Westside Makes You Sexy(er)

Training Over 35 Lifter
161

New to the scene here, but Git, I’ve been following your log for a while as I train with the Conjugate system as well. I completely agree with bands on DE day. If I don’t have the extra tension at the top for bench and squat, it just beats me up.

I was fairly new to bands, so I pretty much went to town with them. I will say, that using bands (not reverse) for ME and DE did catch up with me a bit. I’d really like to add the use of chains, but commercial gyms usually don’t have that kind of stuff. Hell, I’m lucky the racks my gym has actually have the pieces to loop the bands around, top and bottom.

One thing I’ve been curious about and doing quite a bit of searching to find, is how Louie would train raw squatters differently. My hips adapted to going much wider, but I’m not sure if that’s the strongest position for someone lifting raw. Have you always been a wide squatter?

One last thing and I’ll end this novel, I’ve been waving my DE days percentage wise (w/ bands 45%, 50% 55%), but when I’m using straight weight, I use 70%, 75%, & 80%. 3 wk waves and reset after each cycle. Louie explains this somewhere. The heavier weight for DE w/ straight weight helped a lot (joint/tendon) wise. Sorry for insanely long first post in your log hahahaha. Keep killin’ it!

162

[quote]BlueLineCretin wrote:
New to the scene here, but Git, I’ve been following your log for a while as I train with the Conjugate system as well. I completely agree with bands on DE day. If I don’t have the extra tension at the top for bench and squat, it just beats me up.

I was fairly new to bands, so I pretty much went to town with them. I will say, that using bands (not reverse) for ME and DE did catch up with me a bit. I’d really like to add the use of chains, but commercial gyms usually don’t have that kind of stuff. Hell, I’m lucky the racks my gym has actually have the pieces to loop the bands around, top and bottom.

One thing I’ve been curious about and doing quite a bit of searching to find, is how Louie would train raw squatters differently. My hips adapted to going much wider, but I’m not sure if that’s the strongest position for someone lifting raw. Have you always been a wide squatter?

One last thing and I’ll end this novel, I’ve been waving my DE days percentage wise (w/ bands 45%, 50% 55%), but when I’m using straight weight, I use 70%, 75%, & 80%. 3 wk waves and reset after each cycle. Louie explains this somewhere. The heavier weight for DE w/ straight weight helped a lot (joint/tendon) wise. Sorry for insanely long first post in your log hahahaha. Keep killin’ it![/quote]

Hey look, fresh meat! Welcome BLC!

I’m not a super wide squatter, my feet are a few inches inside the bottom supports of a standard cage, but I have never been a shoulder-width squatter. The aspect I had to adapt to most was driving my knees out wide and opening up my hips when sitting on the box. I tweaked my right hip flexor / adductor by going too heavy, too soon. It’s coming around though.

That’s good info on the waves you are doing for DE. I’ve been thinking about balancing out band vs. straight weight work. I think that the accomodating resistance from bands is awesome. But I want to make sure I don’t lose startig strength (off the chest, in the hole, on the floor). Straight weight with a higher % of max on DE days makes a lot of sense.

Next DE wave I’ll go for straight weight and the one after that I’ll use chains (have some but haven’t used them yet).

Feel free to post any time. I’m just feeling my way through Westside so any input is welcome.

163

DE Lower

w/u’s

  • band pullthroughs (thanks Pete) alternating with adductor stretches
  • 4-5 sets warm up sets

Box squats
245
8 x 2

GMs - deadlift foot placement
135 x 8
185 x 8
185 x 8
185 x 8

Daughter got 7 chins band assisted…PR!

164

DE Upper

Bench - straight weight 70% of est. max 265
185
9 x 3

Jm press
95 x 8
135 x 6
155 x 4
135 x 7

Band pulldowns superset with 2-arm DB rows
5 x 10
and
5 x 10

DB ‘squeeze press’ bench
40s x 14, 12

165

Your Westside log should come with a F.A.Q. section.

166

[quote]giterdone wrote:

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
This is solid info Git, thanks, Ill follow that protocol, not sure if I could do more than 5 times weekly though, I might be starting the westside stuff tomorrow…[/quote]

I think if you are looking to get strong then 4 days a week is plenty. I’m just doing more due to tight scheduling / shorter workouts.

