Lessons from Westside

[Rob18]

You have mentioned in the past that Louie Simmons is a good resource for powerlifting. I have read all of his articles on their website and realized that I fell into the deep end of the pool. I also realized how hard you had to work to make this stuff sound simple (thank you). Is there anything that a guy that wants to get strong in the Crossfit total can take home from Westside Barbell?

Sorry if the question was too general.

Rob

[Mark Rippetoe]

The dynamic effort techniques are extremely useful for anyone wanting to get stronger. CFT benefits from their application immediately. They are an incredible tool, and in my opinion are the major contribution the Louie has made to modern strength and conditioning.

[h k]

Can the olympic lifts completely substitute doing dynamic effort squat/bench/deadlift? I've been wondering what the differences might be or what problems might arise... the differences in movement patterns came to my mind first, but I feel like while they're different they still have carry over especially for the deadlift and the squat but not so much to benching because of the fundamental difference of jerking and pressing. This makes me wonder if push pressing as an ancillary exercise would do the same trick as dynamic bench pressing.

[Dave I]

The dynamic effort techniques are extremely useful for anyone wanting to get stronger. CFT benefits from their application immediately. They are an incredible tool, and in my opinion are the major contribution the Louie has made to modern strength and conditioning.

I am still nailing down the form with Power Cleans (still trying to perfect getting the bar to touch my thigh before throwing it up), however I really enjoy the explosiveness of it and think I would like to incorporate more explosive exercises. I think people who skip out on Power Cleans are really missing out on a fun exercise. Anyway, I degress . . . Is that something that you would recommend adding after the novice stage? Should I be scanning the Westside Barbell articles by Louie Simmons for more on Dynamic Effort (DE) training, or are there other recommended sources for when and how to add DE training?

-Cheers

[Matt Thomas]

I followed the EliteFTS beginner routine for 6 weeks and my lifts went up pretty drastically. I want to try to finish the whole 12 weeks, but I started to get some pretty good tendonitis. I usually fall apart after about 6 weeks. Anyways, the point is I found their methods to be very productive.

I should mention however that I, like you, wanted to work on my Crossfit Total, so I worked in some overhead press into the max effort bench days in place of things like board presses.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Westside stuff can be very confusing and if you read articles from 2003 they will often contradict an article from 2007. Louie has stated several places though that the "westside" methods are still continuously evolving and getting tweaked over time, which explains some of the discrepancies in his writings. I'm not an expert on "Westside" but my routine is loosely based on Westside principles. I don't think there really is one standard template that applies to all lifters...westside is by definition an advanced program for advanced lifters and most advanced lifters require alot of individualization for their programming. If you try and get into alot of the calculations for band tension and all that stuff based on Louie's articles you can easily get bogged down and confused. For a CFT something like this might work:

1)Heavy Press or Bench Press exercise or variant, Assistance work for press
2)Heavy Squat/Deadlift or variant, assistance work
3)Speed Press 10 x 3, assistance
4)DE Box Squat, Speed Pull or clean or snatch, assistance

This is a very general template but you get the idea...once heavy for press, once heavy for squat/dead, once explosive for press, once explosive for squat/dead.

I personally don't like a constant rotation of exercises for 1RM's on ME days, like westside advocates. I much prefer to stick with the one contested lift and rotate the rep ranges (1-5).

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Can the olympic lifts completely substitute doing dynamic effort squat/bench/deadlift? I've been wondering what the differences might be or what problems might arise... the differences in movement patterns came to my mind first, but I feel like while they're different they still have carry over especially for the deadlift and the squat but not so much to benching because of the fundamental difference of jerking and pressing. This makes me wonder if push pressing as an ancillary exercise would do the same trick as dynamic bench pressing.

I am not an expert in anything but I will go out on a limb and state that push presses and DE Benches are not interchangeable exercises. Push presses will act to overload the triceps a bit but in a way that has more carryover to the press than to the bench since there are lots of other movements that can be done with more weight to overload the top portion of a bench press.

I guess the debate is still raging about the speed deadlift vs clean/snatch. There are many instances of lifters improving their deadlift in both cases so I would say just pick your poison and train it hard and be consistent. The important thing is is to start moving weight fast if you are not right now.

[rocko]

KSC:
How would you adjust the template you suggested in your previous post to a 3 times a week training program?

[EIC]

KSC:
How would you adjust the template you suggested in your previous post to a 3 times a week training program?

How about:

Day 1 --> Heavy squat/dl; assistance

Day 2 --> Heavy press; assistance

Day 3 --> Speed squat/dl; speed press

[Rob18]

I was thinking of adding some chain/band weight to the bar at some point. However, I wanted to do so in a simple uncomplicated manner. Is this possible or nessisary? If so, any suggestions?


Rob