Frantz makes every lift his punk bitch.
As I stated above, there's only one factor that remains constant in this type of routine, and there have been many people with different takes. I've listed some here for the purpose of illustration, and to give you an idea of the types of splits one could enjoy with this manner of madness.
Bednarski and Chaillet
Olympic weightlifting badass Bob Bednarski followed a system like this all the time, and it worked wonders for him. With it, Bednarski was able to shatter the world records in both the clean and press (456 lbs) and the clean and jerk (486 lbs) at a bodyweight of 242 at a time when the Soviets dominated Olympic weightlifting, and this was pretty much the last hurrah of the US Olympic weightlifting program. Bednarski apparently used a ton of routines throughout his career, but this is the one he used to shatter the world record.(Purposeful Primitive 28-30)
Monday Clean and Press 350-385x3 (5 sets)
Tuesday Snatch 305-315x3 (5 sets)
Wednesday Squat 450-500 x3 (2 sets)
Thursday Clean and jerk 405-435x1 (5 sets)
Friday off
Saturday Total on 2-3 lifts Work up to a max single on 2 or 3 lifts
Sunday Squat 450-500x3 (2 sets)
Mark Chaillet also used this on the deadlift, where he'd spend one day a week working up to a max on the that lift. (PP 39) I don't have the details on this, but he was a major proponent of working up to a max incrementally, hitting it, and then quitting it. Although there are likely dozens of internet geniuses currently claiming that maxing every workout is nonsensical and idiotic, Chaillet managed to utilize this scheme to become one of only four men in history to deadlift 800 in four different classes and set 10 records in 4 different classes.
The best part of T-Nation
Dan JohnDan John (of T-Nation fame) is also a proponent of this style of routine, and he outlined a far more intense program than those listed above on the aforementioned, now infamous, site. (John) His program is as follows:
Week One: 7 sets of 5
Set One: 225 for five
Set Two: 245 for five
Set Three: 265 for five
Set Four: 275 for five (getting tired, tough lift, might not be able to get another set)
Set Five: 235 for five (nice refreshing drop in intensity)
Set Six: 255 for five (nice, challenging set…but not hellish)
Set Seven: Either 275 or 285, depending on spotters and energy
Week Two: 6 sets of 3
Week Three: 5-3-2
Week Four: Off!
Frankly, I've never tried this workout, but I like where he's going with it. He, of course, recommends using compound lifts for this type of a routine, with a split something like the following:
Monday: Bench Press or Incline Bench Press
Tuesday: Row or Row Variation
Wednesday: Squat
Thursday: Off
Friday: Military Press
Saturday: Curl, Deadlift, Whatever
These silly bastards actually used to put useful information in their mag.
Another type of one-lift-a-day workout about which I've read (I think from an Ironman mag in the 1990s) utilized the following rep scheme on every single lift:
10-8-6-4-2-2-4-6-8-10
That might not seem like it's all that bad, but the goal is to make your ascending poundages considerably heavier than they were going in- and that's fucking hard. I used to do this all the time with squats, and loved it. As I recall, I'd do something like the following, when I was a 134 lb wrestler in college:
135-225-275-315-365-385-395-385-315-225.
It didn't always work out that way, but as I recall, that's generally how it went down.
My Personal Take
Now, of course, I always take shit a bit further, and I find myself using this type of a day for any of the above three reasons- just as my motivation varies, so does my execution. On days where I'm simply loving the lift, which are usually power cleans or partial squats, I'll spend as much time as I feel like just pounding the shit out of a given weight, and then cap it off with a max effort. There's no science to this- it's just me enjoying the lift. I'll usually do this on a Saturday and do whatever rep scheme I want, taking as much or as little rest between lifts. Occasionally, I'll go so far as to bring a book and something to eat to the gym, and just pound away on it until I decide I'm done, reading and eating in between lifts (on something like partial squats). Frankly, I love those days, and if I had my druthers I'd do them more often, but my gym's hours currently don't afford me that luxury. By the end of those workouts, however, I'm happy, exhausted, and feel like I could eat rocks and shit gravel.
Blast from the past.
Practice makes perfect. I'm going to go practice.
He just shit himself.
Sources:
K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer. The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance. Psych Rev. 100; (3): 363-406, 1993.
Gallagher, Marty. Purposeful Primitive. West Chester: Dragon Door Publications, 2008.
