Tier System

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
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I have seen Joe Kenn’s Tier System spoken of very highly on this thread as it relates to athletes. I have bought Kenn’s book (which is great) and I
really like the idea behind it all. I stil have some questions concerning its implementation.

  1. Why is the Tier System better for an athlete than a traditional Westside system? The only thing that I have found concerning this is that it cuts back on the CNS intensive days for an athlete who is also running

  2. Where do you fit in tricep work and upper back work? I saw on Elite that Coach H said it went in as a sub-tier on days where benching is done, but I didn’t really understand the whole sub-tier concept.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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[quote]buckeye75 wrote:
I have seen Joe Kenn’s Tier System spoken of very highly on this thread as it relates to athletes. I have bought Kenn’s book (which is great) and I
really like the idea behind it all. I stil have some questions concerning its implementation.

  1. Why is the Tier System better for an athlete than a traditional Westside system? The only thing that I have found concerning this is that it cuts back on the CNS intensive days for an athlete who is also running

  2. Where do you fit in tricep work and upper back work? I saw on Elite that Coach H said it went in as a sub-tier on days where benching is done, but I didn’t really understand the whole sub-tier concept.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[/quote]

Kenn use Charlie Francis training system format for speed to complment his strength program. CF recommends that the sprinting sessions should be done on lifting days which is taxing to CNS, usually monday and friday because wed is usually ME leg workout day. On tuesday and thursday are usually restorative method e.g. Tempo runs. This was discussed at charlie francis website. You can ask Coach H at elitefts or himself directly at ASU via email or phone.

Another way is to spread out westside template to 8 days or 10 days with weekend off. Do sprinting on leg days.

There are some issues on using absolute strength when working on speed because supposedly, it increases the chance of pulling muscles. Something to do with delaying the firing of muscle twitich brought on by absolute strength exercises. That’s why strength-speed is recommended when working on speed.

I like DB Hammer’s system better. It’s similar to Westside but with more variety depending on specific goals.

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How is DB Hammers system anything similar to Westside. I think he has posted on elitefts, but thats about as far as it goes from my understanding. From what I’ve read, the guy is a complete fool. The protocols Ive seen of his rely primarily on slow eccentric training and isometrics. I also love how he tries to overly complicate things for the sake of trying to sound more intelligent. For insatance, he will never say eccentric or concentric training, only pliometric or miometric. Im glad he read the first paragraph on plyometrics in Supertraining. I wish I had a link, but there was a post once were Mel Siff ripped that guys methods a new asshole. Siff/DB Hammer curl guy…close call

The Tier System is amazing. It greatly differs from westside(westside is equally as stout), but they cater to different needs. For starters, it is comprised of 3 total body workouts a week that focus on movements, not bodyparts. You work various strength qualities on the same day. One of the greatest differences is that it calls for many Olympic and total body lifts. After the 3 main tiers for that day, you could change up your assistance work to better fit your needs. The Tier system gives you loads of freedom. You must find what works best for yourself or your athletes to perform better at your sport. Be creative with it.

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Drew, so basically you are saying that you don’t have to get locked up into doing a whole 3x5 tier, but rather do a 3x3 tier and then pick a few exercises that will help your weak points.

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Thats right. You can also go to elitefts were Joe Kenn posts under the name Coach H. He has examples of 3 tier in seasons programs. For instance here is a very generic and basic example:

Mon.
Tier 1=ME Total body(Olympic)
Tier 2=Repetition Lower Body
Tier 3=Dynamic Upper Body
Follow with more specific assistance work and rotate your first three tiers appropriately. You don’t have to follow everything to a T. Just use what works for your athletes needs. Good luck

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Drew,

That shows how much you really know about DB’s system. When I said similar to westside, I was talking about how they set it up… Day one upper body for strength, day 3 lower body for strength, day 5 upper body for speed, day 7 lower body for speed. It is more flexible for athletes depending on specific goals than Westside. Once you get past the termnology, it’s a piece of cake. Nothing to it. You could benefit a couple of training methods to Westside. Trust me. I did that and thought it made westside template more effective. I think the reason why DB used those termnology was to emphasize certain part of lifts. At first i thought it was bullshit but after learning this system, I understand why he did that. It is not a cookie cutter program like others. You have to figure out what your weaknesses are and go from there. The AREG (autoregulatory) keeps the volume under control. I thought it was very good method because as you should know that there are some days that some of us are feeling crap due to lack of sleep, etc and AREG insures that we don’t overdo it. No predetermined # of sets. You work to the drop off and call it a day. It could be only 3 sets. It could be 12 sets. This way, the recovery would be more optimal and the improvement would be optimal.

