Cube questions
 

So I have decided to give Brandon Lilly's Cube method a run for my next meet. The typical cycle is 10 weeks so I will be starting at the end of the month to compete first week in April. I have read the manual but have a few questions. I will start with the most important one though which concerns training maxes and combining gear and raw lifting. I understand that I should base my percentages off 95% of my best meet lift. If I take my squat as an example I have taken my best lift a 245kgs as I came up with it at the meet but was turned down 2-1 on depth. I will note that I am also tightening up my gear as well so expect to get more out of that. (Stay with me, I'm going somewhere.) Plugging that through the calculator and my training max becomes 232.5kgs (I got whites for a 235kgs squat so fine) but that gives the heaviest single of the whole cycle as 220kgs in full gear. With a tighter suit, more strength and full gear that should be a speed rep. (Question is coming now.)

So would the Cube afficionados recommend taking a higher training max, doing overload work, lifting more of the sessions raw so that the weights are more challenging or something else?

I would also like to hear thoughts on how to combine the squat gear over the explosive, rep and heavy days.

Thanks in advance.

I am going to go back and reread the ebook, but my gut feeling is that you may need to adjust the max based off how the first few weeks of training in the gear goes.

As far as explosive/rep days I would look at maybe doing just suit bottoms.

That could work. Raw work as assistance and then taking heavy days by feel, doing the prescribed sets and then a few more singles if they feel good. Thanks JB.

The answer I will give you is this. On your heavy days, when you do your sets, after the prescribed sets are done do a couple of heavier singles to see how you feel and adjust. For example when I went back raw my best squat was 650 after I took the gear off. So I began with 625 as my start weight, then I would test myself and as I got stronger, and did more weight on my work sets, by the end of the cycle I had taken 725 for 3, and 760 for a single. I squatted 800 that meet. All I ask is that you adhere to the principles of speed, rep, heavy. Dont adjust the speed and rep % until youve proven you are stronger on your heavy day.

Hi Brandon

Thanks for responding so quickly. Gonna combine this with the shirted bench cycle in the manual and see how I go. I'll keep you posted.

Awesome, I will do my best to give you any guidance I can :chow:

What's the rep scheme with the shirted bench cycle you lay out in the book? Singles each week?