My Journey with High Frequency Training

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

I will now be experimenting with high frequency training. These are the 3 main exercises that I will do EVERY SESSION (No more switching Max Effort movements):

Front squat (ATG with a pause at a slightly wider than shoulder width stance)

Snatch grip deadlifts

Bench press

My routine will be based mainly on my intuition… Here’s the plan so far:

One “PR busting day”, and 4 “heavy days” that are almost just as heavy as the “PR busting day”… I personally think that once a trainee has atleast 1 year worth of experience with a routine that has you working the same muscle groups (OR MOVEMENTS!) atleast 3 days a week, such as Bill Starr’s “Heavy Light Medium” program, you can pretty much jump in with a 5 day a week training session… That means you’d be squatting 5 days a week… Yes, I’m serious. It will be done with max loads EVERY SESSION. Here are a few rules:

-The only day in which you go to failure with your sets is the “PR busting day”. The other 4 days will be done with the same loads… But with much lower total repetitions. Example: You did 4 singles with X weight for your PR busting day, and you will do 2 singles for the other 4 heavy days with X weight.

-If you are so sore that you are completely immobilized, skip a training day… Hopefully, from doing Bill Starr’s routine, you have built enough work capacity that you don’t get extremely sore and incapacitated after a heavy squat session…

-If performance drops when doing the heavy days, STOP! The main point of this training style is for you to be able to perform AS MUCH QUALITY REPETITIONS AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY HANDLE!!! Pavel Tsatsouline calls this method “greasing the groove”.

-Regardless if you don’t make a PR the next week, your performance shouldn’t drop because if it does, you’re only going to do more harm than good. Think about this for a moment, if you’re trying to increase the poundage of a certain lift, and a certain routine gives you the opposite effect, why do it?

…I pretty much got this idea from a friend in T-Nation, Pavel Tsatsouline, Ivan Abadjhiev, Chad Waterbury, and elite weightlifters…

The theory that really struck me is the one about training with near max loads. It’s been known that lifting near max weights will provide significant adaptation with your central nervous system’s neuromuscular coordination. If you train with max weights 5 days a week, it pretty much means you get 5 times the strength stimulus compared to a westside trainee who only does it once a week… Of course, you’re not going to be training to failure… I just did a heavy squat session last may 20, 2009, and I still managed to use max weights the day after without a decrease in performance so…

Yeah… And please remember, what this thing basically is, is about training a lift with a high frequency, with low repetitions, without going to muscle failure… If the theories that I have read are not horseshit, then this stuff should work… I will be experimenting with it, and if I die, please don’t follow my footsteps.

…Just imagine being able to use max weights 5 days a week… A great ego booster too. People will see you lifting weights near your 1RM frequently…

The SAID principle will help you on this one. If there’s some truth to it, that means by training your body with a routine that it can barely handle, it should adapt to it at some point. It’s like the first time I did push ups. I was EXTREMELY sore for a couple of days that I can’t even touch my chest without crying… But now, after all the bench presses I have done, I can do 100+ push ups and not get sore the next day.

If you ever decide to join my experiment, please be cautious.

2

First of all, you aren’t advanced enough to need or get benefits from anything like this.

Second of all, I understand the desire to learn as much as possible, but it seems you need to work on basic reading comprehension just as much as you need to work on basic weight training.

If your goal is to increase strength by getting as many quality repetitions…then why not work in a lower percentage range that has a lesser detriment on the central nervous system and connective tissue? You cannot hit max weights on the same movement every single day or even every single week without some drop-off in strength. That is simply not how the body works. There is a good reason why every successful strength athlete cycles his intensity throughout the year.

Even if this were to be valid, you are green enough to make progress through means involving much less pain and suffering. Have fun doing this and destroying your body though.

3

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
First of all, you aren’t advanced enough to need or get benefits from anything like this.

Second of all, I understand the desire to learn as much as possible, but it seems you need to work on basic reading comprehension just as much as you need to work on basic weight training.

If your goal is to increase strength by getting as many quality repetitions…then why not work in a lower percentage range that has a lesser detriment on the central nervous system and connective tissue? You cannot hit max weights on the same movement every single day or even every single week without some drop-off in strength. That is simply not how the body works. There is a good reason why every successful strength athlete cycles his intensity throughout the year.

