The best outline of the tier system was a post by Silverback, Who deserves to win poster of the week sometime.
"shadow…
I am a different Coach H than the Coach H on Elite… I think he is a big guy… I am a fast guy… but, I think he is big and fast… I am only about 212 as of last night.
One of the easiest things to do is to lay out a yearly plan, like in Kenn’s book.
If you are an athlete, I would either use pendulum, a modified tier system (more on this in a second), or use ascending-descending.
The tier system is cool due to this:
My first two exercises for the three days is always a power and a MaxS exercise. Then the third is a big compound movement.
So, for Total Body Exercises I would do this:
Tier 1 Clean; Tier 2 Trap Bar Dead w/shrug and toes; Tier 3 Front Squat and Press; Tier 4 Overhead DB Squats; Tier 5 Iron Cross
For Lower Body:
Tier 1 Box Squat (westside); Tier 2 Squat; Tier 3 Bulgarian Squat; Tier 4 Circle Lunges; Tier 5 Reverse Hyper
For Upper Body:
Tier 1 Jammer (or x-pushups); Tier 2 Bench; Tier 3 Bent Rows; Tier 4; Skull Crushers; Tier 5 Chins
Now here is the kool part:
Tier 1 and Tier 2 are interchangeable… depending on what the block’s emphasis is… so I put power first, then Strength, then Tier 3, tier 4 , tier 5.
But, I change the number of sets!
So, on Hyper emphasis block on Total Day I would use 4U-6T-5L-3U-2T, but the upper is my X-Upper exercise, where the 6 sets of T is the trab bar dead.
On Hyper U I would use 4L-6U-5T-3L-2U… the lower is box squat, and the upper is bench.
Does this make sense?
On Hyper and Power phases, the power exercise is Tier 1, but on Strength phase, the power exercise is placed as tier 2…
Then, you just manipulate the number of sets so that your emphasis gets the most sets:
Hyper Block
4 power
6 Strength
5 Hyper(tier 3)
3 Tier 4
2 Tier 5
Power Block
6 Power
5 Strength
4 Hyper (tier 3)
3 Tier 4
2 Tier 5
Strength Block
6 Strength
5 Power
4 Hyper (tier 3)
3 Tier 4
2 Tier 5
On hyper block the day’s emphasis is actually the second exercise, but we do the power first so we are fresh for explosives.
I hope this makes sense. It helps you to use blocks and Kenn’s stuff at the same time. Now just use what technique of Hyper, what technique of strength, and what power rep scheme you want to use… and you are basically done.
With so many different Hyper, Power, and Maxs rep schemes out there (ie. wave load, 1-6, pre-fatigue, post-fatigue, cluster,etc), you should have about 758 years worth of training just through writing down the articles here and those three books.
Keep on reading, and keep us posted on the progress.
Lil’ Coach H
CSCS"
The power loading is westsides Dynamic Effort, Strength is max effort method and volume is the repetition method.
I’ve been using the tier with a couple athletes and they are doin well. If you want to focus on conditioning I’d use a 3x3 tier (only 3 exercises not 5)
warm up with Overhead squats, Hurdle work, Cuff, abs, obliques. After the main session do Posterior chain, traps, cuff and abs.
A 3x3 workout takes ~45 min. It’s only 3x/week. This leaves more time for conditioning and other work as well as recovery.
It also fits nicely with charlie francis’ weekly speed lay out.
Check out Coach H’s training log at elitefts for an actual look at the 3x3tier. His athletes actually get stronger during the football season with a 3x3 tier.