A few things I have found so far:

  • the DE days are going to feel light since you are in the 50-65% range. Resist the urge to go too heavy
  • for me, bands are a must for DE bench days since the deceleration of the bar at lockout aggravates my tendons
  • don’t go too heavy, too soon on DE box squats to give your hips a chance to adapt
  • do hip mobility stuff
  • plan out your ME lifts so you know what you are doing over the next 3-4 weeks
  • reverse band everything is the tits[/quote]

Yeah dude I have never tried reverse band stuff I am definitley gonna get in on it, pretty excited. thanks for the info.

167

Great work. I really like the variety in here. Do you find that the variety makes it easier on your body?

james

168

[quote]JoeGood wrote:
Your Westside log should come with a F.A.Q. section.[/quote]

I’m going to put a big white board in the shed so I can keep track of what the hell I’m doing.

169

[quote]giterdone wrote:

[quote]JoeGood wrote:
Your Westside log should come with a F.A.Q. section.[/quote]

I’m going to put a big white board in the shed so I can keep track of what the hell I’m doing.[/quote]

Ahh–closet crossfitter !!

170

smart of you to back off the OHP.

171

[quote]MattyXL wrote:

[quote]giterdone wrote:

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
This is solid info Git, thanks, Ill follow that protocol, not sure if I could do more than 5 times weekly though, I might be starting the westside stuff tomorrow…[/quote]

I think if you are looking to get strong then 4 days a week is plenty. I’m just doing more due to tight scheduling / shorter workouts.

A few things I have found so far:

  • the DE days are going to feel light since you are in the 50-65% range. Resist the urge to go too heavy
  • for me, bands are a must for DE bench days since the deceleration of the bar at lockout aggravates my tendons
  • don’t go too heavy, too soon on DE box squats to give your hips a chance to adapt
  • do hip mobility stuff
  • plan out your ME lifts so you know what you are doing over the next 3-4 weeks
  • reverse band everything is the tits[/quote]

Yeah dude I have never tried reverse band stuff I am definitley gonna get in on it, pretty excited. thanks for the info.[/quote]

I’m still working through a few things such as how much assist at the bottom but I like them a lot.

172

[quote]atypical1 wrote:
Great work. I really like the variety in here. Do you find that the variety makes it easier on your body?

james[/quote]

I suppose if I think about it there are two things about the variety of options available; it makes it fairly easy to work around tweaks and pains, and it keeps me interested in training.

I have been a bit scattered as I try different stuff. I’m going to do some planning and tighten it up a bit.

173

And to add to the confusion, another thing i found that both Louie and Dave Tate ( and i believe i found an article where Jim Wendler advocates this) suggest, is to work up to some heavy singles after your DE sets. I haven’t done this for Upper, but i will work up to some heavy(ish) singles on my DE lower days. I usually do this when i do not do a squat variation on my ME day. I think I saw a figure like 80% of your DE days you should work up to heavy singles, but that seems a bit extreme to me. (no “super supps” and raw)

I don’t do this for upper, because i will typically do some sort of heavier OHP on my DE upper days. Not heavy singles or anything. I may drop the heavier OHP and do some heavy singles on DE upper, just to feel it out.

They stress not missing the weight on DE days (fail). Makes sense, but I’m no expert. I’m just an average dude with a really boring job hahaha. I’d like to hear what PeteS or Meat think about it.

How’d you like the straight weight at higher %?

174

[quote]BlueLineCretin wrote:
And to add to the confusion, another thing i found that both Louie and Dave Tate ( and i believe i found an article where Jim Wendler advocates this) suggest, is to work up to some heavy singles after your DE sets. I haven’t done this for Upper, but i will work up to some heavy(ish) singles on my DE lower days. I usually do this when i do not do a squat variation on my ME day. I think I saw a figure like 80% of your DE days you should work up to heavy singles, but that seems a bit extreme to me. (no “super supps” and raw)

I don’t do this for upper, because i will typically do some sort of heavier OHP on my DE upper days. Not heavy singles or anything. I may drop the heavier OHP and do some heavy singles on DE upper, just to feel it out.

