The Westside Method Thread

[quote]michael_xyz wrote:
Do you feel like plyos really help (jumps, kinds of push-ups you said etc.)?[/quote]

Absolutely. There is very little else you can do to truely develop the elastic components of muscle as they pertrain to the powerlifts. Dynamic efforts are obviously important for technique and force development but, unless you are using the exact combination of band and bar weight, and exerting max force with every rep, then it is not 100% optimal. The only way you can be sure it is optimal is to hook the bar up to a Tendo Unit Meter. Since pretty much no one has access to one: jumps and throws (especially to box’s or for certain distances) have to be maximal or else you miss and break your legs.

It’s just another tool in the toolbox, another part to the whole. The longer I train, the more I realize I have to be good at everything. In order to be a great athlete in any sport, you have to be good at many, many different skills and then be totally fucking dominant with one skill. For us, powerlifters, that one skill is Absolute Strength. The many other skills are everything that prepare you to showcase your absolute strength in a meet (speed strength, strength speed, reactive strength, acceleration strength, etc, etc).

Are jumps and throws the “end-all, be-all” for dominating in a meet? No… but they need to be done consistantly in training just like everything else does.

Next blog post for STB - how to incorporate throws and jumps as well as reactive strength in general to westside training.

[quote]LiquidMercury wrote:
Next blog post for STB - how to incorporate throws and jumps as well as reactive strength in general to westside training.[/quote]

Hoping to make that an Elite article actually. haha.

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
What do ya’ll do for plyos for bench training. All I’ve got are depth push ups, clap push ups, and the bouncy medball slams and pushes into the ground.

I wast thinking of adding bench press tosses (in the smith machine) too.[/quote]

Plyo Push ups with and w/o the sling shot, med ball slams, throws, and juggles, band assisted explosive pull ups and push-ups. Any kind of overhead throwing, there are millions of options. You just have to get creative and go really fast.

I really think ball slams and explosive rowing help me the most.[/quote]

Juggles?

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
What do ya’ll do for plyos for bench training. All I’ve got are depth push ups, clap push ups, and the bouncy medball slams and pushes into the ground.

I wast thinking of adding bench press tosses (in the smith machine) too.[/quote]

Plyo Push ups with and w/o the sling shot, med ball slams, throws, and juggles, band assisted explosive pull ups and push-ups. Any kind of overhead throwing, there are millions of options. You just have to get creative and go really fast.

I really think ball slams and explosive rowing help me the most.[/quote]

Juggles?[/quote]

Juggles as in take a 20-30lb med ball and pass it back and forth between your hands. My favorite is taking a 30 and doing a bunch of explosive shoulder press pass/catches. Start with the ball in your right hand and hold it at shoulder level. With only your right hand throw it straight up in the air as high as you can. Catch it with only your left hand. Repeat.

If nothing else, it scares the shit out of everyone else in the gym and it makes you look really cool.

Ok, I have was having the hardest time imagining how juggling two or three tennis balls would improve my bench but if you said it would I was gonna do it lol. Thanks for clearing that up.

Little known fact that Ed Coan used to be part of the Circus de Soleil.

I just got into my intensification block and I was planning on running 40/45/50 + 25 band tension for my squat, 12x2 for the first 2 weeks and 10x2 for the last week. I would use 50/55/60 + 25 band tension, but 50 was too slow.

For my deadlift, I’m considering a 35/40/45 wave with 90lbs band tension and varying stances sumo/semi/conv.

So for anyone who knows, my question is does this sound okay? Any suggestions to what I should do or to where the information has already been discussed would be helpful. I plan on adding jumps before ME and DE days to help with my speed.

note - I have limited special equipment: a pair of short light bands and a pair of fierce premium bands from EliteFTS.

I was also wondering about how hard are these workouts supposed to be? I finished my first Intensification DE daya and felt like I hadn’t done anything. I would have considered upping band tension but that would have made me slow. Should it feel hard or make me tired? After 25x2x50%, 12x2 feels like a warmup.

