Increasing Strength

[Fazc]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

All my excessive blathering aside, the simple point is that if you're going to squat more frequently, that's going to chew up a good portion of your weekly volume and you're simply not going to have time to perform as much assistance work.

Exactly, this is what I'm saying. The volume needs to be done but it can come from either the lift itself of an assistance exercise. Both need to be counted toward the weekly total.

My other point was that because I am thriving on frequent squatting, I need to fight the urge to try and add too much extra assistance work. Why throw a monkey wrench into the equation when it's working well? Adding 75 pounds to the squat in 6 months I think can be considered working well.

Yeah absolutely. If I could squat as pretty as you, I certainly would squat more often, for me the assistance/back off work is there because the main lift is just too stressful and I'm not particularly built for it. But of course it's always better to do just do the lift if you're good at it.

What I've really been thinking about is going back to my system which worked so well last year. High rack pulls and shrugs, high pulls, rows and one day of high rep, low rack sumos.

Sounds good, I'm thinking of going in a similar direction as I had a lot of luck Squatting for a very low volume but pulling a hell of a lot instead. Similar principle but just with the other lift of the two.

[Fazc]

600+ posts, how about that...

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So two things I want to change:

1) Reduce Press/Squat frequency
2) Increase Upper Back work.

I can accomplish both of those by switching over to something like this:

Sun - Press
Mon - Pull
Tue - SQ/DL
Wed - Press
Thur - Pull
Fri - SQ/DL

That'll make sure I actually do a lot of upper back work which I need and it shouldn't overload me with too much on one day. Now since my frequency will be reduced I'm considering at least attempting a 4 week cycle, with 3 loading weeks and 1 week deload. This may or may not work out, but if I can make it work i'd like to do:

Week 1: High Volume/High Intensity
Week 2: High Volume/High Intensity
Week 3: Low Volume/High Intensity (basically go to a max)
Week 4: Low Volume/Low Intensity

I'll leave that there for now, I'm going to play around with important lifts and clarify my focus a little and see what comes up.

[Fazc]

Just trawling through my logs for the past few months, I've noticed the elbow issues rarely raise their head if I'm working the top-single style of training. It's not so much the poundage that does it, but the top volume. It's when I start to do multiple triples or singles that things start to get messy. A few weeks ago I had this (new) recurring issue with mu back and more recently it's my elbows.

Perhaps the amount of equipped volume is a bigger cause of the issue than the frequency. I was doing 4 heavy full body sessions a week prior to my last meet and I felt good. No elbow issues at all, although I could probably limit my squat work a little as my inner thigh was getting a little messed up. I actually only changed from that 4xfull body schedule so I could start doing AM sessions again but that hasn't really panned out for me. Aside from that I really liked the simplicity and efficiency of it. So perhaps I can consider moving back to that but ironing out the kinks a little.

This is what it looked like before:

Sun - Max on the main lifts, usually a back off max on a related exercise as well (Squats to GMs for example)

Mon - Max on raw lifts, same back off plan (High Bar Squats to Front Squats for example)

Tue - Off

Wed - Max on supramaximal work, reverse band, partial, band work etc. Same back off plan.

Thur - Raw as monday.

Fri, Sat - Off

A few things which caused issues in hindsight:

1) Knee/Inner thigh issues. 4xweekly squatting was probably excessive and unneccesary. Certainly the second raw session seemed pointless.

2) Deads dropped off. Inevitably the Deads dropped out of sight on some days. This was probably related to Squat fatigue. Combining this with the Squat issue could mean more room for sorely needed upper back work.

3) The equipment set up was weird. I was doing main lifts in full gear on one day which puts a lot of pressure on you to 'compete' and beat massive numbers every week and on top of that I was doing overload work with less gear. Looking back that completely made no sense... I should have done overload work in full gear and main lifts with a disadvantage. Or even better done overload work in full gear and save the other day for bottom-end/paused stuff.

Aside from that, I felt very strong and the raw sessions after the equipped sessions were great. I'd definitely stick with some form of lift > back off lift type of schedule. Perhaps speed work could act as back off on the bottom end/paused days. On the top-end days the sheer number of sets I'd need to get to my top set would probably be enough.

[Fazc]

Sunday - Fully equipped and overload work.

So this day would be some combination of Bench, Squat and Dead in full equipment with an overload element. So either reverse bands, bands or partial work as that's what I have available. That would allow me to work heavier weights in full gear. I'd try and take around 10 sets per lift working up to one all out lift, probably singles can't see myself doing reps here.

Monday - Raw

CGBP, High Bar Squat and Pendlay Rows.

Probably something like 3-5 sets of 5-8 reps. No real need for back off work here I suppose as the volume would cover it. I could probably get away with doing more work here to be fair. Perhaps CGBP, CG Incline, High Bar, Front Squat, Pendlay and Chins. Reps/volume would definitely be higher anyway.

