Has anyone tried this program?..i?d like to try it but i?m having a little trouble understanding it…i?d like to change some of the auxiliary work…any comment would help.
thanks
The plan in the EDT for maximal strength article does get a bit confusing. When Charles Staley did a guest forum here some time ago I asked him about the maximal strength program. Here was his explanation:
Find a weight that would be a real bitch to do 10 singles with using 60-90 second rest breaks. That’ll be around 85% or so.
Next, after your warm up sets are completed, find someone to slap you in the face and then do a single every 60 second till you miss. maximum concentric speed all the way. If you can’t get at least 5 singles the weight is too heavy? reduce by 10% next workout and start over. If you get 15 singles, then increase load by 5% next time and go again.
This is maximum fatigue management that promotes great maximal and speed strength fitness.
The above plan is for your main lifts, e.g., squat, bench, deadlift, power clean. I didn’t ask Charles about the auxiliary stuff, but I imagine you can add whatever you want. EDT is very flexible.
what about the main lifts that are done for 5x3 or 5x2?..like snatch grip deads and zercher squats?..am i supossed to do the 5x2 in 15 min?
it does get confusing…
I asked Charles what the 5x2 meant and he said not to get too hung up about it. It’s just another way of gauging intensity, i.e. pick a weight that would be difficult to do 5 sets of 2.
The bottom line is if you follow the 15 singles in 15 minutes rule, that’s all you need to know. I think there was one exercise (power clean) where Charles said to do nothing but singles. For the other exercises, if you wanted to start doing sets of 3, then as you fatigue go down to 2 reps, then 1, I think you could do that. At least that’s my interpretation of EDT, but I think that’s fairly accurate. EDT is meant to conform itself to you, not the other way around.
Also, look at this article by Charles. Although it talks about fat loss, it’s geared toward increasing strength, and is much easier to follow than the strength article. Interestingly, in this one Charles says you need to do only 12 reps in the 15 minutes before you move up in weight. Personally, I would stick to trying to get 15 reps in 15 min just because I think this would let you “own” the weight and you’ll be more confident when moving up to the next weight.