Starting a new log for the new year. If you are reading my log for the first time I’m 44 years old and a new lifter having started in the summer of 2017. Last year was an amazing year. I ended the year with some amazing noob gains.
I hurt my shoulder late in 2018 and rehabbed it back. So I wasn’t able to test bench or OHP late in the year. The shoulder put me on a 12 week squat program I wasn’t interested in stopping to max.
This year I plan to drop some weight and BF% and grow my lifts. My goals
I’m finishing the squat and back plan I started late in 2018 and then moving to a conjugate system based off of the information I can find about it from a variety of sources. Mainly Louie Simmons westside style training. Gonna put his system to work and learn all I can about this style of training system.
Good luck to you and your goals in 2019. Let’s crush some weights and share the experiences!
Over the last two days I’ve read every article from Louie Simmons and Dave Tate on Deep Squatter about the westside method. I think I’ve got the basics. Holy crap it is complicated.
Don’t get confused! All those old articles are 2 different dudes, over the course of years. They were figuring things out and making adjustments, every old article is slightly different.
The important thing is that You already see the big picture. You were all over it with the schedule you posted last week. Strength, technique, muscles and “mobility” all have to progress together. Stick to chart for the main barbell work and use everything else to stay on track.
Exactly. What I enjoyed about the older articles is I can see the core principles of his programming methods. Dave Tate and Jim Windler have both moved their training styles away from the grind that was/is westside.
The biggest take away for me is how similar 531 is to this older westside core. It’s easy to see Louie’s influence on Windler’s 531. The Windler program we have run “simply strength” is one of Jim’s older programs and it mimics the westside day almost to a tee for auxiliary movements.
Having done that and changing the primary and secondary lifts for 2 ME and 2 DE days will be a slight modification.
A big modification I’ll do maybe to the detriment of the program is not hitting Goodmornings for ME days. Even though Louie said 7 out of 10 ME days were some sort of Goodmorning triple or single. Windler and Tate both agree that the heavy Goodmornings for singles or triples are not needed and should be lighter never above 225 used as an auxiliary movement.
Yes! I thought the same thing about the similarities between 5/3/1 and Louie style. It was doing Wendler’s program that got me super excited to mess with Westside a few years ago.
I think you’ll do fine without Max Effort GMs. Only Short guys like heavy Good Mornings! Maybe you can use some kind of stiff leg deadlift in their place.
Louie bases his guys totals off of a big squat and bench and pulling what ever they can from the dead. While their is a huge carry over from squat to Dead. They are different. Especially since I’m not a sumo deadlift guy. I’ll focus on squat variations for ME and hit sumo deads, deficit deads, snatch deads, and space out the deads ME work when I’m working a lighter bench ME variation or in the lower percentage DE wave days.
Louie and his guys do deload. They call it repetition method and work it in on a regular basis. There is a ton of information available about westside but you gotta dig. I’ve been taking notes as I find the different pieces of the programming. And it is coming together.
I spoke to an old powerlifter today about westside methods. He said “I know Louie”. We do some of his stuff but we also do some 531 and some stuff I’ve mixed in. He worked us all out today and tweaked my bench form some. Had a great day with a good mind about the sport. I’m very glad we went up to visit his gym today.
We drove up to a gym about 1:45 away where a powerlifting judge has a gym to check it out and pick his brain. The crew wanted to bench so we did.
Warmup band stuff:
45x10
95x10
95x10
135x10
185x3
185x5
205x1
225x1
245x1 (this was a grinder I may have had a 255 or 260 in me today but not interested in pushing it past this. No pain in the shoulder and the most pressed in 5 weeks. I’ve lost some push here but not bad.)
He wanted us to do shoulders next. He was teaching so we did…
SS
Side raise/front raise
10x10/ 10x10 x5
SS
Face pull/seated OHP
50x10/ 30x10 x2
SS
Chest supported rear delt raise/ seated OHP
10x10/ 20x10 x2
Plate raises
10x10x5sets (shoulder was feeling gritty so I dropped down to a 10 instead of the 25. Yeah I’m a pud)
Middle Back arches (I don’t know what else to call them. We sat on a row station and worked the lower trap/ inside lat area. Where a bra hook would be)
40x10x2 These were damn and will stay in the rotation.
That was it. Writing it down we had a nice little workout. But it never was hard or felt like we were getting anything done. Just talking and doing all this shit. My upper ring (shoulders, traps, area front to back) is smoked.
Hit a post injury PR on the bench. Didn’t get any video for the virtual meet. Nice day to begin the year and met a super cool dude
and will stay in the rotation.