Thread: Power Lifters....

Originally Posted by TBAR

Lets say you power lifters had only 1 hour TOPS that you could spend in the gym a day, 5 days per week. What would your workouts look like??

Thanks

powerlifting

Great reply! Keep working on that post count bud.

2 days on, 2 days off. Probably an upper/lower split.

Conjugate periodization pairing strength with endurance, and power with hypertrophy.

E.g.

Mon - Lower Power/Hypertrophy
Tue - Upper Strength/Endurance
Wed - Off
Thu - Off
Fri - Lower Strength/Endurance
Sat - Upper Power/Hypertrophy
Sun - Off
Mon - Off

Repeat for the length of the program.

Strength could either be warmups leading to a 3/5rm attempt, or a 1rm attempt on main compounds like bench, squat, row, dead.

Endurance would be 2-3 sets of 15-20 reps with a low rest interval.

Power would be explosive/plyometric/olympic movements focusing on low volume and high velocity. Things like box jumps, speed squats, med ball throws, speed bench/bench throws etc.

Hypertrophy would be moderate/high volume with a moderate rest interval to get some microtrauma going.

At least this is what i've been doing lately with great success (10-20lbs on bench and dead in a monthish). It's based off something a member here called Dale Mabry wrote a while ago. Not sure where that thread is now...

I concur with the above. Use the spare day for some cardio/conditioning/active recovery stuff.

I used to do like this

Tuesday - Deadlifts and back assistance work.
Wednesday - Bench and assitance work
Saturday - Squat and leg assistance work
Sunday - Bench and assistance work

Wednesday being my heavier bench day and sometimes used Sundays for close grip benching.

I don't know if you are looking for a rep range for each day, but that would be determined by if you are getting ready for competition. Obviously warmup, and after that reps ranged from 2-6. Lots of triples and doubles. I hardly went for 1 rep max lifts unless I was trying to see where I stand, or training for an event.

Like Gaz said, do a 4 day upper/lower split. Train strength for 2 days and power for 2 days. Get in the accessory work you feel you need. You should be able to do this in under 1hr.

Pretty similar to Westside...

Thanks for the info guys. I'm actually on a cut and looking to dump the weight without hours of cardio, not to mention maintaining most of my muscle mass in the process.

Hey Trojan, what do you mean by "assistance work"?

Thanks again

Originally Posted by Gazhole

2 days on, 2 days off. Probably an upper/lower split.

Conjugate periodization pairing strength with endurance, and power with hypertrophy.

E.g.

Mon - Lower Power/Hypertrophy
Tue - Upper Strength/Endurance
Wed - Off
Thu - Off
Fri - Lower Strength/Endurance
Sat - Upper Power/Hypertrophy
Sun - Off
Mon - Off

Repeat for the length of the program.

Strength could either be warmups leading to a 3/5rm attempt, or a 1rm attempt on main compounds like bench, squat, row, dead.

Endurance would be 2-3 sets of 15-20 reps with a low rest interval.

Power would be explosive/plyometric/olympic movements focusing on low volume and high velocity. Things like box jumps, speed squats, med ball throws, speed bench/bench throws etc.

Hypertrophy would be moderate/high volume with a moderate rest interval to get some microtrauma going.

At least this is what i've been doing lately with great success (10-20lbs on bench and dead in a monthish). It's based off something a member here called Dale Mabry wrote a while ago. Not sure where that thread is now...

Very well explained! I do have a question though. On the two "upper" days, you do back and chest on the same day, right? Thanks

Yes, in essence, its back and chest though most think of movements and planes rather than bodyparts so its better to think upper push-pull on the same day.

If you're a powerlifter, you definitely want to train the bench press or some type of pressing movement on those upper days.

Accessory work is anything that isn't a powerlifting movement but can help your performance on those movements. So things like lat pulls for the back would count as accessory work. Westside does upper back work every day of the week IIRC.

TBAR- I am talking about additional training to go along with the main focus of the day. Powerlifting as you know is squat, bench, and deadlifts. You should be making one of those three lifts the focus of each workout. So on your squat day for assistance work you might pick leg press, leg extentions, leg curl, or hack squat machine. Benching you might pick weighted dips, tricep movements, pec deck, etc.. Back days you might do seated rows, back extentions, pull downs. All the assistance work is just in addition to the main focus of the day, and shouldn't take nearly as much of your time as the lift you are focusing on. For example my team used to spend 2 hours squating on a Saturday morning, and then maybe 20 minutes on other odds and ends....sometimes less time....say 3 working sets of a few different movements.

Hope this helps.

Makes sense. Thank ya sir.

I've been trying to mix it up with the newer push/pull/legs types of workouts... Honestly i haven't given it enough of a chance to work and traditional is what i know. I'm still looking into what Gazhole is saying, which makes sense as well. I may just do traditional for 6 weeks, then try the other or vise/versa.

Yeah, there would be a press and a pull in there on upper body day. Which movements those are depends on preference, goals, and how hard you hit it.

If i go hard on Military Press on the hypertrophy day, i'll likely not repeat it for high reps on the endurance day for example. I might even put some machine work in there.

That template is fairly similar to westside. Its working pretty well for me.

Westside trains strength/hypertrophy and power/endurance together IIRC. I think there's something about the ME lifts that makes it tougher to do high volume endurance work during the rest of the workout.

Other than that, yeah, it's really similar.