OL for BB Update

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Here is an update on my progress with this program (Program A at the bottom of this post). First, it was everything that I expected it to be. It was hard, I gained muscle in my shoulders, posterior chain, lats, traps and lower body. I also lost quite a bit of fat on a mediocre diet (fairly clean, but with a few cheat meals.) By week three I was weighing 210lb (the heaviest that I’ve ever weighed) and I could start to see the faint outline of my abs (the lowest bf% I’ve had since I was 14 or 15). This was a great conditioning workout.
On the downside, this program took a little longer to complete that I would like (1.25-1.5 hours). I feel that I could get equal or better results by decreasing the number lifts on Mon and Fri and adding low intensity cardio.
This brings us to my next workout. In the interest of altering intesity and volume, this next cycle will focus on heavy singles.

Program A

Mon
FS - 55
Snatch - 55
Rack Jerk - 55
Clean - 55
Overhead Press - 5*5

Tue/Thur
Low intensity cardio

Wed
FS - 3 heavy singles
Snatch - heavy single
Rack Jerk - heavy single
Clean - Heavy single
Overhead Press - 3 heavy singles

Fri
FS - 64
Split Snatch - 64
Split Rack Jerk - 64
Split Clean - 64
Overhead Press - 6*4.

2

Are you keeping progress pics?

3

Oler,
May I make one suggestion -alter your exercise order. Put your technical lifts upfront… Example…Snatch, Snatch pulls, Snatch grip shrugs, Front Squats with a pause, etc… again, just a suggestion…Good Luck
Tony

4

[quote]Vyapada wrote:
Are you keeping progress pics?[/quote]

No. I don’t have a digital camera. Plus I have a slight case of gyno that I developed as a teenager. It may have been just from puberty or from the steriod packs that the doctors were always giving me for my asthma. In any case until I have that taken care of, I have no desire to have my picture taken.

5

[quote]Tony S wrote:
Oler,
May I make one suggestion -alter your exercise order. Put your technical lifts upfront… Example…Snatch, Snatch pulls, Snatch grip shrugs, Front Squats with a pause, etc… again, just a suggestion…Good Luck
Tony[/quote]

Why do I always here this? People always saying to put the OL’s first. I don’t understand it. Maybe it’s because I received tutoring on program design from Boevski when he visited the States. That honestly made me question the way that most US lifter train. It seems that I’ve been hearing statements like this more and more. I’m not saying that you’re wrong. You’re not.

Both way can be used at different times. I understand the reason behind this idea as well. It just seems to me that this idea is starting to become dogmatic. But what do I know. I also believe in squating 5 times or more per week. Different strokes, I guess.

6

maybe its just me but that volume seems very high for the type of training you are doing. but if it is working man, whatever.

7

[quote]Owen70 wrote:
maybe its just me but that volume seems very high for the type of training you are doing. but if it is working man, whatever.[/quote]

Yeah it was high. I’ve come to the point where I can handle it though. Like I said, the downside to this workout was the time that it took. If I had all the time in the world, I could have added 1 or 2 sets, maybe more, to each exercise and still done well. I left the gym after each workout feeling I still had a little left in the tank.

But this cycle, I’m only going to do one of the OL’s per workout. I whip them out pretty quick at the beginning of each workout (just to keep the technique up). My main focus will be on squat, pull, press. Focusing in on one main lifter per workout and just moving quickly thru the other lifts. I’m think of something along these lines:

Mon
10 min cardio
Snatch - couple of sets of 3 maybe a moderately heavy single*
Snatch low pulls**
3a.)Overhead Press -
3b.)Calf work
FS - 10 or so sub-max singles
10 min cardio

Tue/Thur
15-20 min low intensity cardio***

Wed
10 min cardio
C&J - couple of sets of 3 maybe a moderately heavy single*
FS**
Clean HP
4a.)Overhead press - 10 or so sub-max singles
4b.) Calf work
10 min cardio

Fri
10 min cardio
Snatch - couple of sets of 3 maybe a moderately heavy single*
2a.)Overhead Press(or mabye side press)**
2b.) Calf work
BS - One near max single
Clean LP - 10 or so sub-max singles
10 min cardio

*Alternate Snatch & C&J every other workout

**Some type of high rep(6+ reps)/low set work. I have made up my mind yet. I wanna keep some of my conditioning that I developed during this last cycle. Any suggestions?

***I want to use a sled on these days. I was thinking of using a tire to make one. Any ideas on how to do add weight inside?

8

ok, you gotta realize with OL, and all pure strength/speed things, you are gonna have on and off days. you can’t go in and try and operate off a real set plan(in my opinion) this layout looks fine on paper, but if you get wasted/party/just have a shitty weekend or whatever, you may feel out of it.you have to become very good at judging what you can and cannot do. alright now onto your workouts…

[quote]Olympiclfter wrote:
Mon
10 min cardio
Snatch - couple of sets of 3 maybe a moderately heavy single*
Snatch low pulls**
3a.)Overhead Press -
3b.)Calf work
FS - 10 or so sub-max singles
10 min cardio
[/quote] alright, i dont get why you would do FS singles but not snatch/CandJ singles? this is just stupid to me. also, unless you have calf problems(size or whatever) you don’t need that much calf work, especially with all this cardio(which i imagine involves mucho calvo) and why not do bench or dumbell work instead of the overhead press, i KNOW it is easier on your shoulders. while on that note, you REEAAALLLY need to do some RC shit with all of this shoulder intensive stuff, and some horizontal rowing. fuck it, im just gonna give you my idea of how I WOULD do this below.

