Cube Thoughts and Reviews?

I’m going to go ahead and run it for 10 weeks and see what happens. I won’t be rotating main lifts so I’ll be doing just the comp lifts for the main lifts. Doing the comp lift once a month just isn’t going to do it for me.

Anyway, I was wondering how this went for those that have done it and what suggestions ya’ll might have.

Thanks in advance!

I havent ran it myself but would be interested to hear peoples results.
as for the comp lifts, is that not the latest version Cubeboss / Cubekingpin?

I have had great success with the cube. PRs every meet for past 2 years. I would commit to at least 2-3 full cycles. The cube allows lots of flexibility in terms of volume and recovery. Chad Smith has a great variation on his site for a long cycle.

Your comment regarding rotating main lifts is confusing. The cube principles are rooted in the heavy, rep, speed rotation of your main lifts. So in short, if your squatting benching and pulling using the rotation stated above you are in fact doing the cube as written. Your accessory work should be based on your individual weak points. Good luck.

[quote]HARA wrote:
I have had great success with the cube. PRs every meet for past 2 years. I would commit to at least 2-3 full cycles. The cube allows lots of flexibility in terms of volume and recovery. Chad Smith has a great variation on his site for a long cycle.

Your comment regarding rotating main lifts is confusing. The cube principles are rooted in the heavy, rep, speed rotation of your main lifts. So in short, if your squatting benching and pulling using the rotation stated above you are in fact doing the cube as written. Your accessory work should be based on your individual weak points. Good luck. [/quote]

All I have is the original book and it says to rotate the main lift for bench and deadlift. Looks like I’ve got some more reading to do regarding the newer permutations of the cube.

The cube worked very well for me. IIRC i ran four full cycles, and it kicked ass. I strongly suggest getting a copy of the 365 strong, because that book has a much clearer explanation of how the program is intended to be used. As previously mentioned, running multiple cycles is the best idea. I did log a little bit of one or two of my cube cycles on here, but idk that I did a great job. The key is really pushing into the upper end of the sets and rep ranges. ie. if the program calls for 2-3 sets of 8 - 10, you should really strive to hit that 3x10.
Solid program, but i seem to always fall back on 531, which has never failed me.

Did ya’ll run it like the book. Did you run kingpin. Or did ya’ll choose your own exercises and rep schemes after the main lift?

365strong lays out the Cube Kingpin program. I ran the very first cycle exactly as the sample was written, just to get a feel for everything. The kingpin program lays out all the reps and sets for you.

I’ll have to pick narrow stance squats instead of Oly squats because the weights recommended for working sets are beyond my oly squat 1RM haha. I think narrow stance squats with oly shoes oughta do, but otherwise kingpin looks doable and fun.

As far as how long do your sessions take from first warm up set to when you walk out the door, how long do these workouts usually take? Depending on a few things I might be pressed for time until the end of May.

Thanks for all the help. I feel even more excited about and confident in the program!

It really depends on the individual and how you feel that day. Personally, i warm up pretty fast. Some days I’d be done a little over an hour, and other days I’d be dragging ass and it’d take me two hours to get the work done. You could always superset some of the accessories or set them up as a circuit. Also, make sure you use a training max to calculate your lifts, otherwise this program will drive you straight into the ground.

I’m on my 3rd cycle as layed out @ blackironbeast.com. it’s all in my log in the Training log section…

I’ll take a look, thanks.

I know several people who swear by it and have had very good success with it. At it’s core it’s just HSP weekly undulating periodization with accessory work included, so I feel like there’s nothing special about it. I prefer higher frequency to practice the movement more, so I would prefer HPS daily undulating periodization, similar to what Mike Zourdos has demonstrated in his studies (also note that the power week is before the strength week instead of the other way around like in the Cube; there may be benefits to setting it up this way including increased recovery and faster bar speed for the heavy day).

Or perhaps something in between could be reached, say going through HPS DUP for two days a week (going through two cycles every three weeks) and then 1-2 accessory days, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Forgive my ignorance, but what’s HPS?

Alpha seems to be running a bastardised version of it at the moment and having good results

One more question… maybe haha. Do ya’ll use .95 or .90 as your training max?

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
One more question… maybe haha. Do ya’ll use .95 or .90 as your training max?[/quote]
I am having success going off of 100% of my training maxes.

Same.