markos

Overtraining...............sigh Now on a serious note, my lifters want to know all about these low reps and long breaks theyre meant to be doing lol On a 12 week program, we start with 12's for 2 weeks, then 10's for 2 weeks, then 8's for 2 weeks, you get the point, they only hit singles once in a 3 month program Because you guys see the RESULTS of their training, being a 1RM, you assume that all they do. Max, Martin and Jack have just started their prep for ProRawFive, not fun doing such high reps. Dan America is competing next weekend with Zoran, Alex, Jason etc, they are all doing PB's this week. We have lifters in different stages of comp prep, all doing different things. Today Dan walked in, warmed up, benched 180kg and went home. Max is in Week 1, he has been training for over 2 hours, both were benching today. In a 12 week prep I guarantee we do more reps than 99% of regular lifters AND use more weight than 99% of regular lifters, all within the program, the guys do 40 rep sets early on. Zoran deadlifted 305kg@110kg last night. Our program is very developed, its not 5 x 5 or 3 x 8, every exercise is hand picked, as are the reps, depending on the stage. Comments like our boys do singles with 20 minute rest are erroneous.

Because it was designed for high school kids, who by any definition, are beginners

So what do you think of it Dan? The purpose of a program is to make you stronger. How long have you been doing it? How much stronger are you? Nothing else matters, nor does it matter what anyone thinks. For a lifter that can go the distance, I use 1. Beginners program 2. 5 x 5 3. PPP 4. PTC Method

Jack sometimes takes 20 minutes between sets. It depends on the movement, the stage of the program and the weight used. For a regular gym program 90 seconds is heaps

What the f**k is a mad cow? Bill Starr started 5 x 5. He chose that magic rep/set scheme because he designed the program for high school kids, he figured the P.E teachers were too dumb to remember anything more elaborate. He also designed it with incline press and not bench, but most schools didnt have one so he switched to flat bench. Now that you know the origin, what do you think of it?

I have a female client, trained for 5 weeks. Last week she benched a very easy 55kg, I took off the small plates, put on a 20kg plate to make it 60kg and it buried her. Five days latter, I progressively load the bar with small plates, get up to 60kg, told her it was 50kg and to only do 1 rep. She smashes it. I ask her to rest and we'll try again before going to 60kg. She smashes it again. She asks if we are going to 60kg now. I tell her shes just done it, twice. Everyone watching was laughing at her. I first encountered this phenomena when I was around 22yo with a training partner who was mentally weak. I've been using it on weak clients for decades

Absolute failure. We have 3 strengths, the ability to raise a weight, the ability to hold a weight and the ability to lower a weight. Positive, Static and Negative So to do a set to absolute failure, you rep until you fail, then someone raises the bar for you to lockout, lower it half way, hold it until you cant stop it lowering. Then raise it back to the top again and lower the bar slow and controlled, when you can no longer lower the bar controlled, usually 1-2 reps, you have reached absolute (muscular) failure. The best lifters I've seen can do reps when an average lifter has stopped long ago. Most have pre conceived ideas of how strong or weak they are and "know" when they will fail, history tells them so. I often watch an average lifter miss a rep he should never have missed, but mentally he was done. I'm lucky I get to work with some incredible lifters and get to see this stuff, I cant ever recall seeing it in a commercial gym, and I worked and trained in them for 25 years. Thats why I said this discussion is not for here. It actually doesnt need to be either, this is simply a regular gym goers discussion board

Failure is a state of mind, too deep for this thread or forum even.

Marty is our best deadlifter, check out his shins

But its NOT 3 x 8 if you only do 1-2 work sets, 3 sets with the same weight is the correct way, 1-2 sets is crap if youre not going to absolute positive failure every set, and I know youre not doing that because you train alone. A couple of sets at 80% is not enough work to improve unfortunately

If you like to ramp the weight up and reps down, which is fine if youre not interested in absolute strength gains, then a system I prefer is the pyramid but with "control" reps up and "everything you got" on the way down. 40kg x 5 60kg x 5 80kg x 5 100kg x 5 80kg x 11 60kg x 12 40kg x 12

The problem I see with what your doing is tracking progress. If your getting 8 on lighter sets then 5 on the only work set youre doing, thats not much work, is it? I'd rather see bench - 80kg x 5,5,5 than bench 60kg x 8, 70kg x 8, 80kg x 5