Tuesday - Off

Wednesday - Semi-equipped, bottom-end focus + speed

This would be some combination of either slingshot or slingshot and briefs. I'd do Paused work and Deficit work. So Paused Bench, Paused low box Squat and Deficit Sumo Deads. I think back offs would make sense to strictly be speed versions of those lifts. So they probably wouldn't be WSB style speed work but more like 3-5 x 2-3.

Thursday - More raw

Seated Press, RDL, Chins

Yep, shoulder presses again! So another highish volume raw day with the focus on shoulders instead of benching and posterior instead of squatting with Chins to balance it out. But again I'm sure I could afford to do more volume here so perhaps BTN Press, Seated Press, RDL, Shrugs, Chins, Pullups or something like that

Friday, Saturday - Off

So in a given week I've got bottom-end days, top-end days and a variety of reps with some speed work thrown in. A variety of lifts, not too much knee flexion work and less maximal elbow stressing volume.

Thoughts?

Edit - Thinking about that a bit more, screw the 3-5 sets I'd feel better just ramping up to one all out set. I can always ramp up slower for more volume.

[LtL]

I like the mixture of reps, singles, top and bottom end. I would like to see some speed bench in there rather than reps as I feel that would give you more bang for your buck. Feedback on speed squats is mixed but speed bench is universally positive and I would highly recommend.

What about ab work? Weighted ab work has really helped my stability.

Otherwise it's very well thought out and solid reasoning behind what you're doing. Looks good.

LtL

[Fazc]

Thanks for the feedback Al, just what I was looking for.

Originally Posted by LtL

I would like to see some speed bench in there rather than reps as I feel that would give you more bang for your buck. Feedback on speed squats is mixed but speed bench is universally positive and I would highly recommend.

Yeah, though I think this time around I'll run the speed work differently to what I did in September-November, more than likely limit myself to 3-5 sets. But you know we'll see how it goes, perhaps as time goes on I'll do some more in exchange for the top single.

Who knows either Low Box Squat upto max followed by 3-5 speed sets OR 8 speed sets. We'll see as time pans out, I prefer the first option at the moment.

Since that day is to emphasise the bottom-end, I'm not sure it would make sense for me to use gear, would it? Might be better to go raw dog.

What about ab work? Weighted ab work has really helped my stability.

That's a good point, I think since it'll be a reduction in training days for me (6 down to 4) I could probably see about getting in the gym on my off days and working abs, stretching etc. But yeah I do need to be more consistent with that, I can get a nice band set up on the power rack to do standing/kneeling abs.

Looking at a typical week then, let's see how this might play out:

Sunday - Top End Focus

Bench Shirt, Reverse Band Bench
Squat Suit, Reverse Band Squat
Equipped Deadlift, Partial Conventional Pull (some height)

Monday - Raw Bench/Squat Focus

Raw Bench Press, Raw CGBP
Raw Front Squat, Raw High Bar Squat
Pendlay Row, Bent Shrug

Tuesday - OFF or Abs and stretching

Wednesday - Bottom End Focus

Paused Slingshot Bench, Speed Bench
Low Box Squat, Speed Squat
Deficit Sumo, Speed Sumo

Thursday - Raw Shoulders/Back Focus

Seated BTN Press, Seated Press
Chins, Power Cleans
High Pulls, RDLs

Friday+Saturday - OFF or Abs, stretching

I'll think about that, but I think it has most of everything I want to include. I like the idea of 4 full body's, it worked well for me prior to the Meet and replacing some Deadlift work with upper back work seems a good way to go.

Any suggestions welcome, I'll sit on that for a few days anyway and see how I feel.

[LtL]

Raw for low box to help bottom end strength sounds good.

Bands for ab work and assisted stretching will work great. Have you seen Kelly Starrett's MobilityWOD videos with Mark Bell? Good watch. I can post if needs be.

LtL

[Fazc]

Sorry, did a big edit after you posted this.

Originally Posted by LtL

Raw for low box to help bottom end strength sounds good.

Yeah, figure that'll do me good since i'm not very good at it!

Bands for ab work and assisted stretching will work great. Have you seen Kelly Starrett's MobilityWOD videos with Mark Bell? Good watch. I can post if needs be.

Seem 'em yeah but repost if you have them to hand. They've been passed around a fair bit, people really like 'em. In fact I think I'll wind down with some stretches before bed.

Also, I think I'll probably vary the exercises from block to block a fair bit, the variations I listed were just possible ones I could use. I may go a bit conjugate in that way.

[BendtheBar]

What type of intensity are you thinking for OHPs? I seem to run into trouble over 90% but stagnate at 70-75%. I haven't found my sweet spot yet.

[Kuytrider]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

What type of intensity are you thinking for OHPs? I seem to run into trouble over 90% but stagnate at 70-75%. I haven't found my sweet spot yet.

Sounds like doubles/triples @ 80% or singles @85% would be just the ticket. Just progress when you feel comfortable. I take it you do strict presses? I like push presses because they are incredibly explosive with triples just about perfect though singles are also really good stuff.