weaknesses.

As far as the percentages, again, it’s hard to give a clear cut recommendation. I can tell you that what has worked for me in the past is as follows:

Two weeks out:
75% in full meet gear for 5-10 singles

The weekend before a meet:
50% in some gear for 5-10 singles

Meet week:
30% with minimal gear for 5-10 singles

I am pretty sure I have talked about this before, but going for an opener before the meet can be a disaster. I mean, think about it. You have been training and planning your training to peak for this one day at this one event. Why would you try to feel it out or see where your at a week or two before? Your training will hopefully have left you feeling pretty shitty around 2 weeks out. Dropping the volumes, then intensities as the meet approaches is meant to cause a supercompensation effect specifically on meet day. So, finding an opener will either:

-bury you under the bar, shattering your confidence

or

-you will destroy it and it will feel like shit in a meet, shattering your confidence

Did that answer all your questions?

1085

[quote]Vladamir wrote:
Also from what I read people usually try to hit 3 reps of 90% or greater of there one rep max for that day.

Also since I train at a sketchy college gym there aren’t a lot of bands or bars for max effort. I was thinking since I am weak off the chest could I do weighted dips for a 3 rep max but make sure I lean over to really hit my chest. [/quote]

While you don’t have as many options as some people, you can buy your own bands and take them in. As long as you take care of them, these will last a very long time. You can build your own 1 and 2 boards, or buy rep boards if you don’t have anyone to hold them for you. You can buy fat Gripz for another variation. I also like CG incline, and CG decline. Add in pauses, 3 different grips + illegal wides, floor presses, dead presses and a few pieces of equipment mentioned you have a ton of combinations for under $100. I’m sure your gym has one of those squat tampons, and you can bench w/ it for another variation.

If you are a raw lifter, the order I would purchase these are:
1 and 2 boards
fat grip
Bands (mainly just cause there are more things u can do w/ these than chains)
Chains

1086

[quote]Kraky wrote:
Storm,
you’ve said many times that testing the competition lifts in training basically reflects a lack of confidence in oneself or in the training system. You’ve also added that the only exception would be a raw lifter not competing often/at all, in order to identify possibly different weaknesses and to adjust the weights for DE days (I’m just paraphrasing).

So my question is, what would be a good way of doing that (testing)?
I just started the intensification phase, and spending 2 out of 3 ME lower days and 1 out of 3 ME upper days to test my maxes sounds like it wouldn’t be optimal, as I wouldn’t be working specifically on the things I suck at.
So I was thinking, does it seem ok if I go through the intensification phase without testing my maxes, deload, and say on Friday during the deload week do a “Mock meet” to test all 3 lifts in the same session? Then go back to the accumulation phase.
Of course if you can think of a better way, please tell me!

Thanks for this thread and your log btw, I’ve been breaking PRs like crazy. I wouldn’t be surprised if my total went up 150-200lbs when I retest. Insane.
[/quote]

As a bare minimum, go through the Acc. Block and Int. block for at least one full cycle (3 weeks of Acc., 3 weeks of Int., deload, test). 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?

1087

[quote]Kraky wrote:
Storm,
you’ve said many times that testing the competition lifts in training basically reflects a lack of confidence in oneself or in the training system. You’ve also added that the only exception would be a raw lifter not competing often/at all, in order to identify possibly different weaknesses and to adjust the weights for DE days (I’m just paraphrasing).

So my question is, what would be a good way of doing that (testing)?
I just started the intensification phase, and spending 2 out of 3 ME lower days and 1 out of 3 ME upper days to test my maxes sounds like it wouldn’t be optimal, as I wouldn’t be working specifically on the things I suck at.
So I was thinking, does it seem ok if I go through the intensification phase without testing my maxes, deload, and say on Friday during the deload week do a “Mock meet” to test all 3 lifts in the same session? Then go back to the accumulation phase.
Of course if you can think of a better way, please tell me!

Thanks for this thread and your log btw, I’ve been breaking PRs like crazy. I wouldn’t be surprised if my total went up 150-200lbs when I retest. Insane.
[/quote]

Also, definitely post on here how the testing goes! Glad to hear everything is going well.

1088

[quote]want2getlean wrote:
I have a question for those knowledgable in Westside or conjugated training;

In linear periodization routines, like 5/3/1, loads are calculated by percentages of a pre-estimated RM, and after the microcycle is over the RM is increased by a small increment

In conjugated training, how is the progression calculated, and how frequent are the increments?
Is it simply a ‘do as you can’ thing?[/quote]

You record everything. Absolutely everything you do in the gym. Whenever you come back around to an exercises variaiton that you have previously done, you do everything you can to get a PR on it.

1089

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
Alright, a couple things:

Week one, still do a true max effort. You want to keep the intensity up as close to the meet as possible while SLIGHTLY dropping volume. Week 2 and meet week look pretty solid. It’s hard to tell exactly what will work for you becuase you need to run through it a few times and do a couple meets before you can really dial it in.

There is no reason to ever do the competition lifts in training. Ever. Stick with special exercises that hammer weaknesses.