Great question, but I was amazed last night. Firstly, the hardest set I've ever witnessed was actually performed by an SAU forum member, Nick Rankin. He squatted 160kg x 20, no wraps no belt. He could easily have quit at 5, it was that hard. He hit every upright in the power rack, he was stumbling, I thought he would pass out, but he never quit. Most impressive lift I saw in the gym was Max at 16 weighing 70kg, take out 125kg on his back like a squat, then jerk it overhead, behind his neck, stunned everyone. But next, he didnt dump the bar on the ground like most, he lowered it to his shoulders and re racked it, no belt, nothing. This was before he switched to powerlifting Last night a guy from a Crossfit gym near town trained at PTC, he was there for over 3 hours, he foam rolled everything, including forearms, used bands to stretch every square inch of his body, it was amazing. The lifting he did was overhead squats with 25kg x 3 and push press from the rack with 25kg x 3. I've never seen anyone do less for longer

lol, I was going to insert a video here of Vicki squatting 110kg tonight, but I'm a little scared bozo might put his back out throwing the computer across the room

We have a comp at PTc on Sunday the 8th, GPC Melbourne Cup. I have 3 new clients competing at their first sanctioned meet, Jason, Alex and Arthur. This morning Jason squatted 200kg@75kg on his last heavy session before the meet

Daniel America tore his pec in January, the tear was 3cm wide, 3cm deep and 3cm long. He has reverted to reverse grip on his benching, and today benched 170kg. His PB was 167.5kg, the set before his pec tore in January. He will bench over 180kg on September 8th at Melbourne Cup.

Zoran on the 305kg program, peaking for September 8th Deadlifts - 290kg x 1 x 3 sets Block pulls - 220 x 3, 240 x 3, 260 x 3, 280 x 1, 300 x 1 Deficit pulls - 240 x 5, 210 x 8 Thats the whole workout

Okay, I have no secrets. Martin deadlifts today, he is on the 290kg program Regular deadlifts - 145kg x 12 x 3 sets Block pulls - worked up to 270kg x 3 Deficit deadlifts - worked up to 200kg x 12 Bent rows - worked up to 120kg x 8 DB rows - worked up to 60kg x 10 This was Week 1 of his program, designed to peak on November 17 Thats everything in full, thats what Martin is doing for deadlifts, ignore the weight, I have listed all the exercises, reps, sets (sort of) Is there any more information you require........without a video lol By the way, the majority of our PL team is doing this

Bozo, calm down, youre frustrated. In the 6 years since I've had PTC I've NEVER been able to replicate on line efforts with in gym ones. Thats a fact I have to live with. Maybe its me, maybe I'm a crap online coach, or maybe the cure isnt in the words I type. Telling someone to do 3 x 8 isn't spectacular information or new, its been around for a hundred years, so is that what you want me to say? Do you think that will make you stronger? I'm hesitant because when you fail you'll say my programming or advice is crap. The videos which you seem to dislike are used to demonstrate that my coaching does work for my lifters at my gym. How else can I possibly put that? In the beginning I was criticised because our lifts were gym lifts, not competition lifts in a proper environment. So in 2010 I took my lifters to our first ever meet, CAPO State Titles, they set 54 National Records, so everyone shut up. With guys who struggle to understand the effort one must put out to achieve anything, they attack my lifters, coaching, gym and now vids, all through frustration, sigh Here you go Bozo, do 5 x 5 regular deadliest, increase the weight when you make the reps. Dont tell anyone else though, but thats the BEST set/rep scheme Are we friends again?

He only pulled 200kg x 1 lol I guess he weighs high 80's low 90's Bozo, its not the reps or sets thats the key, regardless of what info I give on the internet, your not going to match the results from our gym, with 2 coaches overlooking everything our lifters do. Another boy Alex, I've mentioned him before, trained for a few years, managed a 180kg squat. In 10 weeks he's added 40kg, but this 220kg squat is nowhere near a max effort.

Once or twice a week, depends how many sessions he does, but thats not why he deadlifted 200kg I should mention Phil is not training in the PL section, he has no interest in PL, he is training with me. I dont normally bother posting what regular clients do, but maybe I should. Chris, Jacks mom, started 5 weeks ago, never set foot in a gym before. On Wednesday she benched 55kg x 1, squatted 60kg x 10 Anyway, thats off topic in here

I have a client, Phil, started around 3 weeks ago, in his 30's, trained on and off when he was younger. He started with 120kg x 5 on the deads, about average for the first timer here, tonight he pulled 200kg

It absolutely will, having your hips in the correct position as you approach lockout is critical

Oh, we call that yanking. I feel its a very dangerous practice. The problem with yanking is your hips move out of position in the initial stages, making lockouts extremely difficult. Children out there reading this, "dont be a yanker"