They stress not missing the weight on DE days (fail). Makes sense, but I’m no expert. I’m just an average dude with a really boring job hahaha. I’d like to hear what PeteS or Meat think about it.

How’d you like the straight weight at higher %? [/quote]

Yeah, I haven’t done any heavy reps yet on DE days but I am planning on adding them for both upper and lower. But I don’t think it was go heavy 80% of DE days. I’ll have to go and look but I believe the guideline was 10% of total reps (approx. 3) on DE days should be heavyish (80% or so).

I liked the straight weight. I’m going to run it for 3 weeks with minor jumps (185, 190, 195) and then add bands for 3.

175

[quote]giterdone wrote:
Yeah, I haven’t done any heavy reps yet on DE days but I am planning on adding them for both upper and lower. But I don’t think it was go heavy 80% of DE days. I’ll have to go and look but I believe the guideline was 10% of total reps (approx. 3) on DE days should be heavyish (80% or so).

I liked the straight weight. I’m going to run it for 3 weeks with minor jumps (185, 190, 195) and then add bands for 3.
[/quote]

Ok, that makes much more sense. There’s so many articles/videos out there for this stuff. Like everything else in life, i suppose it’s about finding what works best for you.

176

COngrats to your daughter and her chin up pr! @ 7 with assistance she is probably really close to one without. How old is she?

Winter is tough in a garage gym–better than a commerical gym–but the cold sucks.

177

[quote]Nadia Comeandeat wrote:
COngrats to your daughter and her chin up pr! @ 7 with assistance she is probably really close to one without. How old is she?

Winter is tough in a garage gym–better than a commerical gym–but the cold sucks. [/quote]

Hi Nadia. She is 9. The first thing she did was switch to a lighter band and try and get one. Not quite. Then she was very keen to kow when I thought she could a chin on her own.

Actually, last night she ‘trained’ with me the entire time. She did chins, db rows, overhead press (db and a light bar), did some clean and press (figured this out on her own…to my surprise), bench and some curls. Her brother better watch out :slight_smile:

I’ll have heat in my gym this winter so that it’s a bit more comfortable for everybody.

178

Great work giterdone. Dumb newb question here, what are the acronyms DE & ME? These ar enew to me.

Thanks!

179

[quote]giterdone wrote:

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
I never did MPs up until a year ago, as with you they were very uncomfortable, I almost exclusively did BTN presses or Seated DB OH presses, but when I started 5/3/1 it called for it, stuck with it for a while and its incredibly comfortable, and became my best lift ironically.

My trainer wants me to do westside, does it allow you to do accessory days like the one above or did you just add it in.

[/quote]

Maybe I’ll just back way down on the MP weight. I’d like to do some OHP even if it’s just accessory weight and reps.

I just add in accessory days if I can’t get the work done on the prescribed day. I just try to be smart with where I fit them. Generally around the DE days so I’m not fatigued for ME. Westside is basically 4 days a week: ME lower, ME upper, DE lower, DE upper with appropriate accessory moves on each day.

It sounds a bit complicated but it isn’t really. As long as your trainer has a firm grasp so you are not left to waste time prior to your meet getting it dialed in.

They are not big on much front delt work so there is no OHP day. You said you were delt dominant so it is probably not a bad thing to back off a bit for the meet and focus on other areas impacting bench.

Pete seems to train 6 days a week so I’m sure he has some thoughts on where to fit accessory days.

[/quote]

4 primary days, I sneak in some extra condidtioning and assitance as time allows/permits. So usually some weights 5 days, that 5th day is typically curls and calves. I will post more detail later, gotta go yell at some people in a meeting.

180

[quote]late2thegame wrote:
Great work giterdone. Dumb newb question here, what are the acronyms DE & ME? These ar enew to me.

Thanks![/quote]

Hey L2theG!
DE = Dynamic Effort where you focus on explosiveness and form (with or without bands and chains)

ME = Maximum Effort where you try and set a PR (1-3 rep range) in some relevant movement (not necessary doing standard squat, bench or deads with straight weight…could be a variation with or without bands or chains)