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Thread: Why You Chose Your Current Training Style.....

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
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    Default Why You Chose Your Current Training Style.....

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    Curious as to what everyone's current training style is and why they believe it suits them the best and maybe your lift improvements since you started it. Just trying to get a good discussion going here.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2009
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    well I'm 32 and weak.
    so decided to try and be strong.

    still trying.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by BruteForce View Post
    Curious as to what everyone's current training style is and why they believe it suits them the best and maybe your lift improvements since you started it. Just trying to get a good discussion going here.
    My style is a blend of material from guys like Louie Simmons, Dave Tate, Jim Wendler, Bill Starr, Rip, Pavel, and so on. I tend to draw almost exclusively from either the old-school lifters or from the Russian/Eastern European methods, but I'm always keeping my ears open for anything useful.

    I like to focus on simple routines and progressions that concentrate on a handful of money exercises. That covers a lot of ground, but it's always effective.

    Lately (the last year and a half or so) I've been playing with a lot of auto-regulatory methods, drawing on some of the stuff Mike Tuschscherer's put out. I think that keeping my daily workouts more fluid leads to much better results than going in with precisely-planned sets and reps.

    Actual loading depends on what I'm doing at the time - shooting for more volume, trying to push the lifts up, or just taking some down-time for my beat-up self to recover a little.

    I don't have any one weekly routine that I do, but instead I tend to rotate between full-body, push-pull, or upper-lower setups as I see fit and as my needs change. In fact, whether I'm doing four days a week, or only lifting three and rotating, I can't recall the last time I deviated from that format.

    My current training block looks like this:

    Workout A

    Front Squats - using 5/3/1 numbers
    Incline BP - using a Hepburn progression from 6x3 to 6x5
    Triceps fluff

    Workout B

    Deadlift - using 5/3/1 numbers
    Chins - using same Hepburn progression
    Curlz

    Workout C

    Box Squat - 3 sets of 5 ramping
    Bench Press - using 5/3/1 numbers
    Close-grip BP with fatbar

    Workout D

    Power Cleans - ramping up to top set of 3/2/1 (by week)
    GMs - for sets of 8
    Chins - ramping to top set of 3/2/1, then two back-off sets of 5-6

    I'm lifting M/W/F, so those four workouts are rotated through. I'm starting to incorporate a set of back raises/hypers and a set of weighted abs before and after each workout. I also do 20-30 minutes of high-intensity conditioning afterwards, which I drop or scale back to light cardio if I'm feeling tanked on any given day.

    Next block will switch me to basically the same thing, only with ME and DE work subbed into an upper-lower schedule.

  4. #4

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    Echoing what PMDL said.

    I learned a lot from Pavel about why Eastern Bloc periodization works. Pavel also made a lot of the stuff from those Russian coaches and scientists easy to digest.

    Dan John is a great guy and a great coach and his writing spurred me along and away from HIT, but I'm not so enamored with the idea that weightlifting and front and overhead squats are key anymore.

    Jack Reape has been a great source of information on actually preparing for competition. I think Louie Simmons is an innovator, but I've come to be very careful when deciding when what he's writing applies to me.

    Rip and Dr. Kilgore changed my training life when they explained what was going on in the main lifts more thoroughly than anyone had before.

    My programming and thinking about volume and intensity are very much influenced by the Russians: Zatsiorsky, Verkoshansky, Sheyko, Smolov, mostly as distilled by Pavel. Jack Reape convinced me to read Dr. Mel Siff's Supertraining (Dr. Verkoshanksy had his name removed from that work) and I am a great admirer of the late Dr. Siff.

    "Russian" training suits me. It focuses heavily on doing the main lifts a lot with very sparing use of assistance. Some people find it crushingly boring, but I love the focus. I'm attracted to the idea of first principles from which all else flows, so I like just doing a small handful of very effective lifts and having them (usually) cover all the bases. "If you want to squat/press/pull a lot...then squat/press/pull a lot."

  5. #5
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    Like PMDL and Gary, I focus on the basic lifts.

    I only discovered SS recently but it seems to echo my own ideas a lot so I lately I've been recommending it to beginners who ask my advice. My own advice wasn't all that different.

    I've been lifting just over 6 years, starting at 41 and I've tried various things in that time. I used to do higher reps to begin with, sets in the 8-10 rep range. I also did more assistance work, machines and so on, than I do now.

    Lately I've been playing with the Olympic lifts a bit, but mostly on the side. I concentrate mainly on the 3 powerlifts along with chin and press.

    Most of my training has been built along a template similar to this:

    Mon
    Heavy squat
    Military press
    Weighted chins

    Wed
    Snatch variations
    Heavy bench
    Leg assistance work

    Fri
    Clean variations
    Deadlift
    Medium bench

    My bread and butter rep scheme has been the 5x5, but with occasional forays into 8x3 or 5x10. I've based a lot of my training around Dr. Squat's ideas of ABC training, periodisation and compensative acceleration, especially since my progress started to plateau about 3 years ago.

    I recently ran a very productive basic Sheiko and managed a few PRs, so I'm doing another one in a couple of weeks, aiming to peak in April. At the moment I'm doing a lot of 3 rep sets, aiming for speed and as many sets as I can before I start slowing down, generally 5-8 with the top weight.

    I compete about once or twice a year and I'm the current 100kg national PL champion, mostly by default I guess. My numbers weren't great.

  6. #6
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    I have a fucked-up, mutant back. Basic compound lifts help this a lot.

  7. #7
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    Nov 2009
    Location
    Tennessee
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    I am currently doing the Texas method:

    Monday
    squat 5 x 5
    bench 5x5
    pullups
    hyperextensions

    Wednesday
    front squats 3 sets of 5 @ 80%
    standing press 3 sets of 5
    deadlift 1 x 5

    Friday

    squat 1 x 5
    bench 1x5
    pendlay rows 5 sets of 6-7 reps (i am learning how to power clean
    -hope to sub rows with cleans soon)
    close grip pullups for biceps
    tricep stuff

    cardio and ab work twice weekly

    I am from the bodybuilding world. Am 45 and a nattie. Want to take 2010 and
    just spend my training time uping all my 1 RM. Squats and deadlifts are coming
    along well. Benching not so much. Hoping that in 2011 I will be stronger and will be able to train with heavier weights. Really enjoying this type of training.

    murrie

  8. #8
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    Nov 2009
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gary Gibson View Post

    I learned a lot from Pavel about why Eastern Bloc periodization works. Pavel also made a lot of the stuff from those Russian coaches and scientists easy to digest.
    Gary, where does Pavel do this? Tried reading some Russian stuff and it's way over my head.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by PJFleck View Post
    Gary, where does Pavel do this? Tried reading some Russian stuff and it's way over my head.
    Power to the People and Beyond Bodybuilding are both full of gems.

  10. #10
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    Nov 2009
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    Exeter, NH
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    starting strength coach development program
    Quote Originally Posted by PMDL View Post
    Power to the People and Beyond Bodybuilding are both full of gems.
    I liked Pavel's "Relax Into Stretch" and "Super Joints" books as well. They are short and sweet!

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