I know there’s some things that do not make sense but I’ve learned alot by just simply taking my time to understand what the hell it was all about. I’m sure if you took your time, you’ll learn a couple of things…

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Buckeye,
When it comes down to it the 3x5 tier is used for acyclic sports and the 3x3 tier is used for cyclic sports. This is because the last two tiers are mobility tiers. The reason Kenn uses the 3x3 in season is to cut down on volume. He has evolved some things over the last couple of years. He has used tricep exercises at the end for accessory work as well as after the first tier. It does give you alot of freedom in that you can change things according to the athlete. The tiers are general templates as in nothing is set in stone. What sport are you training for? Let me know if I can help you more.

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what level athlete are you working with and in what sports??..i love the tier system think its the best thing out there for athletes… but to be honest i havent the need ot use any complicated tiers with my athletes…most high school and small college athletes are usually so fucking out of shape and small they need simplicity in the tiers…they need strength, mass, size, and a base…what i have done is take the things i like from the tier and created my own tiers…it has worked well for my athletes…if a athletes can only squat 225 is there really a pourpouse to do speed squats with 95 pounds or 135 pounds???..rb

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u know… i could show you the notes i have for the past few moths and i’ve basically constructed the tier system myself… i kept modifying westside’s conjugation style in order to make it most effective for my sport (fighting (ie, mma, wrestling, boxing, etc) and still train some strength in my hobby Le Parkour (basically running+gymnastics)…

Glad i found the tier system guys it seems to be organizing my thoughts a bit more.

Well back to more reading!

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Coach Kenn’s Tier program is a great way for lifters to organize their workouts. The main point (at least in my opinion) of the entire book is that change is good. He uses the conjugate method in two Elite models, periodization, 3 day workouts, 4 day workouts, etc,… Organization, cycles, and variation are the key. Great book!

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I agree with Dark Helmet.

The great thing about the tier system is that it enforces sensible variation and most importantly back off weeks(!).

I’m gonna be doing tier traing for a long time - it’s awesome.

(The book, however is another matter - the system is simple, the book is confusing as hell; It could do with an update to clarify and reorganise the information)

cheers,
L

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BM, it’s more for college football athletes. How does this effect the type of things that you would do with the tiers.

XenNova, could you please share the notes that you have on this system. I would like to see them, and I’m sure they would be of use to some others on the board.

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sure no problem i’ll make another thread sometime this weekend…

its not FROM the actual tier system. I had just been messing around with designing different schedules and such for myself.

I wanted something that would add mass and still be functional sport-wise. along with training lifts that I like (o lifts, gymnastics etc)

then I was also messing around with doing something for in season.

I’ll get up the notes by sunday ish.

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[quote]buckeye75 wrote:
BM, it’s more for college football athletes. How does this effect the type of things that you would do with the tiers.

XenNova, could you please share the notes that you have on this system. I would like to see them, and I’m sure they would be of use to some others on the board.

[/quote]

do a search on this forum i wrote a real long post about how i use the tier system for football about a year ago it will awnswer your all your questions…but the things you will see with most college football players espcially young ones…are very very weak posterior chains and upper backs…and ultra strong shoulders and overdelveloped pec and quads…becuase most come from a bfs hs program and there bench press and quad squating legends…you need ot hammer the upper back, traps, and destroy the posterior chain…these things should eb the first things trained and the last things trained…i have seriously worked with d2 football players from good schools who could push press 315 for reps BUT CANT DO A SINLGE GLUTE HAN RAISE AND CANT PULL MORE THAN 405 FROM THE GROUND???..take a look at the old post…rb

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http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=432787

there u go…rb

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BM, thanks for refering me to that post. It was very informative.

I do have a couple questions, though.

1 - I noticed that you don’t have any triceps work included in the workout posted. Is this something that will be done on other days? Or do you just rely on the pressing movements to recurit the tris?

2 - What exactly do you mean by waving percents? What would you do if an athlete had never done a lift, just go by feel?

3- Why is the Tier system better than another form of the 3 Day Westside split (such as rotating the 4 days throughout 10, or combining a couple days)

4 - What exactly do you mean by medium intensity with the GPP warmup where you hit the PC and UB? Are all of the reps completed easily or do they strain toward the end?

