Couldn’t agree with you more at this point, bigmartin. You gotta know your body well to get the most out of this method of training.
Doogie-
I measure every damn thing I can. I pretty much covered what I DEFINITELY measure in the bench shirt posts on the other Westside thread. This usually includes lower and upper arm girth, shoulder width, chest width, sleeve length. Err on the longer side for sleeve length if unsure. Find yourself a good tailor who will work with bench shirts if possible; you’ll need it down the line (we use a shoe repair guy here).
Steve, how much are you actually getting outta your shirt?
I only ask this becuase I saw your floor press max in your log, and your compeition bench seemed a lot more than that.
Hey Steve,
Are there any articles that you could PM me on the subject? I havent been able to get to the elite site from my school computer. I dont know if its the network of XP, but the site is always down for me. 
cycomiko-
I have no idea what my raw bench is; I would estimate it to be around 300-315lbs at this point. This means I am getting around 70lbs out of the shirt. Judging by yesterday’s reverse blue band press, this number will probably be going up at the next meet, too.
Just for the record, floor presses of any type are definitely my weakest movements. At least I know what I need to work on, right?
Gq dude-
I could send you endless articles about different rep ranges to work in for different purposes. Keep reading as much as you can get your hands on. For now (to keep it simple), your best bet is to follow the guidelines Dave Tate outlines in his “Eight Keys” articles for most of the assistance/supplemental movements he mentions. If you have any specific questions about certain movements (i.e., “what rep range do you usually use for X movement?”) then I’ll be happy to help you out.
70lb, damn i need a better frikin shirt
hmm better shirt, feed the family
decisions decisions
(3)
Steve- Please share the exact techniques and training you used to get that much out out of your shirt. Because I know even with a 2denim you dont just throw it on and get 70 pounds what is your secret big fella. Big martin
Fellas-
Regarding the shirt: Let me begin by saying 70lbs is probably about the average amount most of the lifters here are getting out of their shirts. Two of our guys get 100+lbs out of their shirts (one guy is probably getting close to 150, I shit you not), while I would say that the majority of us are in the 50-70 range.
Trust me when I tell you I have no big secrets; I am simply fortunate enough to have a wealth of PL knowledge surrounding me every day I go to the gym, and lucky enough to have gotten a shirt that actually fits me well (took a bunch of tries, though). That, and I was crazy enough to dump the bar on myself about ten times in my first few days of trying the double denim, so that I could see how low I could truly bring it.
Here’s my simple, widely known tips for using an open back double denim, assuming the shirt actually fits one properly:
***Note: Different brands of shirts have different “grooves”. Some may have higher grooves than others. What I describe below is from experience with a shirt with a lower (towards feet) groove.
1)Take the bar out over the spot on your belly you hope to “touch” before beginning your descent. Your spotter may be key for this. This spot is going to be much farther down towards your feet than you think. I recommend you take it as far as you possibly can without dumping it; this spot may only be found through trial and error and dumping the bar on oneself a few times (see three paragraphs up). Do not start with the bar over your chin or even chest and then try to arc it down to the spot you want to touch…you will not get as much out of the shirt if you do this.
2)Bring the bar down as fast as possible while staying under control. This will not only help you to “touch”, but it will also build up more kinetic energy for better reversal speed.
3)Be conscious of how low you need to pull down your shirt in order to get the most out of it and still be able to “touch”. Again, this is all trial and error.
-The rest of the equation (for me at least) is simply following solid benching form, the details of which can be found in many of Dave Tate’s articles here on T-Mag. If I think of any other major points I forgot, I will add them in later posts.
Oh, and bigmartin, as far as training with the shirt goes:
I wore it two or three times in the gym before my first meet with it. Each time my objective was simply to work up to an opener I could touch with, with emphasis on learning where that special spot was I needed to bring the bar to. Maybe I just got lucky, but I found the spot pretty quickly (you’ll know when you hit it, as the bar just flies off of your chest).
That’s all we normally do to learn out shirts here, anyway. Either after DE work in place of a supplemental movement, or on ME day as the main exercise, we will put on the shirt and use lighter weights to learn the groove (again, just finding that spot), and on occasion we’ll go heavy and try to get an idea of what our max is.
Here’s what it might look like on an ME day for me:
Barx5x2
95x3x2
135x3
185x1
225x1
—Put on shirt—
225x1 (won’t touch)
275x1 (probably won’t touch)
315x1 (will try to touch)
—Pull shirt down some more—
335-350x1
—Pull shirt down some more—
370 or more for 1
—Bring shirt back up a bit to “opener” depth—
3-5 singles with opener weight (330 range) just to better learn the groove
If we do it in place of a supplemental tri movement after DE work, I would most likely stop when working up to 315-330 or so, and just do 5 or so singles to work on learning the groove.
the reason i say about getting a new shirt is that i have an older inzer blast. i get next to nothing (but help pausing) from it.
