Rep scheme table for explosive lifts

[Harshy]

Hi Mark,

I have been using the rep scheme table from PPST, Table 7-2, for a lot of my intermediate level programming. It works great for squats and press, but I have found it to be more difficult to use for clean & jerk, snatch, and push press.

Do you have a good rule of thumb for light/medium/heavy for 1, 2 or 3 reps, or is this general rep range too small to bother with its own table? I want to plan appropriate light days for clean & jerk and snatch, and I want to find the right load to do doubles on volume day.

Thanks

[Mark Rippetoe]

I cannot find Table 7-2 in PPST3. Page#?

[Harshy]

It is the table under the Starr Model. It is something like this:

%1RM Light Medium Heavy
100 -- -- 1
90 -- 1 3
80 3 5 8
70 5 8 10
60 8 10 15
50 12 20 25+

[Mark Rippetoe]

This table was not designed for the Olympic lifts, which are never done for more than doubles.

[Harshy]

So how should I handle light days? If I want to do 3 sets of doubles on c&j, how do I determine the right weight?

For heavy days, I can experiment with the right weight to find where I should be for doubles.

Thanks again!

[Mark Rippetoe]

Have you read the book? This is not dealt with in the book?

[Harshy]

Yeah, at the beginning of the intensity discussion for intermediate lifters, it says to use the table for the core lifts and quick lifts. Should I just follow the "'Light' should always mean that form is perfect and several sets across at that weight would not amount to a significant training stress." advice?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Again, page # please.

[Kyle Schuant]

I used the very useful and thorough index of PPST3e, which index the OP really needs to discover. I looked up "intensity" then "intermediate trainee and" it referred me to pp108-112.

"In typical strength training programming, the intensity of the work is usually calculated as a percentage of the 1RM for the number of reps performed (Table 7-1). This means that for the core lifts and the explosive lifts [...]"

The book goes on to say that 1RM testing is not useful for novices and intermediates, and that 1RM will be referred to in the book in a "general" and "descriptive" sense. Further, it says that older and competitive lifters' 1RMs will be up and down a lot, and that the coach should consider how weight training and recovery from it impacts on things outside the gym. It then concludes with some talk of how as the person approaches their potential they need less hands-on coaching.

This particular section on intensity and intermediate lifters, which is where we find the table the OP is talking about, does not mention differences between the core and explosive lifts in terms of using the table.

However, pp136-138 outline a Texas Method variant "A hybrid model for Olympic lifting" and says,

"On Monday's volume day, the snatches and cleans & jerks are done for about 15 total repetitions. emphasis during these workouts should be to try to go as heavy as possible without missing reps [...] Fifteen singles work well for clean and jerks and 8 doubles for snatch, although singles can be used effectively to train both lifts. [...] Thursday will have the lifter work up to a training max in each of the two Olympic lifts."

In SS3e there's a whole chapter on the power clean, and at the end (p230) in talking about the snatch, it says that you should do singles or doubles with it, since fives will make you sloppy and you won't get the weight up.

So if you just read around PPST3e's table 7-1 then you get the impression it's used for the quick lifts, too, and maybe you should do 8s or something on light days. But if you read the whole book, or even better both books, you realise that's not so. Perhaps the section could be improved with a paragraph clarifying the quick lifts and the table, but if each section of the book has to repeat the related points of every other section, it's going to get unreadably long. So I would say, just read the whole damn book, then everything makes more sense.

One of the things about these books is that they've so much useful content you miss it on the first or even tenth readthrough. You have to read them, go and apply some stuff, get some results and make some mistakes, come back to the book, "ahhhh... so that is what that part means, now it makes sense," and so on.

[macca01]

Don't mean to hi jack thread nor am I looking to upset anyone.. But if you want to do Olympic lifts you should maybe get an Olympic lifting coach.. It will tear your shoulders apart if your not doing it properly...