JUST FN LIFT ANOTHER F'N TRAINING PROGRAM Se EE ieeeTABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION THE PROGRAM SETS, REPS AND PERCENTAGES WHAT'S WITH THE PLUS SIGN? CHOOSING A TRAINING MAX LIFT-SPECIFIC MODIFICATIONS OVER WARM-UPS HOW TO PROGRESS FULL SAMPLE CYCLE DYNAMIC DELOADS OPTIONAL 3S CYCLE TRAINING TEMPLATES 3 DAYS A WEEK 2 DAYS A WEEK MAIN LIFTS ASSISTANCE WORK TRAINING PHILOSOPHY TRAIN WITH SUBMAXIMAL WEIGHTS PRACTICE PERFECT REPS DON'T MISS, EVER PROGRAM FOR SUSTAINABLE PROGRESS DO MORE WITH LESS eartaannn = woINTRODUCTION {In late spring of 2011 | was in need of a new training program. | was just coming off of a 3 month long cut and was feeling weak. | wanted to find a way to get my strength back up, but | didn't want to rush it and end up crashing and burning like | had in the past. | was sick of hitting walls and accumulating nagging injuries. | was sick of looking at what | had scheduled for a training session and being afraid of how goddamn heavy the weight was going to feel. | wanted to find something where scheduled progress was slow, but where | could run the program aimost indefinitely without even noticing that the weight was getting heavier. One day | was reading through Chad Wesley Smith's The Juggernaut Method for the umpteenth time and noticed a brief mention of a 5x5, 3x5, 1x5 training cycle that he had used in the past with success. fd always been a big believer in periodizing intensity over a cycle, but had never thought to do so by manipulating the number of sets rather than the number of reps. Sounds like a pretty obvious thing to do right? | don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, but at the time it opened up a whole new world of ideas for me. After a little bit of playing around, | came up with the template that I lay out in this book. | ran it for 7 cycles without ever having to worry about the weight getting too heavy or having to deload my training max. | had a competition in December and PR every lift, setting a PR total by 150 pounds without ever lifting more than 85% of those numbers in the gym, A couple of people have asked about my programming and tVve laid it out online a few times in the past, but | figured it would be cool to package it up in a more organized way. | don't pretend to be an expert in strength training (and certainly ‘not in writing), but hopefully you'll find something in here to take away and apply to your own training.THE PROGRAM This isn’t really a full “program” as much as itis just a progression scheme that can be applied to any main lift. I's nothing terribly new or revolutionary and takes a lot of inspiration from programs like 5/3/1 and The juggernaut Method, Ifyou're a complete beginner, you would probably be better off using a basic linear progression where you can add weight every workout. If you're an advanced lifter, you already know what works for you and you're probably not reading this anyways. fon the other hand youve already been lifting for a little while and are looking for something where you can make some steady, long term progress, then this program might be a good option for you. ‘So without further ado... SETS, REPS AND PERCENTAGES The general idea is to work from higher volume/lower intensity to lower volume/higher intensity over the course of a 4 week cycle, with the last week being adeload.WHAT'S WITH THE PLUS SIGN? In weeks 1-3, the “+” indicates that the final set is done for the scheduled reps or ‘more. So § sets of S+ reps really means 4 sets of 5 reps, followed by one set of 5 or more reps. This doesn't necessarily mean it’s done to failure, but if you're feeling up to it, this is where you can put in the extra work. {il usually take the reps pretty high on the upper body lifts (sometimes up to 15), but | tend to cut the lower body lifts off at 10 reps. This helps to keep the reps clean and alsa prevents some of the crippling soreness that usually follows squatting a setof 15, Shutting it down after the minimum reps is fine once in a while, but hitting the minimum should always be pretty easy so bang out the extra reps whenever you can. CHOOSING A TRAINING MAX Just like the programs that inspired this one, the percentages are based off of a training max rather than a true one rep max. ve always liked the 90% approach that Wendler recommends. Just take your current 1RM for a lift (current as in what you could hit today, which might not be your all-time best), then multiply it by 90% and that's your training max. If you don't know your 1RM, you can use this formula to get a ballpark idea. Just take a set of 10 or less that you've done in the last couple weeks and plug the numbers in, where “w' Is the weight lifted and “r" is the number of reps performed. wr 1KM — en +w After youve