I pulled against the short bands tonight . gotta say it felt way more right . wouldnt ya know it though , the same day Krok throws up an article about reverse band method…I ditch the rev bands…not sure what to make of that .

but yeah , pulling against felt good . I had some funk-water bubbling up into my sink/s and tub when I was leaving the house , so I cut it short at the gym in fear of what may be oozing ouy of my pipes . just a bunch of sets with 135 against EFS’s short minis . even that felt better than rev band .

I’ll ramp it up for the Intensification phase .

To be honest, I didn’t really like Kroc’s article that much. I’ll have to go reread it, but I tend to stay away from the articles on this site anyway.

[quote]black_angus1 wrote:
To be honest, I didn’t really like Kroc’s article that much. I’ll have to go reread it, but I tend to stay away from the articles on this site anyway.[/quote]

good squat vid . something like 675 for 8.

I didn’t even know the article had a video in it.

[quote]black_angus1 wrote:
To be honest, I didn’t really like Kroc’s article that much. I’ll have to go reread it, but I tend to stay away from the articles on this site anyway.[/quote]

Kroc is one of the few people I trust that write articles on this site lol.

The Kroc article was not a Westside template, but there was nothing wrong with it. I think it was a good intro on the “future” method, but I think we all know that we need to incorporate the bands in more way than one, to get some good use out of them. Personally, I only seem to get anything out of reverse conventional pulls, but that may just be me. I also think it’s an awesome training tool for both squat and deadlift form. I would rather have my clients pull perfect with band help than work my way down from pin pulls (which is an aside of course)

no thread highjack BUT:

does anyone know what Storm the Beaches NEW blogspot is.

I have read his Death to Fitness front to back but I know he has a new one,

thanks as always, killerDIRK

[quote]louiek wrote:
I just got into my intensification block and I was planning on running 40/45/50 + 25 band tension for my squat, 12x2 for the first 2 weeks and 10x2 for the last week. I would use 50/55/60 + 25 band tension, but 50 was too slow.

For my deadlift, I’m considering a 35/40/45 wave with 90lbs band tension and varying stances sumo/semi/conv.

So for anyone who knows, my question is does this sound okay? Any suggestions to what I should do or to where the information has already been discussed would be helpful. I plan on adding jumps before ME and DE days to help with my speed.

note - I have limited special equipment: a pair of short light bands and a pair of fierce premium bands from EliteFTS.

I was also wondering about how hard are these workouts supposed to be? I finished my first Intensification DE daya and felt like I hadn’t done anything. I would have considered upping band tension but that would have made me slow. Should it feel hard or make me tired? After 25x2x50%, 12x2 feels like a warmup.[/quote]

Your plan sounds pretty good to me.

It feels easy for 2 reasons (most likely):

  1. The 25x2 during the accumulation block made your soul die. Just kidding, what has actually happened is you are in better shape than you were before. Keep pushing the weights as hard as you can but stick with your plan until the three week wave is over. Don’t freak out and change anything yet.

  2. You got bigger and stronger. This accidently happens to a lot of people. Adapting to the volume in the accumulation block means you either die or get stronger.

Like I said before, keep sticking with it and absolutely murder yourself on max effort day. Dynamic day should feel PRETTY good most of the time. Speed work requires 100% recovery and 100% readiness in order to get what you want out of it. Weeks 2 and 3 should be a little bit tougher but the bar should still be moving the same speed.

If I were to start incorporating box jumps, plyo push-ups et al in my training would you do them before or after your DE work?

Stumbled upon these resources and decided to share: great read and goes hand-in-hand with what STB has been preaching. Good primer for anyone jumping on this thread now:

Block Periodization (pretty lengthy article with tons of examples)
http://articles.elitefts.com/articles/powerlifting-articles/a-practical-guide-for-implementing-block-periodization-for-powerlifting/

Specificity of movements in sports and their place in the block training (great short read, will help everyone when setting up their training block and are confused about exercises selection in the different mesocycles):
http://www.elitefts.com/documents/classification_of_the_means.pdf

Cheers!