Getting Ahead of Yourself

When I first started lifting years ago, I was convinced of a few things, things I knew as truths. I knew that chicks were into big muscles. I knew that you need a huge bench press, because that was the only thing people ever asked about. I knew that training hard, like I knew all the pros trained, was how I had to train if I wanted to get results.

Training three days a week? That’s stupid. All the guys in the magazines are in the gym 2-3 hours a day, 6-7 days a week. Three days is chump change.

The logic behind that thought process is easy enough to follow: if the guys at the top are doing it, and you’re working on the assumption you want to be big and strong like they are, then you should do what they do.

If only it were that easy.

Let’s think about the process of adaptation for a moment. What matters is what adaptation implies: you start out in one condition and end up in another. You start out untrained, and over time your body changes itself in response to training. Those changes are important, and you can’t neglect them

We make the assumption that advanced is better with the assumption that Beginning Lifter will respond the same way as Advanced Lifter. Not all people will respond to the same stimulus in the same way. Complexity for the sake of complexity is not a virtue.

About 4-6 years ago when Westside-inspired “conjugate periodization” was all the rage. Everywhere you looked, people were sporting shaved heads and goatees and box squatting in Chuck Taylors. If you are/were a competing powerlifter, especially one who competes in equipment, then more power to you. That kind of training is effective.

But it didn’t stop there. It wasn’t long before Westside for…oh I dunno, Fixing The Kitchen Sink…could be found. Hell, even I’m guilty of this back at the apex of the fad (though in my defense, I don’t reject the WSB methodology or the underlying thought processes behind it). It seemed like everybody was doing a Westside-inspired workout – and that includes a whole lot of people that had no business doing it.

Contrary to popular belief, powerlifting is not general strength training. Powerlifting is a sport with specific needs. Geared powerlifting adds a whole extra dimension to that. If you don’t already have a base of strength and general fitness, the last thing you need to do is 1) start lifting in gear or 2) start training like the top guys that lift in gear (especially the multi-ply lifters).

Before the flames start, let me clarify both of these points. When I see, oh I don’t know, 15-16 year old kids who are clearly underweight lifting in multi-ply suits, that’s just wrong. When I see people doing “speed squats” with the bar, that’s wrong. If you’re a competing powerlifter with a base of strength, knock yourself out. It’s none of my business what you do.

The point is that the Westside fad and that geared powerlifting in a wider sense have skewed (badly) how people look at powerlifting and even general strength training.

I always say that strength is a fundamental quality. You can’t move a weight fast if it’s 90% of your max. You can’t do 20 reps with a deadlift if you can’t pick it up off the ground. Strength enables. Get stronger so that a 90% weight becomes a 60% weight, and it’s going to move fast. You don’t need speed work if you don’t have a base of strength. You need to get stronger.

Up until around the late 1990s, definitely by the early noughts when geared lifting really took off, powerlifters used a lot less intensity (percentage of max intensity, not “effort”) and a lot more volume most of the time – whether it was the old linear periodization like Coan was credited with, or just doing a lot of heavy sets of 5-6 reps and following up with good old bodybuilding stuff, these guys weren’t maxing out all the time.

You would find light workouts in the mix, which aren’t unlike dynamic-effort/speed training, but in general the theme was to hammer the lifts hard once or twice a week, then follow up with some bodybuilding-type assistance work. You’d be surprised at how many of those guys in the 70s and 80s were using leg extensions, leg curls, flyes, curls, and other non-functional exercises as mainstays.

Even now if you look at a lot of the IPF and affiliated (single-ply) lifters, they use a lot more volume while keeping the intensity moderate (Sheiko anyone?). Or just look at how Siders trains – he’s got bits and pieces of Westside in there, along with just about everything else. Or look at how Wendler’s 5/3/1 has become all the rage (for good reason): it’s a reaction to all the complicated methods used by geared powerlifters, and it’s about as simple as you can get even though it follows the same basic weekly template as Westside routines.

Again, this isn’t to say Westside-esque routines “don’t work”. What I’m telling you is that the less experience you have and the less gear you plan to use, the less it syncs up with your needs. If you’re a relative beginner trying to get stronger, there are much better choices.

Training should be targeted to your needs and your level of adaptation. Altering your program to resemble a high-level athlete in any sport is not advisable. If you’re training for general strength, the last thing you want to do is ditch a basic and effective routine for something unreasonably complicated. Complicated programs work for advanced lifters because the advanced lifters usually don’t have any other choice in the matter. They have to specialize.

Beginning lifters don’t have those same needs. What a beginner needs is to learn how to lift, to build a base of muscle and strength, and generally to “get in shape to train”. A simple program focusing on progressive overload is fine, and that’s a big reason I harp on the 5×5 methodology so much. If followed through, that system can carry you a long, long way into your training career. But it’s not the only way, just a very good one.

The point is that you shouldn’t get ahead of yourself. The other old maxim applies here: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you’re doing a productive program that’s netting you gains each week, then don’t stop doing it. Stick with simple until simple stops working.