Specific movements should be used for a maximum of weeks. For example, if I decide to perform weighted dips as my first accessory move following Bench Press I would progress on weighted dips for a week period and then switch to another movement.
Attack your accessory work as hard and eavy as possible. You should aim to get stronger in all of your accessory exercises just as you aim to get stronger with your main moves. Build up your weaknesses and watch your strength skyrocket.
Dynamic Effort Squat One day per week is devoted to Dynamic Effort Squat training and it runs on a 3-week pendulum wave. Dynamic Effort Deadlift Dynamic Effort Deadlift training can run on the same 3-week pendulum wave as Dynamic Effort Squats or it can be changed every week. When 3 weeks have been completed choose a different variation and cycle back down to the appropriate starting percentage of your 1RM 3 Variations: The variation guidelines are more or less exactly the same for Dynamic Effort as they are for Maximal Effort.
Squat Choose any variation but always squat onto a box! Perform specific accessory movements for a maximum of 3 weeks and then switch to a different move. You can be sure a future article will cover this topic in detail. Work up to a 1RM 1 Floor Press. Work up to a 1RM 1 Rack Press. Then take this free gift. Seriously, take it. Deadlifts vs.
There are so many contradicting… Read This. At the end… Read This. Your goal is to find where you are weak and then use new exercises to attack those weaknesses! Note: the deadlift against bands usually requires a deadlifting platform.
You can click right here to purchase one. This exercise is very simple: you just perform a regular deadlift against bands. Louie Simmons likes to perform these with a special platform where you can easily attach bands to the bar. Here are some guidelines for how much tension different bands add to the exercise:.
The bands are great for overloading the top half of the deadlift and teaching you to lift explosively. If you do not explode the weight off the ground then the bands will eat you alive! The bands are also great for taking some of the stress off of your lumbar spine.
This is very helpful for optimizing your overall recovery on the Westside Barbell training program. After your max effort exercise you will perform accessory exercises for your lower body using the repetition effort method. But first we have to cover the dynamic effort day! The dynamic effort method is all about producing maximal force with submaximal weights. Louie Simmons has his athletes perform sets of speed squats followed by sets of speed deadlifts. For example:. The most important thing with your speed deadlifts is that you are accelerating the weight up as fast as possible.
You want the bar to be flying out of your hands at the top position! Here is the powerlifting legend Chuck Vogelpohl performing speed sets on the conventional deadlift and sumo deadlift:. Just look at how fast Chuck Vogelpohl rips pounds off the floor. That is exactly what you want! Louie Simmons always has his athletes use a 3-week pendulum wave for their dynamic effort workouts. This wave loading scheme is a great way to avoid training plateaus because your body always has to adapt to a slightly different training stimulus.
Louie Simmons has his athletes perform speed deadlifts with straight weight, chains or bands using 3-week waves. They are that important! Louie Simmons has used 3-week deadlift waves like this sense the s and they still work great. However it is not the only way to perform speed deadlifts.
Louie Simmons now has most of his athletes perform speed rack deadlifts with quadrupled mini bands or monster-mini bands. Louie has his athletes perform 10 sets of 3 reps on the speed rack deadlift instead of the regular speed deadlifts.
Here is a perfect demonstration of this exercise:. Here is what a 3-week wave of speed rack pulls against bands might look like:. It seems like most of the top Westside Barbell powerlifters rotate between floor deadlifts against bands and rack deadlifts against bands for their speed sets. However, after reading dozens of Westside Barbell training logs this seems to be the modern strategy.
After your speed squats and speed deadlifts you would perform lower body accessory exercises using the repetition effort method. These accessory exercises are not as important as the speed squats and speed deadlifts but they still have to be done. If you made it this far then you should know exactly how to use the max effort method and the dynamic effort method for building a huge deadlift.
Louie Simmons uses a ton of different accessory exercises to build the deadlift. Louie Simmons says that the most important muscle groups for building a huge deadlift are the hamstrings, glutes and lower back. Louie uses a wide variety of accessory exercises to train the hamstrings, glutes and lower back. Here are some of his favorites click on the links for a Westside Barbell YouTube video :. As mentioned earlier, this template consists of 4 cycles, each lasting 4 weeks, for a total of 16 weeks 17 if you include the deload for the meet.
The exercise selection is really up to you, based on what you think you need. You do not need to use the exercises as written. I actually encourage you to experiment so that you will find what works for yourself. On days where you break a PR, don't get too aggressive and keep going until a miss. If you break a PR, it's an indication you are on track, so don't beat yourself up more than you need to.