got that number, multiply it by 90% and you're in business.LIFT-SPECIFIC MODIFICATIONS tt would be wonderful if you could use the exact same sets, reps and percentages for every lift and have everything just work out, but in my experience that's usually just wishful thinking. ve found that the original template works great for squatting and pressing ‘movements, but some other lifts seem to respond better with a few modifications, So Ive included those here. DEADLIFT CYCLE | dont know what it is about the deadlift, but it always seems to be the lift that needs its own special treatment. tm guessing it has something to do with each rep being completely deloaded to the floor and pulled from a dead stop since this phenomenon seems to affect the Olympic lifts as well. ‘There's a few differences here: 1, The number of sets is reduced to three in week 1 and two in week 2. 2, The rep range drops fram $+ to 3+. 3, The percentages all go up 5%. This is the lift where t'm most likely to only do the prescribed reps. if you're going to g0 all out, | would recommend leaving a couple more in the tank than usual. | findthat grinding out stow deadlifts really messes up the rest of my training for the next few days. PAUSE SQUAT CYCLE Incorporating pause squats was serlously the most revolutionary thing | did for my taining since reading Starting Strength. If you struggle with your bar path, keeping your knees out, or really any other technique issue at all, pause squats will fh it, | ‘sweear. ‘The way I set them up is pretty similar to the deadiitt cycle, with the only difference being the number of sets in weeks 1 and 2. | like triples on these just because anything more is really a special kind of torture. Juse pause squats as an assistance movement, so | don’t usually do more than the ‘minimum reps. If you were going to use it as a main lift, | would probably push the ‘reps a little more but still leave a couple in the tank like | mentioned in the dead cycle. OVER WARM-UPS On week 3, | like to warm up to a heavier single before my work set{s), This is something Paul Carter from Lift-Rur-Bang talks about a lot, and I think it's a great idea for two reasons: 1. It gees you primed for the actual work set. The weight feels lighter coming down from the single than It would just going straight to the workingweight. You feel more confident and can usually bang out more reps than you would be able to without it. 2. You get some singles practice. | intentionally use the word “practice” because these singles aren't meant to create any sort of training effect. Every athlete who competes in a sport trains, but they also practice. f you're € powerlifter, these singles are your practice, The most important thing here is to make sure that these singles are never hard, The whole point is to build confidence, not destroy it. if you're scheduled to bench 285 for S+, your whole bench workout could look something like this: Barx 10 135x5 185x3 225x1 260x1 290%1 320x1 285x9 I recommend warming up to a single that is at most 95-100% of your training max. Never exceed the training max, save the hard singles for the platform. If you actually miss one of these singles, you've missed the whole point. HOW TO PROGRESS After each 4 week cycle, just add some weight to your training max and start over. | use 5 pound increments for upper body lifts and 10 pounds for lower body. If you want to add weight slower, go for it. If you get to a point where you can no longer hit the prescribed reps, just start the whale thing over again using 90% of your new 1RM.FULL SAMPLE CYCLE Let's pretend your current squat max is around 520. The first thing we need to do is. figure out your training max: 520 x 90% = 468 ‘We round that to the nearest S pounds, giving us a 470 pound training max. Here's what a full cycle could look like: Week 1 Warm-ups: 135 x S, 225 x 5, 275. 3, 315x1 3S5xS 355x5 355x5, 355x5, 355x10 Here the last set was done for S or more reps, but cut off at 10, not taken to absolute failure. Week 2 Warm-ups: 135.x 5, 225 x5, 275x3,315x1 375xS 375x5 375x7 Here you weren't feeling 100% so you only banged out a couple extra reps on the last set. Not a big deal because you still got the required work in. Week 3 Warm-ups: 135 x 5, 225x 5, 275.x 3, 315 x 1, 365x 1, 405% 1, 455x1 400x9 Here you warmed up to an easy single at 455 first, and then went balls out on the work set itself.Week 4 (Deload) Warm-ups: 135 x 5, 225x5 280% 280x5 280x5 From here, you would move your training max up to 475 or 480 and start over. DYNAMIC DELOADS This is something ve only started experimenting with recently, but the idea is to use the deload weeks to focus on dynamic effort work instead of doing the regular 3x5 @ 60% deload. This gives you a chance to really focus on