I have been wanting to start doing a 3 day a week westside program directed toward strongman competition. I completely understand what it is and how to preform ME and RE exercises.
But, I am not very sure about the DE day. I understand its directed at applying maximum force to a much less than maximum weight. But, I just don’t understand how to do this?
Am I just supposed to move the wieght as fast as I can from start to fininsh for 2-3 reps. And how long should rest be between sets it would seem since your only doing 2-3 reps for a couple of sets rest would be quite short.
Just trying to make sure I do this program right. I hear alot of people say its great and many say it sucked but, I believe it is do to poor planning and not practicing the principles correctly.
Your DE day should be about building “explosiveness”. So when ya think about it that way its a little easier to picture I think.
You don’t necessarily want to do the set as fast as you can, rather each rep. For example I used to do my bench with pauses or the squat on a box with a pause. I lowered myself or the bar down at a slow/regular pace, paused, then exploded up as fast as possible.
[quote]im_the_truth_ wrote:
I have been wanting to start doing a 3 day a week westside program directed toward strongman competition. I completely understand what it is and how to preform ME and RE exercises.
But, I am not very sure about the DE day. I understand its directed at applying maximum force to a much less than maximum weight. But, I just don’t understand how to do this?
Am I just supposed to move the wieght as fast as I can from start to fininsh for 2-3 reps. And how long should rest be between sets it would seem since your only doing 2-3 reps for a couple of sets rest would be quite short.
Just trying to make sure I do this program right. I hear alot of people say its great and many say it sucked but, I believe it is do to poor planning and not practicing the principles correctly.[/quote]
You do just that, apply max force to the bar. If you squat 300lbs and you are using 150lbs on DE day, you need to be applying 300lbs of force to the bar!
Using a box squat as an example, you sit back on the box and explode up. Speed is of the essence here. It’s like trying to do a Snatch slowly…if it’s too slow, it ain’t workin!
Sets and rest: 10-12 sets of 2 reps. For benching: 8-9 sets of 3 reps. For deadlifting: 6-10 sets of 1 rep. Rest 60seconds.
Bench 40-50% of max with chains/bands
Squat c. 50% with chains/bands
For DE to work best, you should use bands or chains or both. When you near lockout, the body will slow the speed of the bar down.
Using a band or chain, which will increase the amount of “weight” on the bar as it nears lockout, you will overcome this problem and be able to use your speed through the entire range of motion.
If you are doing it for strongman, the DE days may be a good place to add in power cleans & snatches. You could even do jerks on your upper DE day. I assume that you will be doing these lifts anyways, so could be a good slot to put them in.
Thank you guys very much. I really needed that explanation I had tried the DE day but, didnt seem like it was all that intense of a workout but, maybe I was just not applying maximum force and I was also at the time not using any chains or bands as I dont have access to them just yet but, I will put the guidelines here to good use thank you very much.