On a day where you miss a PR consider doing some extra assistance work for the muscle group you believe is your weakness. Extra workouts are fine, even encouraged. Keep the weights light and the movements small. This is a great time to add in some extra ab, upper back, and hamstring work. The speed work weights might feel too light. The point of speed work is to produce lots of force on a sub-maximal load.
Feel free to make exercise substitutions if needed, but make sure the new exercise is similar enough to accomplish a similar purpose. For example, a board press is a great substitute for a floor press. A lying triceps extension is not. Take great notes.
Conjugate requires you to listen to your body and to look for indicators. Learn which exercise carry over to the meet lifts and which do not. Adjust accordingly next time you run the program. Different lifters will notice different lifts work better for them than others. This is a real program and not an article about a program or how to make a program better. To print, on the left of this text you will see a "share" button.
Click this and in the search engine, type "PrintFriendly". This is the best file and format to save and print a copy. Learn more about David Kirschen. Dave Kirschen. I do not like the idea of misrepresenting my program as something Louie has somehow signed off on. Only those who train at the club can really claim to know what they do day in and day out. And for that matter, the template itself is a small part of why the club is so successful.
Conjugate in a Nutshell This article is written for those out there who want to start a conjugate program, but are unsure where to begin.
The classic conjugate template calls for 4 training days per week: Monday — Max Effort Lower On this day, you will perform an exercise similar to the squat or deadlift, up to a rep max. Wednesday — Max Effort Upper On this day, you will perform an exercise similar to the bench press, up to a rep max. Friday — Speed Squat Speed squats are performed as a wide stance box squat, in order to teach you to sit back in the squat and to fully recruit the hamstrings, glutes and lower back.
Sunday — Speed Bench Speed benches are performed with a closer-then-competition grip, in a touch and go style no bounce. Problems for Novices Conjugate is a GREAT style of programming but presents some challenges to the beginner, all of which are addressed in my template. Special Exercises This template calls for only 3 special exercises per 16 weeks. Rest intervals between lifts should be kept to about a minute. Assistance Following your max effort or speed work, you should be doing at least two assistance movements.
Upper back exercises include: Bentover barbell rows T-bar rows Dumbbell rows Shrugs Pulldowns Pull-ups not kipping… sorry crossfitters Rear dumbbell raises Triceps exercises include: Lying dumbbell extensions Lying barbell extensions JM presses Cable triceps extensions Bend triceps extensions. Cliff w. March 19, at pm.
March 27, at pm. May 21, at pm. This is not very complicated but you just need to do them; that's usually the hardest part. So let's go over the pro's and con's of the standard template: Pro's of the Standard Template: Variation: Because you are doing a variety of exercises on max effort day, it helps keep things fresh and keeps you motivated. Plus most people have never done board presses, floor presses or box squats before trying the standard template, so there are a lot of new exercises being utilized.
This can keep motivation high and give you tangible results NOW. This is one of the best things about this template. You have one slow and heavy day and one fast and light day for the squat and bench press.
After each of those days, you train the muscles that involve those lifts. You try to be fast on one day, try to lift heavy on the other day and get huge afterward.
You can get fast, big and strong. These are three qualities that most people really want. Now your volume can be raised and lowered by your assistance lifts. This can give you a lot of room to play around with and allow you to pick and choose exercises and volume based on how you feel that day.
Con's of the Standard Template: Variation: Now stay with me on this one. Training for a big squat, bench and deadlift is not easy. But if you don't have good form on these three lifts, then things can start to go down hill. You can counter me and say, "Your form is trained on dynamic day. It's easy to lift correctly with light weight. This is because the variation of the bar will throw your form off. You can't just add without taking away. And this will be discussed in a future article.
Record Breaking: Now I've got two of the same things for pro and con. While record breaking is a good thing, it can also lead to a mentality of "testing" versus "training". All of their focus is devoted to breaking a PR rather than training to get stronger. Now if you take a step back and look, the PURPOSE of dynamic day and again, I fall victim to trying to make things too simple is to basically move the weight from point A to point B as fast as possible.
Now for the bench, that is to move the bar from your chest to lockout; in the squat or box squat that is to move from off the box to standing. So now that we've established that, the problem that I've seen is that most people, when you add up the band tension and bar weight and factor in that they are basing the percentages on a full-meet squat with equipment and they are doing an un suited box squat different lifts!
This is not so much a con of the program, but a con of the interpretation of the program. This was really driven home a couple of weeks ago in a conversation with Mark McLaughlin.
To quote Mark, "The reason I think people some times bash DE work is because they do not execute it properly. Focus on speed, not weight. If you are slow, then you are missing the purpose of this day. Because you are doing a standard max effort day, I would rather have you focus on erring on the side of too light. If you go below this, you are not getting the benefit of max effort training.
If you go above this, then you are going to compromise other areas of your training.
0コメント