I’m very happy that Glenn dropped by my forum to share his knowledge. I’ve been reading his stuff for years and really hope that he will stick with us and teach us some new stuff.
So I’m opening this subject so that you can ask him your questions.
Hey Glenn,
Besides diet & strength training, do you have any “favorite” conditioning methods you like to use with your athletes that need to drop some fat/improve conditioning?
Thanks for all the advice you’ve been providing.
Cheers
Clutch
[quote]Clutch wrote:
Hey Glenn,
Besides diet & strength training, do you have any “favorite” conditioning methods you like to use with your athletes that need to drop some fat/improve conditioning?
Thanks for all the advice you’ve been providing.
Cheers
Clutch[/quote]
That depends very much on the athlete and situation. If it was a kid like Jon North, who already trains 2-3 times a day, is lean enough to have veins in his lower abs, etc, if for some strange reason we wanted him to move down a weight class it would be totally a matter of diet. His normal training, which I have described fairly well in several threads here in CT’s forum, is already about as much “conditioning” as he can take.
If its a 12 year old beginner that has taken up weightlifting and is out of shape, then the conditioning is going to be aimed at whatever weakness the kid has. I have a new kid right now named Andrew. Andrew has developed a good feel for the bar and pretty good technique over the last month but he has a lot of excess mobility in his shoulders and poor control of the bar when its over his head because of that and because of a complete lack of muscle in his upper back. So he does 3 sessions a week of kettlebell snatches. He is already skinny so we dont go overboard, but a 10 minute session of snatching with a KB helps to build the upper back, gets him better at stabilizing a weight overhead, and builds his capacity to handle more training.
A completely different situation would be NFL combine prep. Because of the demands of the combine and the demands of that particular game, almost all “conditioning” is going to be done on your feet and focused on moving around. Repeated effort sprinting, lateral movement drills, pulling a sled, pushing a prowler, the death march, etc.
A wrestler or MMA guy is a third situation… for that guy I favor more variety, lots of variety actually. But rope climbs, KB work (swings, snatches, and clean and jerks), sandbag work, and the death march are favorites.
As far as intensity and duration, I try to make it fit the sport. With our NFL combine guys this year, we never did any sort of continuous effort stuff, it was all high intensity for 5-15 seconds then rest and repeat. This proved pretty successful. With a wrestler or fighter, we are gonna use 5 and 10 minute sessions. With a young Olympic lifter, we are gonna do everything in such a way as to address any weakness he or she has in attaining or holding the positions that are previous to that sport, as well as some plyo or jumping work.
Hope that answers your question…
Glenn,
I was wondering what you would recommend for training the final week before a powerlifting meet. Most seem to do their opening weights a week before and then pretty much not train up until the meet. From your previous posts I would guess that you do not feel this is optimal for performance and was wondering what you would recommend.
Thanks.
Hi Glenn,
do you use periodization with your atheletes? if so how would a typical macrocycle be setup?
Do you feel the conjugate method is superior to linear periodization?
P.s. I read the post regarding the guy that couldn’t feel his quads when using front squats, thought it was funny when the guy dismissed your advice as if you didnt have a clue about front squats
BTW, for those of you looking to build a home performance gym, Glenn sells so kickass bars and olympic bumper plates. I bought 2 bumpers sets (the training ones, which are cheaper but just as good for training purposes) and a women’s bar (already had a men’s bar).
Add a prowler, blast straps, power rack and a bench to that and you are all set. A home gym in which you can do any high performance exercise you want without being banned from the gym!
Just want to say glenn I have read all your posts and the wealth of information that you and CT have is astounding. Its amazing how not too long ago the pre-conceptions of how to train was very “traditional bodybuilding” dominant. Since IBB and the ideals behind it emerged and in conjuntion with the Training Lab and having you over here, it seems training for size and strength is more Olympic training styled if one can use that term.