[quote]Olympiclfter wrote:
Tue/Thur
15-20 min low intensity cardio***

Wed
10 min cardio
C&J - couple of sets of 3 maybe a moderately heavy single*
FS**
Clean HP
4a.)Overhead press - 10 or so sub-max singles
4b.) Calf work
10 min cardio[/quote]

whats a clean HP? and same shit as above on the CandJ? why sets of 3not 1? and if you are gonna do >5 reps, just do backsquat. fuck you could just do high bar back squats inplace of all this frontsquatting anyways. same thing on your overhead shit, your shoulders, if they havent already, are getting ready to bust into a million pieces. you really need to take it easy on all of this overhead volume and do some DB/barbell flat bench etc etc. same thing as above with your calf work

[quote]Olympiclfter wrote:
Fri
10 min cardio
Snatch - couple of sets of 3 maybe a moderately heavy single*
2a.)Overhead Press(or mabye side press)**
2b.) Calf work
BS - One near max single
Clean LP - 10 or so sub-max singles
10 min cardio
[/quote] same arguments as above with this workout.

[quote]Olympiclfter wrote:
***I want to use a sled on these days. I was thinking of using a tire to make one. Any ideas on how to do add weight inside?

[/quote]
ok, now its time for mini rant. i dont get what the fuck is the deal with all this strongman shit for GPP. of course its fun, but if you are doing it for any other reason i really dont think that it is better/prefertial. especially since dragging a sled isnt very specific to what you are doing with all this OLY shit because you are using a whole fuck lot more quad with all of your moves than the guys at westside use. i guess you could drag it backwards, but i’d really really like to see you just do some shit for your rotator cuffs and scapular retraction stuff+some light intensity(no more than walking) cardio on your off days as your lifting days are intensive as hell.

alright now here is how i’d set up your shit, (keep in mind you need to pound YOUR weaknesses…and i dont know them so this is just a template)but then again i would do this type of training(olystyle) off of instinct because it is so variable in your day to day performance…
[i]day 1
-A. back squat up to 1RM
-90% of this for 5 singles
-B. clean grip high pull up to 1RM
-90% of this for 5 singles
-1C.t-bar row(or similar) 5x8-12
-2C.rotator cuff shit 4x8-12

day 2
-cardio bullshit anything below 70% of your max heart rate for however long you can hamster+ RC shit+abs+horizontal rows for anything above 10 reps up to 5 sets of each

day 3
-A.strict overhead press up to 3RM
-then take that weight, take off 15% of it and do it for as many sets of 5 as you can until you can’t do 5 reps anymore.
-B.front squat up to 3RM
-same bullshit as above
-C1.same as day1
-C2. same as day1

day 4

-same as day 2

day 5

-A.snatch grip high pull up to 1RM
-90% for 5 singles
-B.push press 5x2 with 90% of 1RM(make sure you get kickass leg drive.)
-C1. DB bench 5x5
-C2. RDL 5x5

 day 6

-same as day 2
day 7
-preferably off but if you wanna hamster same bullshit as day 2.

sorry for the swearing haha

9

Olympiclifter,

Cool idea. Thanks for posting.

Owen,

OL’s idea doesn’t look nearly as bad to me as it seems to look to you. Doing heavy squats but not heavy OLs is not a bad idea as pulls are quite taxing on the CNS. His routine has a heavy back squat to maintain and build squatting power but keeps the other days submaximal - heavy enough to maintain and build pulling power but not so heavy as to overtrain. Your routine has two max effort days with two max efforts each - both a push AND a pull, with a drop-set/ max triple front squat sandwiched in between. This is absolutely nuts. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that your routine doesn’t include the comp lifts.

BTW, since when is frequent pressing a shoulder hazard? Arthur Drechsler tesitifies in the Weightlifting Encycylopedia that shoulder injuries have increased in frequency and severity since OLers stopped training the press. They trained it frequently - VERY frequently.

10

If this is in NE Oklahoma (I think I may have asked you that before?), do you have a coach? If so, where? I’m still trying to get technique down for OL.

Matthew

11

[quote]Ross Hunt wrote:
Doing heavy squats but not heavy OLs is not a bad idea as pulls are quite taxing on the CNS. [/quote]

this whole sentence makes no sense to me the way you are phrasing it. i think you are saying that heavy pulls are more taxing than squats? if anything they are equal at best.

what? he maxes on back squat and clean pull on monday, and snatch high pull on friday. give me a break, with all of the fucking volume he has been doing, if this breaks him, he wasnt putting ANY effort in to his program before(which i really doubt)

[quote]Ross Hunt wrote:
with a drop-set/ max triple front squat sandwiched in between. [/quote]

yes because you can assume that i wrote this thinking he would perform the reps as dropset…

[quote]Ross Hunt wrote:
This is absolutely nuts. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that your routine doesn’t include the comp lifts.
[/quote]

…i DO NOT SEE HOW this guy is going to benefit from doing the competition lifts during this phase(what i would suggest with my program is 6 weeks) because he just spent however long(>6 weeks?) doing lods of competition work. he saids he has no coach, and God knows that form can just be learned in articles.

and add to that the fact that this is olympic lifting for bodybuilding i dont see how catch a fucking snatch is gonna help in his bodybuilding goals.[/quote]

[quote]Ross Hunt wrote:
BTW, since when is frequent pressing a shoulder hazard? Arthur Drechsler tesitifies in the Weightlifting Encycylopedia that shoulder injuries have increased in frequency and severity since OLers stopped training the press. They trained it frequently - VERY frequently.[/quote]

kay. why dont we training our shoulders into oblivion just because THEY DONT HURT RIGHT NOW. you know, i did dips for like 3months, they were my favorite upper body move. i could do it for whatever BW+45, and they never hurt. well guess what, now i cant go down more than 2 inches without falling down from the pain.

i know i came off as a prick right now, but i dont see a good argument

p.s. everything i say and do is right haha