being explosive, and also makes the deload a little more interesting if you find the regular setup a little boring. vencwenessistuat | se | 2 | wm A Some tips: + Pause everything. Pause squats in the hole, benches on the chest, and presses on the shoulders. + Try doing the deadlifts on a 30 second timer. + The goal is to make the last set faster than the first set. Don't siack off on the bar speed, BANDS & CHAINS in equipped powerlifting, the idea is that bands and chains mimic the strength curve in a bench shirt or squat suit, where the weight is lighter at the bottom and heavier at the top. This doesn't really make a lot of sense for a raw lifter, becausewhen youre lifting without equipment, the hardest part of the lift is generating that momentum out of the bottom. Nobody has a weak lockout. If that were true, nobody would be board pressing more than they press from their chest. {look at it a bit differently though. The point of dynamic work is to train the body to move the bar as fast as humanly possible. So what better way to do that than to make the load get heavier as you lift it, forcing you to push with maximum velocity ‘out of the bottom in order to ride that momentum as the bar gets heavier on the way up? | certainly don't think you need bands or chains for dynamic work, but | don't think you're going to be any warse off if you use them. | prefer chains because they make a cooler sound. OPTIONAL 3S CYCLE If you are looking to siow the progression down even more, or just like the idea of playing around with some triples, you can tack this cycle onto the end of every 5s cycle. This turns each cycle into an 8 week cycle instead of a 4 week cycle. | always keep the training max the same for the whole 8 weeks on upper body lifts, but on lower bady lifts | like to add S pounds at the start of the 3s cycle, and then 5 pounds again when you move on to the next Ss cycle. So you are still adding 10 pounds total every 8 weeks but splitting it in the middle to make the transition a little smoother. WEEK 5 WEEK 6 WEEK 7 WEEK 8TRAINING TEMPLATES If you've already got some ideas about how you'd like to incorporate this sort of programming into your training, awesome. if not though, here's a couple of full templates that | really like. If one of these sults. your fancy, give it a shat. 2 DAYS A WEEK This is my preferred way of training and is the program I used leading up to my last 2 DAYS A WEEK ve never actually used this setup, but if | only had 2 days per week to train, this is what | would do.MAIN LIFTS * The Press, Squat and Bench follow the base program from the previous chapter. + The Deadlift is done using the modified Deadlift Cycle. * The Pause Squats are done using the modified Pause Squat Cycle when used as a main lift. If you are doing them as assistance on the same day as Geadiifting, | would use the Deadlift Cycle instead so that there's a litte less total volume, ASSISTANCE WORK + Chin-ups are done for 3 to $ sets of 8 to 12 reps. If you canvt get this sort of volume in using your bodyweight, substitute underhand inverted rows, lat pull-downs or underhand rack chins. + RDLs are done for 2 to 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps. Use a double overhand grip and no straps. * Dumbbell Rows are done for 3 to § sets of 10 to 20 reps. | like to pick 3 ‘weights and pyramid up and down like this: 60x10 80x10 100 x 20 80 x 20 60x20 Its pretty awful but it works really well, Make sure you rest between each set and dont use straps,TRAINING PHILOSOPHY When | first started lifting, It was all about: “How strong can t get and haw fast can | get there” if ve learned anything since then, it's that the “! wont it oll, and | want it now!" mindset is the absolute feast productive way you can approach your training. When it comes to actually getting stronger and making real progress, there's a few key ideas | believe in, TRAIN WITH SUBMAXIMAL WEIGHTS A lot of people will tell you that to get stronger, you have to focus on lifting in the 3- S rep range, That might be one way to do it, but in my experience, It's certainly not the best way. The biggest reason | say that is because of injuries. | can’t remember the number of times ve trained at that 85-90% threshold and ended up with a lumbar strain, or a bad bout of elbow tendonitis. 'm tao lazy to look up the science behind it, but | know that for me, my joints and tendons just can't get stronger as fast as the rest of mean. The second reason is that when you're training at that high intensity all of the time and pushing against that wall, your technique falls apart. Everyone knows that a max effort single is never going to be perfect. If it was perfect, it wasn't. a max effort single. Ive always had the most success by pushing sets in the 70-80% range, and | believe this is for a few reasons: 1. You can crush each rep with authority. This builds confidence and makes training a hell of a lot easier psychologically. 