Personally I prefer it that way and I did my first neaural power up workout today. Doing IBB on phase 1 on my “rest day” today I did the circuit and I feel way more energised and charged. I just want to say thanks for giving your time to explain your concepts to us here on how to better our selves and our work we do in training 
[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:
[quote]Clutch wrote:
Hey Glenn,
Besides diet & strength training, do you have any “favorite” conditioning methods you like to use with your athletes that need to drop some fat/improve conditioning?
Thanks for all the advice you’ve been providing.
Cheers
Clutch[/quote]
That depends very much on the athlete and situation. If it was a kid like Jon North, who already trains 2-3 times a day, is lean enough to have veins in his lower abs, etc, if for some strange reason we wanted him to move down a weight class it would be totally a matter of diet. His normal training, which I have described fairly well in several threads here in CT’s forum, is already about as much “conditioning” as he can take.
If its a 12 year old beginner that has taken up weightlifting and is out of shape, then the conditioning is going to be aimed at whatever weakness the kid has. I have a new kid right now named Andrew. Andrew has developed a good feel for the bar and pretty good technique over the last month but he has a lot of excess mobility in his shoulders and poor control of the bar when its over his head because of that and because of a complete lack of muscle in his upper back. So he does 3 sessions a week of kettlebell snatches. He is already skinny so we dont go overboard, but a 10 minute session of snatching with a KB helps to build the upper back, gets him better at stabilizing a weight overhead, and builds his capacity to handle more training.
A completely different situation would be NFL combine prep. Because of the demands of the combine and the demands of that particular game, almost all “conditioning” is going to be done on your feet and focused on moving around. Repeated effort sprinting, lateral movement drills, pulling a sled, pushing a prowler, the death march, etc.
A wrestler or MMA guy is a third situation… for that guy I favor more variety, lots of variety actually. But rope climbs, KB work (swings, snatches, and clean and jerks), sandbag work, and the death march are favorites.
As far as intensity and duration, I try to make it fit the sport. With our NFL combine guys this year, we never did any sort of continuous effort stuff, it was all high intensity for 5-15 seconds then rest and repeat. This proved pretty successful. With a wrestler or fighter, we are gonna use 5 and 10 minute sessions. With a young Olympic lifter, we are gonna do everything in such a way as to address any weakness he or she has in attaining or holding the positions that are previous to that sport, as well as some plyo or jumping work.
Hope that answers your question…[/quote]
That more than answers my question. It’s great having you, CT & Blade contributing to these forums and seeing the similarites & slightly different approaches you each use.
BTW - What the hack is a death march?
Cheers
C
[quote]ajweins wrote:
Glenn,
I was wondering what you would recommend for training the final week before a powerlifting meet. Most seem to do their opening weights a week before and then pretty much not train up until the meet. From your previous posts I would guess that you do not feel this is optimal for performance and was wondering what you would recommend.
Thanks.
[/quote]
This is going to depend on how you have been training up to that point. If someone is training each lift once a week and not doing much of anything else, then yeah, working up to openers a week out might be effective. That’s not how I would train, but if thats what you are doing its not a bad strategy.
If you are training using something like Westside or some other program that uses a higher training volume, then in general the last two weeks you want to drop your assistance volume… whether that volume is made up of barbell or dumbell assistance exercises, sled pulling, or whatever else. Taking something around your opener 6 days out, then taking a couple of light and fast doubles, say with 60-70% 3 days out works well for squat and bench… deadlift is a bit trickier and way more individual.
Biggest thing is to NOT just stop your normal training, just slowly back it off.
One of the best things you can do when peaking for a competition is to take more care than usual with your training log. Record EVERYTHING, daily bodyweight, how you feel, diet, everything. Peaking is very individual. With a detailed record, you can figure out what works for you and what doesn’t.
[quote]Clutch wrote:
BTW - What the hack is a death march?
Cheers
C[/quote]
Might be this: http://www.t-nation.com/testosterone-magazine-625#death-march
Unless Glenn uses the name for something else.
[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:
Biggest thing is to NOT just stop your normal training, just slowly back it off.
