[quote]FISCHER613 wrote:
If this is all done in 1 week like M-T-TH-FRI it is too much work unless your recovery is spot on and your diet is in surplus.
I would do the lifts M-W-F-M as 1 week.
When is the conditioning performed on off days or after the weights?
[/quote]
The notion that he’s doing too much is almost certainly absurd. I only say “almost certainly” because I suppose it’s theoretically possible that Brick requires very low volume and high recovery, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
Not quite sure what the exact question is…Anyway, I would change the whole setup, but you probably don’t want that, eh?[/quote]
Where did I imply this?
What would you change? [/quote]
Nothing you said, but people in general don’t want to take much advice that is contrary to what they already do.
Before I give my thoughts, I would like to know why you care about the Standing Press?
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
Not quite sure what the exact question is…Anyway, I would change the whole setup, but you probably don’t want that, eh?[/quote]
Where did I imply this?
What would you change? [/quote]
Nothing you said, but people in general don’t want to take much advice that is contrary to what they already do.
Before I give my thoughts, I would like to know why you care about the Standing Press?[/quote]
Just a mental thing. My LONG TERM goal is physique, but I enjoy lifting like this for some part of the year and just want some OK lifts for myself. It makes me FEEL more athletic as well. I want to have a nice body, but focusing on the big lifts and moving around with the conditioning stuff I’m doing and the occasional ball games in the summer make me feel good. Most bodybuilders and physique guys don’t locomote faster than a walk. I do plyos too.
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Three days a week of conditioning: jump ropes, heavy bag or battle ropes.[/quote]
Heavy bag work and battle ropes can be pretty demanding on the shoulders, depending on volume, intensity, and frequency, so you may be just fatiguing your shoulders throughout the week before training them directly.
But as was mentioned, you’re not really doing anything for shoulders/OH press other than the one exercise, so it might not be a wonder it’s not going anywhere. Simply switching the DB shrug for something like laterals or a one-arm db shoulder press may help. Or, as a temporary cure, swap your press for a variation like thick bar, heavy dumbbell press or push press (though it gets mixed reviews, some people see carryover to strict press and some don’t).
As for the deadlift, it jumps out at me that you’ve got a lot of glute/ham/posterior chain work in your squat session (SLDLs and walking lunges) then going for the deads later in the week. It “shouldn’t” be causing an issue DLing a few days later, but it might be worth thinking about more quad-based assistance work after squats and save the hip-dominant/posterior chain stuff for after deads.[/quote]
Thanks for this. I have actually recently paired upper body dominant conditioning like the heavy bag and battle ropes with upper body lifting days because of the issue you speak of and same for lower body.
I just do the recommendations CT and Chris Shugart recommend: 30 seconds on, rest as needed.
[quote]FISCHER613 wrote:
If this is all done in 1 week like M-T-TH-FRI it is too much work unless your recovery is spot on and your diet is in surplus.
I would do the lifts M-W-F-M as 1 week.
When is the conditioning performed on off days or after the weights?
[/quote]
The notion that he’s doing too much is almost certainly absurd. I only say “almost certainly” because I suppose it’s theoretically possible that Brick requires very low volume and high recovery, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.[/quote]
I may be thinking of someone else but I think that Brick is on TRT and my clients who are TRT tend to take longer to recover from heavy lifting. Just my opinion here from personnel experience.
A couple of things:
Brick did not state how the week is layed out.
Does not tell if he is trying to gain or lose weight in regards to diet.
How hard he is going on the assistance exercises since some are stated as being super-setted, I wonder how many sets are taken to failure or near failure besides the 5/3/1 sets?
Yo Brix, here is what I would recommend, assuming that you want to
(a) to improve the Big 3 (not the press),
(b) keep some BBing work in there, and
(c) keep 4 gym days.
