Thread: Maxing every week

No. The heavier the weight the more you fry your cns. It gets to the point that your body can't recover. Before I do a bench meet, I'm working at near max effort for about 4 weeks. My body is so fried after that I can't bench heavy for several weeks after.

Like above. 3 weeks or so is the most you can train 90% or heavier without mixing up the movements, this is whats called the conjugate method. I have posted on this before.

I've seen it myself, I have to be very carefull with the heavy lifting or my weights start to slide or stagnate at best.

Your body is basically just protecting you against yourself before you do get hurt. So to stay above 90% stick to 5 reps or greater approximately, and mix up the movements (i.e. dumbell/barbell, or flat one week decline the next). Even doing 5 reps constantly though I risk either some kind of injury or still sliding weights. You have to learn what your body can handle and work with it.

Hmmm. So they were right. Maxing every week is bad. I do normally switch between BB and DB every week. I just thought since I am bulking that I should stick to the heavy weight and real low reps.

If you are switching, then in theory you are OK other than possible injury. One of my issues was going to failure on every set, that seems to be too taxing for me these days but when I was younger I could do it without issue. I was also of course weaker back then though.

A lot of the Westside theories came from Dr. Zatiorsky, he has at least one book on strength out if you are interested in reading it. The Westside Barbell Club has plenty of stuff online, http://www.elitefts.com has some articles and Q&A. I dont really follow thier stuff but they will talk about the conjugate method, and speed work if that interests you.

Originally Posted by Mudge

If you are switching, then in theory you are OK other than possible injury. One of my issues was going to failure on every set, that seems to be too taxing for me these days but when I was younger I could do it without issue. I was also of course weaker back then though.

A lot of the Westside theories came from Dr. Zatiorsky, he has at least one book on strength out if you are interested in reading it. The Westside Barbell Club has plenty of stuff online, http://www.elitefts.com has some articles and Q&A. I dont really follow thier stuff but they will talk about the conjugate method, and speed work if that interests you.

Very helpful Mudge. Thanks a lot.

Good info even for old timers

Mudge always has good info.

Doing the same exercises but switching between high weight and high speed each week should be okay for the CNS, right? For example, one week I go about 90-95% of my max for 3 sets of doubles, the next week I go about 50-60% of my max for 8 sets of high-speed doubles.