2. If a rep goes bad, it’s a lot less likely to hurt you. if you get forward on a ‘souat at 90% and have to muscle it uo with vour lower back. there's a eoodchance it's going to set you back a week or two. Getting forward on a squat at 75% is not nearly as big of a deal. 3. You perform a lot less ugly reps, and a lot more perfect ones. Which leads me to my next point... PRACTICE PERFECT REPS When I was a kid, | would spend up to 8 hours a day practicing guitar, The most important thing my dad ever taught me about playing an instrument was to never practice anything faster than | could play it without making @ mistake. | would never be able to nail a guitar solo | was learning if | just tried to play along with the record at full speed over and aver again. But if | slowed it down to half speed and played along without screwing up a single note, and sped it up a litte bit every day, eventually Id be able to play it at full speed no problem, Lifting weights is no different. Spending your time in the gym performing ugly, grinding reps only builds bad habits. There's a great quote by Vince Lombardi that applies here: “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.” You're not going to become a better squatter by practicing bad squats. Keeping your real work sets in the 70-80% range is a good way to keep the rep quality high. DON'T MISS, EVER The only thing worse than practicing bad lifts in the gym is missing lifts in the gym. if you're not going to become a better lifter by practicing bad lifts, you're definitely not going to become a better lifter by missing lifts completely. Don't attempt singles that you aren't going to crush, and cut your sets off when you know you arentt going to make the next rep. There is. no point in attempting a rep that you know you are going to miss. You get stronger by making lifts, not missingIf the word “miss" isn't even a part of your vocabulary, you're a lot less likely to worry about it on the platform, where it counts, Confidence is critical in this sport, and you're going to have a lot more of it if you didn't waste any time in the gym missing lifts, Bottom fine, you should never miss a lift in the gym, ever. If you are missing lifts, then you are not programming correctly. PROGRAM FOR SUSTAINABLE PROGRESS When I'm planning my programming, the most important thing fm thinking is, “how con | make this work for as jong as humanly possible” {1 don't like hopping from one program to another. | want to find something that | enjoy, that works, and that will keep working for a long time. With that in mind, there are a few rules | have when programming for sustainable progress: 1. Program light. Guys like Jim Wendler, Chad Wesley Smith and Paul Carter will all tell you the same thing. You need to give yourself some room to run and build some momentum. You're not wasting time by starting lighter than necessary, you're setting yourself up for success down the road. x Program slow. it's a lot more productive to plan for a 201b PR and hit a 25ib PR than it Is to plan for a 60Ib PR and start missing reps in your second cycle. You have to be patient and enjoy the ride. Think Tortoise & the Hare here. » Cycle the intensity. The best way I've found to do this has been to manipulate number of sets, rather than the rep range. A set of 5 at 85% one week and a set of 3 at 90% the next week isn't really cycling the intensity, just the weight on the bar. S sets of S one week at 75% and 3 sets of § the ‘next week at 80% has worked much better for me.DO MORE WITH LESS ve always been a big believer in keeping things as simple as absolutely possible. If! can accomplish the same goal by doing either less work, or doing it in a less complicated way, then of course that’s the way I'm going to do it. 1. Focus on compound exercises. Choose the exercises that let you lift the ‘most weight through the greatest range of motion using the most muscle mass. Nothing new here. 2. Limit your assistance work. A great quote | first heard from Mike Tuchscherer: “if you want to squat mare, squat more,” te always had great results sticking to a small number of movements. If | can drive my bench and press up by benching and pressing tm not going to bother with inclines, floor presses, or dumbbells. 3. Don't go heavier than you need to. I'm not saying don't go heavy, but if you can get stronger lifting at 70-80%, then why bother training at 90%+? Always ask yourself, “what's the least amount of work ! con do and still get the desired training effect?” You'l suffer a lot less injuries and your recovery is going to improve as well.