I need to mortage them family 4 a better shirt 
cos even if i got 20-30 from a metal/fury/phenom it would put me over 440
Cyco-Which blast shirt do u have, I have inzer hphdblast and I get about 40 pounds out of mine it single ply as I compete in the usapl, Big martin
Bottom of the range $40US one. Just Inzer Blast. I origonally got them (i have three) when the IPF first went into bench shirts (That old and there wasnt anything availbale. Now most bench shirts cost about 2 weeks groceries by the time I get it here (and thats the cheap Titan Fury, if I got a phenom it would be about double that).
One day once Masters is over, I might have more money.
WS vets,question for you, how often did you change up your de squat and bench main lift when you were starting out with westside?
Thanks,
Groove
Grooveless- DYE squat depends on what cycle I am doing strength-speed, speed strength, heavy band, deload straight weight, Safety squat bar cyle, safety squat bar cycle with bands for strength speed, safety squat bar cycle for conditioning aka latic acid training, I dont have a camberd squat bar or I would cycle that bar also. As you can see there are many dynamic squat cycles you can use for the squat, they can range from 1 week to 6 weeks in duration, I usually stick to 4 week cycles with a deload week on the 5th week. It depends on where you use them is based on when your next meet is. Right now my meet isnt until first week of December, so I have been using the safety squat bar for a cyle the last 3 weeks and will continue to use it for a total of 5 weeks, then I will began a new cycle doing something diffirent.
Max effort bench work even as a beginer I changed exerscices every week. This really helped me learn what exerscices worked for me and how to cycle the range of motions.
Big Martin
Groove, do you mean switching up the actual movement (doing a floor press for DE bench or SSB box squat for DE squat), or adding a contrast (like chains/bands)?
I wouldn’t do either one very often as a beginner anyway. Get your form down first.
Groove, I’m not a Westside vet but I can tell you what I did. For ME Bench days, I used only three movements: regular bench press, close-grip bench press, and rack lock-outs. (The rack lock-outs were, however, at varying heights.)
For ME Squat days, I used squats, deads, and GMs. That’s it.
Three movements, mixed up over three months. Never used bands or chains.
HTH.
Sup guys
Im thinking of hitting my grip BEFORE my deads and doing deads with straps, so I can prioritize my current weakness. OK?
S-man
Bigmartin, steve and char thanks for the responses.
Steve, I was talking about switching up the actual exercise, ie going from a box squat to a deadlift to a good morning etc…
Steve and char, I think if I understand you guys correctly it is more important to switch up the ME exercises and leave the DE exercise for learning form and speed. Correct??
Groove
hey glute
what are you doing for your grip work?
I dont believe in absolutes but generally if I was going for a big dead, I wouldnt do grip work first. If you work your grip in the beginning, then you know your pulling exercises will go down. Ive never used straps but I can see it helping in your current situation
Ian King uses grip in the beginning of the first phases of his routines to change it up a bit. But these are followed by a bunch of exercises that work the smaller and stabilizer muscles.
this is just my .02
Groove-
That’s what I was getting at: You asked about DE exercises, and in friendly disagreement with my boy bigmartin, I feel you should work on getting your regular box squat with a competition (or comparable) squat bar and your regular speed bench with a competition bench bar down before going to something different for speed work. I would recommend at least two months or so in this fashion.
As far as ME work, I think you’d be fine switching up your main exercise every session, though many Westsiders might prefer you keep the same exercise for 2-3 weeks as a beginner to the system (they might also recommend you begin with heavy sets of 3’s and 5’s for ME work as a beginner).
Glute-
I personally would rather do some grip work on off days or towards the end of my sessions (like I do now), but as long as it won’t hinder your performance on your chosen DE and ME main work for a given day you could give it a shot to begin the session.
Steve - I completely agree with you, I trained with a reular bar an bands for 2 years before I ever did a cycle with a special bar for dynamic squats. I was just awnswering the question in a more advanced way then I should had. I just talk about training all day with my partners and sometimes forget that the primary members of this thread are beginers. I do feel that even for a beginer that it will not hurt them to vary cycles like speed-strength, strength speed, and latic acid training, Becuse these are very basic and dont change the dynamic of the movement. But for the majority of the training a beginer should stay between 50-60% with little band tension. Big Martin