Even if this were to be valid, you are green enough to make progress through means involving much less pain and suffering. Have fun doing this and destroying your body though.[/quote]

Thank you for posting!!!

4

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
First of all, you aren’t advanced enough to need or get benefits from anything like this.

Second of all, I understand the desire to learn as much as possible, but it seems you need to work on basic reading comprehension just as much as you need to work on basic weight training.

If your goal is to increase strength by getting as many quality repetitions…then why not work in a lower percentage range that has a lesser detriment on the central nervous system and connective tissue? You cannot hit max weights on the same movement every single day or even every single week without some drop-off in strength. That is simply not how the body works. There is a good reason why every successful strength athlete cycles his intensity throughout the year.

Even if this were to be valid, you are green enough to make progress through means involving much less pain and suffering. Have fun doing this and destroying your body though.[/quote]

First of all, the highest quality repetitions are done in the 90%+ rep range. The one that you’re talking about are great for developing (…more like maximizing…) explosive strength. I’m all about max strength. It’s all I care about… Heck, I’d sacrifice a year without my girldfriend’s tongue if I can add a ton with my lifts.

5

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
First of all, you aren’t advanced enough to need or get benefits from anything like this.

Second of all, I understand the desire to learn as much as possible, but it seems you need to work on basic reading comprehension just as much as you need to work on basic weight training.

If your goal is to increase strength by getting as many quality repetitions…then why not work in a lower percentage range that has a lesser detriment on the central nervous system and connective tissue? You cannot hit max weights on the same movement every single day or even every single week without some drop-off in strength. That is simply not how the body works. There is a good reason why every successful strength athlete cycles his intensity throughout the year.

Even if this were to be valid, you are green enough to make progress through means involving much less pain and suffering. Have fun doing this and destroying your body though.[/quote]

…If there is one person in here who has read the most things about this subject, it’s me… Heck I have practically ran out of articles to read, including Christian Thib’s books… The only ones left are the ones that are not free… And once I get a hold of them, oh boy… This section of the forum is gonna be a disaster.

6

and that’s your problem. stop reading fucking articles that are not meant for someone your level. train a basic powerlifting/oly lifting routine for the next 3 years and stop all thif fuss about max effort rotation, explosive strength, blah blah.

7

i love how you give this hardcore speech about your super advanced mega frequency program influenced by pavel and secret soviet elite lifting templates… LOL.

8

Hi, OP! First, I just wanted to thank you for the entartaining thread you start on a dayly rate!
Then, on a serious tone, as almost anybody has already told you: stop making things more difficult than they are, please! Pick a beginner routine of whatever (BB, PL, OL…) and do it until you can squat x2 your bw. Then move to an intermediate one…See your in one or two years, when you’re an advanced intermediate (always be optimistic!).

EDIT: look at Dan John’s latest article, choose your five exercises, begin with 50% of your max, and add 5lbs a week. Yes, it’s really that simple for a beginner!

9

[quote]TYPE2B wrote:

…If there is one person in here who has read the most things about this subject, it’s me… Heck I have practically ran out of articles to read, including Christian Thib’s books… The only ones left are the ones that are not free… And once I get a hold of them, oh boy… This section of the forum is gonna be a disaster.[/quote]

I love reading those articles too. That said, I have observed in the real world that there is an inverse relationship between being knowledgable these awesome training methodologies and actually being strong. You can’t read yourself stronger. Here’s what actaully works (very well)

Find a group of strong hardcore strength athletes to train with. This is critical.

Keep your fucking smarty-pants training philosphies that you read about on T-Nation or wherever to yourself. Follow what that actual strong people that you train with do. Just show up and follow what they do and help spot and load. You’ll be shocked at how simple their training is.

Making some intelligent choices as far as rest and nutrition will help but it is usually not a make-or-break. Just make sure you are eating enough.

See- it’s really that simple. Everyone- I repeat, everyone- gets a fuck of a lot stronger doing this.

10

WS4SB 3.

11

The only way he will learn which program works is to try each and every one for a week and play it by ear. Keep it up man, fighting the good fight. As Mark Rippetoe says, it is difficult to program correctly for an elite lifter.

Something to keep in mind, once you do find the right program you will likely need to change it within a couple of weeks because you’ll adapt to it. Check out P90X, muscle confusion!!!