Day 1: Squat / Bench
A. Squat: heavy*
B. Bench press: moderate**
C. Front delts: BBing style***
D. Pecs: BBing style
E. Arms: BBing style
use 531 scheme or preferably use set/rep schemes based on auto-regulation as I described in my thread
** could 5x5x70% or speed work similar to Westside
*** Pick your favorite exercise (at most 2) for the muscle group and hit it “hard”
Day 2: Deadlift
A. Deadlift: moderate (use bands here if you have them)
B. RDL: heavy
C. Lats: BBing style
D. Quads: BBing style
Day 3: Bench / Squat
A. Bench: heavy
B. Squat: moderate
C. Front delts: BBing style
D. Pecs: BBing style
E. Arms: BBing style
Day 4: Deadlift
A. Deadlift: heavy
B. RDL: Heavy
C. Lats: BBing style
D. Quads: BBing style
Notes
Forget the standing press; I don’t see the need to focus on yet another technical compound lift (you already focus on the Big 3 as a non-PLer); use IF AND ONLY IF it is your favorite exercise to hit front delts; I bet for most this does not apply
Learn how to do proper RDLs; google it for descriptions by Olympic Weightlifting resources
You can play around with the distribution of the assistance exercise across the week; the heart of the setup is that you hit the Big 3 twice/week
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
Yo Brix, here is what I would recommend, assuming that you want to
(a) to improve the Big 3 (not the press),
(b) keep some BBing work in there, and
(c) keep 4 gym days.
Day 1: Squat / Bench
A. Squat: heavy*
B. Bench press: moderate**
C. Front delts: BBing style***
D. Pecs: BBing style
E. Arms: BBing style
use 531 scheme or preferably use set/rep schemes based on auto-regulation as I described in my thread
** could 5x5x70% or speed work similar to Westside
*** Pick your favorite exercise (at most 2) for the muscle group and hit it “hard”
Day 2: Deadlift
A. Deadlift: moderate (use bands here if you have them)
B. RDL: heavy
C. Lats: BBing style
D. Quads: BBing style
Day 3: Bench / Squat
A. Bench: heavy
B. Squat: moderate
C. Front delts: BBing style
D. Pecs: BBing style
E. Arms: BBing style
Day 4: Deadlift
A. Deadlift: heavy
B. RDL: Heavy
C. Lats: BBing style
D. Quads: BBing style
Notes
Forget the standing press; I don’t see the need to focus on yet another technical compound lift (you already focus on the Big 3 as a non-PLer); use IF AND ONLY IF it is your favorite exercise to hit front delts; I bet for most this does not apply
Learn how to do proper RDLs; google it for descriptions by Olympic Weightlifting resources
You can play around with the distribution of the assistance exercise across the week; the heart of the setup is that you hit the Big 3 twice/week[/quote]
When you say those two lifts are stalling, give specific numbers. Are you missing minimum reps? Are you barely getting minimum reps for one/both of those lifts? Give specifics like “week 1 I pressed 175x10, but then week 2 I only hit 185 for 4, and week 3 could barely get 195 for 1” etc.
If you have been running 5/3/1 for a while, when was the last time you reset those lifts? Sometimes you just need to set your training max on some or all lifts back 3-4 cycles and start working up again. This will usually net higher weights for more reps sooner than just grinding through.
Lastly, sometimes you need to just be take what you’re getting. You’re not going to progress on everything all the time.
After I pulled a big goal 600 DL, my training kind of took a shit for a while. After discussing various changes I could make, Jim very simply told me that I had a lot going on in my life and should just relax and be a 500 puller for a while. Even though I want to one day pull 650, 700, etc, that really clicked with me. Since then I’ve had ups and downs, but I make adjustments to the training max and stay the course. Just recently I set all my training maxes lower by 3-4 cycles and last week pulled 415x8. Far from a PR, but I hadn’t done a set of deads over 5 reps in a long time and it felt fucking great- wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t lowered my TM. And I know that as I get my groove back for doing reps, I will surpass that weight and rep number very soon.