John, Dan. The "One Lift a Day" Program.
Dan John is one of the few authors making T-Nation worth a shit now, especially since TC rarely writes anymore. He's a nice guy, too, but his books beat the shit out of his T nation articles--in writing quality and information. Check out, "From the Ground Up." It's a free E-book at danjohn.net.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of Louie Simmon's and his support of the law of diminishing returns?
ReplyDeleteI usually come back to a single lift program every couple of months and work at it for a while. They're pretty fun. I usually do them the way you do- triples, doubles and singles.
ReplyDeleteI generally use the usual suspects: Bench, squat, dead and clean & press.
I second the recommendation to check out Dan John's stuff further. It might look pretty simple, but it's rarely very fucking easy.
ReplyDeleteExample: The Litvinov Workout
http://www.davedraper.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/18812/post/last/
Just back up to the part where the fucker front squats 405 *before* running balls out 400's.
O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN! O-BAMA! YES WE CAN!
ReplyDeleteLyell- His theory is sound. My training style wouldn't ever really have that come into play, however, as I constantly rotate exercises, volume, and frequency.
ReplyDeleteI think this blog entry is true, but only for white people. I mean, if you notice, white people are the most modifiable and educable people on earth. They of course could modify their body to any physical extreme they wanted.
ReplyDeleteNegroes, like many other wild animals, are spat out of the womb almost totally ready to survive in the wild. They have whatever strength they're going to have by age 17, and after that they don't seem to progress much. They'll come into the gym and keep benching 220 for years and never seem to improve.
I guess that's what happens when you have inferior physiology.
yet another nut-job.....
ReplyDeleteyeah, lamar grant was born deadlifting 688 and just stayed there like a pussy.
ReplyDeletemanbearpig,
ReplyDeleteCouldn't have said it better. Lamar is one of the greatest out there.
Anonymous, you dumb fuck.
ReplyDeleteI think there are far better ways at training than this, as Jamie probably agrees. Sure there were some strong guys who got strong this way, but there's far more strong men who would never had considered this type of training.
Jamie, do you still clean and press? What's your heaviest on that?
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering: Did Bednarski work up to those sets?
ReplyDeleteSurely he did. I'm not sure 2 sets of 3 would do a whole lot, haha.
And great pictures in this post.
@ Anonymous racist - people don't want to hear your racist rants here on CnP. There are other web pages that specialise in that sort of thing, ie, www.chimpout.com is a favorite that comes to mind. Or you can write direct to me, i've got some fucking great nigger jokes!
ReplyDeleteI've been following the john broz squat method for about a month now and squated 6 days this past week. I was sore as shit and hated getting out of bed in the morning but I'm burning fat like a mother fucker and my legs are getting stronger with all this "Overtraining".
ReplyDeleteI think the best thing about beating the shit out of a lift is the ability to become comfortable with the exercise. I have gotten so much more comfortable squating recently and my form continues to improve with improved poundages.
It's funny how so many of you who mention having success with a training protocol have only been doing said protocol for a month. Do any of you ever stick with anything for more than a month at a time?
ReplyDeleteI think my max clean and press is in the neighborhood of 295, limited, of course, by my form.
ReplyDeleteGlen:
ReplyDeleteSome of us don't have programs.
I don't.
I have an outline.
Been with the "scheme" for several months now.
I totally agree with you, though; a lot of people jump off programs way too quickly.
Sigh...I forgot some other douche can post under the same name. Amazingly more cowardly than simply posting anonymously.
ReplyDeleteGlen: I think that's a great insight. Training should be a lifelong pursuit, not simply a new three week training "program" every 3 weeks. I think most people don't have really focused goals or aren't recognizing what the goals actually are.
Eric tell me a joke bro.
ReplyDeleteI used to do pyramid type sets a lot for chest and shoulders...for some reason they never worked as well for pulling exercises. But I currently do these type of rep schemes with squats. It allows you to work different ranges of motion in one session albeit while keeping fairly heavy and not totally dropping to a warmup weight.
ReplyDeleteNaggers do tend to stagnate on lifts, though. I've seen one boog benching the same weight and stay the same size for years...but he walks around with his lats flexed like he's Serge Olivia or something. As a race,spooks are generally too lazy--or dumb--to evolve. Seriously.