One of the best things you can do when peaking for a competition is to take more care than usual with your training log. Record EVERYTHING, daily bodyweight, how you feel, diet, everything. Peaking is very individual. With a detailed record, you can figure out what works for you and what doesn’t.[/quote]
I’ll echo Glenn about the NOT stopping thing. One of my former coaches had me stop lifting 5 days prior to a contest… I was hitting 142.5kg in the snatch in the gym, and could only manage 125 at the contest.
Another coach used the same strategy. I was hitting 130kg in the snatch and missed 115kg three times at the contest.
I also like what he says about records. I’m not a huge record keeper myself, but I find that athletes in the final week of their prep get psychologically better (more confident) when they take detailed notes of everything. That psychological boost alone is worth the effort.
[quote]adamhawkins wrote:
Hi Glenn,
do you use periodization with your atheletes? if so how would a typical macrocycle be setup?
Do you feel the conjugate method is superior to linear periodization?
P.s. I read the post regarding the guy that couldn’t feel his quads when using front squats, thought it was funny when the guy dismissed your advice as if you didnt have a clue about front squats[/quote]
For Olympic lifters, I use a sort of “rough” periodization that is based off of 4 week periods. The normal course of events is 3 hard weeks followed by one easy week. I dont specificallly plan the exercises and sets and reps for a week until the previous weeks training is done, because each week is planned based off of how the previous week went.
The 4 week blocks will also be different based on how far away from a major competition… For example, 12 weeks out from a major meet, we might be deviating a little more from the snatch and clean and jerk… might be trying new things, doing things to address a specific lifters deficiency… but the last 4 week block will have very little of that, we will be pretty specific then.
The last 4 week block before a major competition will also be 2 heavy weeks, then 2 weeks of peaking instead of the usual 3 and 1. Note that on our “easy” weeks we still lift just as heavy, but with less volume. We dont ever have a light week.
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
[quote]Clutch wrote:
BTW - What the hack is a death march?
Cheers
C[/quote]
Might be this: http://www.T-Nation.com/testosterone-magazine-625#death-march
Unless Glenn uses the name for something else.[/quote]
That’s not what I use the name for, although from the look of it the name fits that particular activity pretty well also.
I made a video clip about our death march a while ago, and it should be up in the video section of californiastrength by tonight.
Basically what it is is a walking lunge without much knee flexion, mostly bending at the hip and trying to keep a normal gate pattern. You touch the dumbells you are holding beside your lead foot, and stand up as the back foot swings forward. Keeping a normal and uninterrupted gait pattern is the key. The name was thought of by the first group of kids I had do this. We normally go about 40 yards at a time. It will kick the crap out of your posterior chain and abs.
Can’t wait to see that Glenn, let me know when it’s up.
Great site, those Olympic Lifting Technique videos will help me a bunch…I’m USELESS when it comes to olympic lifts!!!
Cheers
C
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Can’t wait to see that Glenn, let me know when it’s up.[/quote]
Death march video is up in the californiastrength video page.
[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Can’t wait to see that Glenn, let me know when it’s up.[/quote]
Death march video is up in the californiastrength video page.[/quote]
Jon’s in pretty bad shape
[quote]Clutch wrote:
[quote]glenn pendlay wrote:
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Can’t wait to see that Glenn, let me know when it’s up.[/quote]
Death march video is up in the californiastrength video page.[/quote]
Jon’s in pretty bad shape :)[/quote]
Between now and the middle of November, he will gain 6lbs of muscle… so I expect him to be pretty ripped when he makes weight and competes at the American open in december. He is already pretty lean and muscular. All the flourescent lights in the gym while that video was being shot dont really do him justice…
Would you recommend a fighter doing multiple conditioning sessions throughout the day or a bunch of 5-10 minute sessions in one workout?
Correct. People don’t understand this… it’s like a powereful camera flash, it can completely wash out muscle detail. If someone is pretty big, under such lighting he will most likely look fat because we will see no detail, just bulk.