12

A coach was once asked if raising your work capacity is necessary to reach the top… And you know what he replied?

ABSO FUCKING LUTELY!!!

I was exaggerating. He didn’t really say the F word. He just said absolutely…

The main problem with high frequency training (in my humble opinion) is that once a trainee starts OVER REACHING (not overtraining!), he gets scared and quit. What he doesn’t realize is that he can always just take a deload, and modify his routine to something that he could realistically handle. Take for example, me. I have a good feeling that I can handle max weights 5 days a week. I won’t be switching exercises… But what I would do to keep my body from adapting to a workout is by simply adding frequency… After all, once you adapt to a certain routine, shouldn’t it mean that you can now do something slightly more advanced? It’s common sense. You can’t just jump in from doing a starting strength program to a 24 session a week bulgarian program. It should be done with small increments, slowly adding training sessions AS MUCH AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY HANDLE! One of the biggest rules in strength improvement that I think only olympic style weightlifters genuinely follow is to be able to do AS MUCH QUALITY REPETITIONS AS YOU CAN HUMANLY DO IN A WEEK. Ivan Abadjhiev’s training style is the epitome of such thing…

…And another thing… What about long term stress? Please think about this. Everytime you train, you purposely over reach yourself in one way. It’s not like you’re gonna be 100% recovered after a max effort session. There’s a reason why westside trainees shoot for PRs only once a week and not everyday. Why not use this rule in long term? You can pretty much purposely over reach yourself for a couple of weeks (as long as your performance doesn’t drop more than 10%, it’s all good.), take a deload, and if Professor Yuri Verkhoshansky, Kelly Baggett, Charles Poliquin, and Christian Thibaudeau ain’t full of shit, you should rebound much higher than before! Think of the supercompensation table. More stress induced = Bigger training effect.

…And if you do that for maybe, a couple of years, (as in purposeful over reaching and then taking a break) shouldn’t your body adapt to that certain training style? Maybe, if there is some truth to the SAID (Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands) principle, you should be able to handle such training stress over time.

The truth is, regardless of what your level of training is, the more stress you put in to your body, the bigger the adaptation. It’s a rule in which I will live by starting… Well it pretty much started during May 20, 2009, this post of mine is May 23rd…

…Please keep in mind that this post is highly based on my opinions only… which probably has no significance with most of you… lol, I can’t blame you for hating me. I’m sorry.

13

tbh

14

[quote]TYPE2B wrote:
I will now be experimenting with high frequency training. These are the 3 main exercises that I will do EVERY SESSION (No more switching Max Effort movements):

Front squat (ATG with a pause at a slightly wider than shoulder width stance)

Snatch grip deadlifts

Bench press

My routine will be based mainly on my intuition… [/quote]

I stopped reading at this point

15

I stopped reading at this point.

16

[quote]goochadamg wrote:

TYPE2B

I stopped reading at this point.

[/quote]

I didn’t even open the thread!!

The REAL winners here are the guys who have him on ignore and can’t read his posts at all.

17

wow im not the smartest but this just sounds stupid. How long are you planning on doing this? YOUR GONNA HURT YOURSELF!!! HAVE FUN AT THE CHIROPRACTER!!!

18

I’m not that smart but this sounds stupid! How long do you really think you can keep that pace up. Your gonna hurt yourself. Have fun at the chiropracter!

19

[quote]blackngrey609 wrote:
wow im not the smartest but this just sounds stupid. How long are you planning on doing this? YOUR GONNA HURT YOURSELF!!! HAVE FUN AT THE CHIROPRACTER!!![/quote]

…Hmmmm, come to think of it, my last session was a little achy on my lumbar spine. It felt as if a bunch of scalpels started poking me nonstop in that region while front squatting… My shoulders are all beat up to…

20

Pinto’s right here:

Keep it simple. Lift heavy. Train with people stronger than you.

One of my non-lifter buddies was recently impressed with my squat. He asked me the secret to getting big and strong. In that moment, 10,000 things went through my brain, but what I came up with is truth:

Show up at the gym. Lift heavy as hell. Do it consistently. Eat and sleep enough to recover.

Unless you are looking to go from #5 in the world to #4, the rest is just tits on a bull.