As far as the percentages, again, it’s hard to give a clear cut recommendation. I can tell you that what has worked for me in the past is as follows:

Two weeks out:
75% in full meet gear for 5-10 singles

The weekend before a meet:
50% in some gear for 5-10 singles

Meet week:
30% with minimal gear for 5-10 singles[/quote]

I understand what you mean about the openers. That was mainly something I used in my 5/3/1 days, when I was doing the competition lifts every week anyway.

So, I should be doing special exercises all the way up to the meet? For whatever reason, I still like the idea of “practicing” my competition lifts during the week of the meet. Although, I suppose, if I’m doing my dynamic work without bands and a box, that’s essentially like doing my competition lifts.

1090

This is more of a general question to anyone here:

My OHP (Military Press) is ridiculously weak compared to my bench. I can do a triple on 60kg OHP but like 115kg bench. I know that my emphasis is obviously more on bench press so it’s not a massive surprise but it still seems rather weak.

Also what was weird is that I did a very steep incline (very close to 90 degrees) with 24kg dumbbells for 3x10. But like I do sets of 52.5kg for 3x5 for military press. Military press should surely be quite a bit stronger as dumbbells are harder but it’s not really the case.

I’m not too bothered but obviously it’s a big weakness and I don’t know whether I should worry about it because weaknesses = bad, or whether I shouldn’t really care because it seems there is little correlation to my bench.

1091

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]Kraky wrote:
Storm,
you’ve said many times that testing the competition lifts in training basically reflects a lack of confidence in oneself or in the training system. You’ve also added that the only exception would be a raw lifter not competing often/at all, in order to identify possibly different weaknesses and to adjust the weights for DE days (I’m just paraphrasing).

So my question is, what would be a good way of doing that (testing)?
I just started the intensification phase, and spending 2 out of 3 ME lower days and 1 out of 3 ME upper days to test my maxes sounds like it wouldn’t be optimal, as I wouldn’t be working specifically on the things I suck at.
So I was thinking, does it seem ok if I go through the intensification phase without testing my maxes, deload, and say on Friday during the deload week do a “Mock meet” to test all 3 lifts in the same session? Then go back to the accumulation phase.
Of course if you can think of a better way, please tell me!

Thanks for this thread and your log btw, I’ve been breaking PRs like crazy. I wouldn’t be surprised if my total went up 150-200lbs when I retest. Insane.
[/quote]

As a bare minimum, go through the Acc. Block and Int. block for at least one full cycle (3 weeks of Acc., 3 weeks of Int., deload, test). 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]

Yes it does, thanks, I’ll do that. I’ll tell how the testing goes in 3 weeks as well.

1092

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]want2getlean wrote:
I have a question for those knowledgable in Westside or conjugated training;

In linear periodization routines, like 5/3/1, loads are calculated by percentages of a pre-estimated RM, and after the microcycle is over the RM is increased by a small increment

In conjugated training, how is the progression calculated, and how frequent are the increments?
Is it simply a ‘do as you can’ thing?[/quote]

You record everything. Absolutely everything you do in the gym. Whenever you come back around to an exercises variaiton that you have previously done, you do everything you can to get a PR on it.[/quote]

Seems similar to what I was doing, except I was training through linearly progressing blocks

Seems like it’s time to give conjugated a try (though I won’t be using a WS template)

1093

[quote]black_angus1 wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
Alright, a couple things:

Week one, still do a true max effort. You want to keep the intensity up as close to the meet as possible while SLIGHTLY dropping volume. Week 2 and meet week look pretty solid. It’s hard to tell exactly what will work for you becuase you need to run through it a few times and do a couple meets before you can really dial it in.

There is no reason to ever do the competition lifts in training. Ever. Stick with special exercises that hammer weaknesses.

As far as the percentages, again, it’s hard to give a clear cut recommendation. I can tell you that what has worked for me in the past is as follows:

Two weeks out:
75% in full meet gear for 5-10 singles

The weekend before a meet:
50% in some gear for 5-10 singles

Meet week:
30% with minimal gear for 5-10 singles[/quote]

I understand what you mean about the openers. That was mainly something I used in my 5/3/1 days, when I was doing the competition lifts every week anyway.

So, I should be doing special exercises all the way up to the meet? For whatever reason, I still like the idea of “practicing” my competition lifts during the week of the meet. Although, I suppose, if I’m doing my dynamic work without bands and a box, that’s essentially like doing my competition lifts.
[/quote]

You should be doing the competition lifts the last 2 weeks. Just not for an opener or for a max.

1094

[quote]michael_xyz wrote:
This is more of a general question to anyone here:

My OHP (Military Press) is ridiculously weak compared to my bench. I can do a triple on 60kg OHP but like 115kg bench. I know that my emphasis is obviously more on bench press so it’s not a massive surprise but it still seems rather weak.

Also what was weird is that I did a very steep incline (very close to 90 degrees) with 24kg dumbbells for 3x10. But like I do sets of 52.5kg for 3x5 for military press. Military press should surely be quite a bit stronger as dumbbells are harder but it’s not really the case.