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On what buckeye75 wrote:

medium intensity means between 8-20 reps and you use the “2 in the hole rule” means leave at least 2 reps in the bag…so if your doing a set of 12 use a weight you could easily get 14-16 reps on…this warmsup the body, gets you in shape, brings up work capacity, and allows thousands of extra reps a year you wouldnt otherwise get…this is what will bring up those weak points we discused earlier…rb

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tricep work–pressing 3 times a week is pleanty of tricep work for a athletes…and 3-4-5 board presses wich are in the exersice pool are the best tricpe strength builders there are…

waves- what we do is usually go by instinct…but say a athlete benches 225 and he wants to do close grip inclines i assume 70-75% wich would eb around 185…so we would wave like this barx10-95x5x2sets-135x3x2sets-155x3x2sets-185x3***90% set

typical westside program- the reason i feel the tiers is better than normal westside is becuase…i think most athletes are not advanced enough where westside will help…there needs to be a base built…is a athlete really going to get much out of speed work when his bench is 185 and he is going to use 95 pounds?..or he squats 255 is doing speed work with 135 going to help??..from my experence NO the athlete needs ot get a lot stronger…and a weaker athlete can spend more time under failry heavy weights with out it effecting his cns to much…rb

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[quote]big martin wrote:
tricep work–pressing 3 times a week is pleanty of tricep work for a athletes…and 3-4-5 board presses wich are in the exersice pool are the best tricpe strength builders there are…

waves- what we do is usually go by instinct…but say a athlete benches 225 and he wants to do close grip inclines i assume 70-75% wich would eb around 185…so we would wave like this barx10-95x5x2sets-135x3x2sets-155x3x2sets-185x3***90% set

typical westside program- the reason i feel the tiers is better than normal westside is becuase…i think most athletes are not advanced enough where westside will help…there needs to be a base built…is a athlete really going to get much out of speed work when his bench is 185 and he is going to use 95 pounds?..or he squats 255 is doing speed work with 135 going to help??..from my experence NO the athlete needs ot get a lot stronger…and a weaker athlete can spend more time under failry heavy weights with out it effecting his cns to much…rb[/quote]

Correct BM. Good to see you are still hammering away. You’re correct in saying that a weaker athlete can withstand more higher end work. This is discussed in Supertraining, I believe. It does assume that the athlete has a decent GPP base, but since the athlete really doesn’t have an optimal CNS for power output, he/she never really comes close to using their true potential.

So, a 175lb Wide Receiver who squats 235 may actually be able to squat 400 once he trains his CNS and brings up lagging muscles. Therefore, doing sets of 85% of 235 isn’t so bad.

Now, that being said, less experienced lifters may struggle with other aspects during lifting which may tax their CNS to a slightly higher degree then an experienced lifter. Propriopercetion is one of these factors. A kid who is in his second year of squatting still probably hasn’t grooved his squat, so he actually struggles a touch to maintain form. Someone like Dave Tate has his squat grooved, so he can concentrate more on staying tight to transfer power.

Modern day personal trainers would have you believe that you must spend $1000 on Perform Better gear to teach an athlete to stabilize and maximize proprioperceptive ability. This isn’t true at all, but it sells crap. The novice and early developmental stage athlete (first couple years of solid lifting) has enough trouble learning to bench and squat on perfectly stable surfaces. A Bosu ball isn’t what is needed at this point (or possible ever). I have seen far too many Baby-Boomer type ladies on stability balls doing press work, who are actually training to stabilize incorrectly. Instead of recruiting stabilizer muscles, they must call upon many stronger skeletal muscles to help. This is due to the fact that the kid who is training her just got back from the latest conference and saw so-and-so do a ‘functional training’ demonstration.

Stuns me. OK, I will get off the soapbox now.

BM, good to see you are still handing out experienced advice here. Right on point as usual.

BTW, did you ever get your place all set up on the Southside? let me know.

Coach JR, CSCS
“Jumanji”

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jumanji…Are your from Indy???..no i havent been able to get a bigger facility opend yet…i still have my small private garage gym…but ihave just been swamped with school work this year and have not had the opprotunnity to get it going…hopefully soem time next year i can make the leap…and get a place open that will be great for hardcore athletes and powerlifters alike soem where here in the city…as there truly isnt 1 real hardcore facility here…rb