I’m not too bothered but obviously it’s a big weakness and I don’t know whether I should worry about it because weaknesses = bad, or whether I shouldn’t really care because it seems there is little correlation to my bench.[/quote]

I can tell you that a good military press does nothing for your bench. The opposite is true though, as your bench goes up, so will your press. Don’t worry about it too much. Just keep training your shoulders for pre-hab, recovery, and stability and you should be fine.

I thought my shoulders were weak as well so I started doing TONS of bradford presses. My shoulders got strong as shit, doing sets of 225 for 10, but my bench went no where.

Unless you are planning on doing a military press competition, just stick with exercises that directly transfer to your bench press.

1095

I have recently ascertained that my medium grip bench press is stronger than my wide grip bench press. My understanding is that the wide grip bench press yields bigger potential in terms of heavy weight. Does this mean my lats are weak in relation to my triceps? Or maybe this grip just suits me better? I do not ‘feel’ my lats are weak, I am currently working on bringing up my biceps and abs, could this be affecting the wide grip bench? More so the biceps I guess.

I am 6.2" tall so I have very long arms, I feel that whilst not perfect my technique is pretty good i.e. no bouncing or back arching, I try and imitate the technique on the WSB videos.

Any feedback appreciated.

1096

[quote]buddaboy wrote:
I have recently ascertained that my medium grip bench press is stronger than my wide grip bench press. My understanding is that the wide grip bench press yields bigger potential in terms of heavy weight. Does this mean my lats are weak in relation to my triceps? Or maybe this grip just suits me better? I do not ‘feel’ my lats are weak, I am currently working on bringing up my biceps and abs, could this be affecting the wide grip bench? More so the biceps I guess.

I am 6.2" tall so I have very long arms, I feel that whilst not perfect my technique is pretty good i.e. no bouncing or back arching, I try and imitate the technique on the WSB videos.

Any feedback appreciated.[/quote]

You do realize that you want as big of an arch as possible if you’re looking at moving the most weight possible.

1097

[quote]LiquidMercury wrote:

[quote]buddaboy wrote:
I have recently ascertained that my medium grip bench press is stronger than my wide grip bench press. My understanding is that the wide grip bench press yields bigger potential in terms of heavy weight. Does this mean my lats are weak in relation to my triceps? Or maybe this grip just suits me better? I do not ‘feel’ my lats are weak, I am currently working on bringing up my biceps and abs, could this be affecting the wide grip bench? More so the biceps I guess.

I am 6.2" tall so I have very long arms, I feel that whilst not perfect my technique is pretty good i.e. no bouncing or back arching, I try and imitate the technique on the WSB videos.

Any feedback appreciated.[/quote]

You do realize that you want as big of an arch as possible if you’re looking at moving the most weight possible. [/quote]

There are some really big benchers, typically raw, that don’t use much arch at all. Using a more old school style.

1098

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]LiquidMercury wrote:

[quote]buddaboy wrote:
I have recently ascertained that my medium grip bench press is stronger than my wide grip bench press. My understanding is that the wide grip bench press yields bigger potential in terms of heavy weight. Does this mean my lats are weak in relation to my triceps? Or maybe this grip just suits me better? I do not ‘feel’ my lats are weak, I am currently working on bringing up my biceps and abs, could this be affecting the wide grip bench? More so the biceps I guess.

I am 6.2" tall so I have very long arms, I feel that whilst not perfect my technique is pretty good i.e. no bouncing or back arching, I try and imitate the technique on the WSB videos.

Any feedback appreciated.[/quote]

You do realize that you want as big of an arch as possible if you’re looking at moving the most weight possible. [/quote]

There are some really big benchers, typically raw, that don’t use much arch at all. Using a more old school style.[/quote]

To be fair they’re also wide/thick as a barn and they simply can’t arch to that extent. Smaller guys are always going to be able to arch more than the larger classes I’d argue.

1099

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
Unless you are planning on doing a military press competition, just stick with exercises that directly transfer to your bench press.[/quote]

What hzve those been in your experience?

I’m not experienced with exercise rotation yet so I don’t know what will transfer to my bench, but I’m planning on a rotation of touch n go, paused, incline and maybe paused floor press

1100

[quote]McDouche wrote:

While you don’t have as many options as some people, you can buy your own bands and take them in. As long as you take care of them, these will last a very long time. You can build your own 1 and 2 boards, or buy rep boards if you don’t have anyone to hold them for you. You can buy fat Gripz for another variation. I also like CG incline, and CG decline. Add in pauses, 3 different grips + illegal wides, floor presses, dead presses and a few pieces of equipment mentioned you have a ton of combinations for under $100. I’m sure your gym has one of those squat tampons, and you can bench w/ it for another variation.

If you are a raw lifter, the order I would purchase these are:
1 and 2 boards
fat grip
Bands (mainly just cause there are more things u can do w/ these than chains)
Chains[/quote]

I’d also like to add in that you can do board presses without somebody to hold the board. Just double up a mini band, put it around your chest, and stick the board under there. It’s not perfect, but it will definitely work.

STB, thanks for clarifying. That makes a lot of sense now. I think I was overthinking some things for the transformation phase. I feel like I have a decent understanding of intensification/accumulation, but transformation just takes experience to know what works.