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What's up everybody and welcome to the Westside Barbell Podcast.

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I'm your host, Mac McFarland, and with me today is Burley Hawk.

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Burley, how's it going buddy?

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Burley, how are you?

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Good, good.

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I wanted to keep today's podcast on your recent blog over accessories.

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I feel like there's a lot of misconceptions out there on not only the Westside system, but mostly accessories and how that's determined.

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All right, so going into that, when someone says accessory work, what do they usually get wrong from what you've seen?

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Well, the biggest mistake folks make within our system is they don't focus on the basics.

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They get too much into exotic variations right off the bat.

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They think that bands and chains or specialty bars have to be incorporated into every aspect of our training.

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Of course, those tools are a major aspect of our training, but it's not the entire system or it doesn't involve every exercise we do.

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I think the big thing folks make a mistake with is that they don't start with the simple variations.

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They get right into the more complex variations when there's a lot of progress to be made with basic barbell and dumbbell exercises, machine exercises.

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But, yeah, I think that they don't get enough out of the basics.

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They try to get too much into the exotic variations too quick.

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Awesome.

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So with accessories, you got the primary accessory.

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What normally goes with that?

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Because you gave a great example in the blog, but does that always have to be a compound movement or how does someone select what should be done for a primary accessory?

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Yeah, I think a primary accessory should always be a compound movement for the most part, unless there's an injury or some limitation that the athlete can't execute a compound movement.

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Excuse me.

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One of the things that we get questions about often is folks wanting to know, you know, obviously we use a lot of variations within our main movements.

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They wonder, well, if I'm a powerlifter, you know, focusing on competition, how do I maintain a level of competition specificity within the programming?

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And that's really where the primary accessory comes in.

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So, for instance, on max effort lower, we're going to cycle through good mornings, deadlifts, and squats, variations of.

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It's not always going to be competition-based.

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So to maintain competition specificity, we can use that primary accessory exercise.

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So if I have a day where I'm taking a max effort deadlift, I can also then follow up maybe with a 5x5 squat.

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just to make sure I maintain that motor pattern.

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Same thing goes with the bench press, same thing goes with the deadlift.

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If I'm doing a squat, max effort squat, I can have a deadlift primary accessory, you know, competition standard just to focus on that motor pattern and you make sure I'm adjusted to the bar and comfortable with everything there.

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On the flip side, you can also use that primary accessory as a means of addressing specific weaknesses.

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So, you know, say if you've got somebody that's got a posterior chain weakness, we can obviously hammer some heavy good mornings.

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If I have a lifter that maybe has tricep weakness or mid-range weakness, I can work JM presses on the upper days.

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It's really to your discretion to the lifter's needs, but I want to emphasize that.

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I think the most important aspect of the primary accessory is for athletes that need it, maintaining competition specificity.

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A lot of folks think because we box squat and we don't free squat often.

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That's not the case.

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We can totally free squat within that primary accessory as often as we want.

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Man, I love that you just mentioned that because that was going to be my follow-up question.

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Yeah, go ahead.

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Now we can expand on it.

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Yeah, I'd love to get more into that because I've always heard of, well, Westside doesn't do free squats or they don't do front squats.

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Do you want to dive into those two specifically?

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Yeah, I mean, so like I said, the front squats, free squats, we can always incorporate those as the primary accessory.

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And there's a lot of different programming options with the primary accessory.

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We can go total pure repeated effort, or we can go even into heavy efforts working up.

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So for instance, say if I have an athlete that specifically wants to maintain competition specificity, we want to keep that intensity into a range that's at least near competition specificity.

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So maybe we're working threes.

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We can do like a three by three around 75, 80, even maybe 85%, depending on the athlete and their tolerance.

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Same thing goes with the front squat.

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You know, front squat's obviously a great way to address the quads, the interior lower body chain, really a great way to address the trunk as well.

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You know, we can go three by three, we can go five by five.

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We can also go, you know, four by five to eight.

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There's a lot of different set and rep scheme options there, but it just depends on your level of specificity, where you're looking at.

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If it's just, if you're focused just on the motor pattern, maybe five by five.

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If I'm focused on the motor pattern, plus I wanna get to somewhat of a competition range of intensity,

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We can, like I said, go three by three or even, you know, you could go five by two and crank it up to about 80, 85 percent.

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No problem.

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Okay.

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Are they picking that percent from the one rep max that they performed with that movement?

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Or are they doing like a warm up set and then getting into working sets for that?

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Yeah, that's a good question.

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So you can really go either or.

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How I like to go about it, like I said, if you have a percentage, if you already have an established max, you can just draw a percentage and that can be target weights.

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What I typically do with it is like, say, if I got like a four by two or five by two.

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I'll start at maybe 70%, and I'll just start working up and just allow the day to call the wait based on how much energy I have in reserve.

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Because there's going to obviously be exit fatigue from that main movement.

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That can be unpredictable because obviously, cumulative fatigue throughout the week, throughout the month, and obviously the specific fatigue that's incurred based off that main movement.

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So you can draw the specific percentage and use that as a target for all sets.

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It's not a true max effort.

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You know, it's going to be a multiple rep set, but I typically work up to like the heaviest set of two, three, or five that I can possibly do.

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Okay.

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And that's the same for lower and upper body, correct?

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Yeah, yeah.

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And I mean, it plays on the size principle.

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So via fatigue, you're still going to, you know, you're going to recruit the highest threshold motor units based off of fatigue.

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So if I'm doing, if I'm working up to a top set of two, top set of three or top set of five, it's almost like doubling up on your max effort.

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It's not a true max effort, of course, but you're going to be able to check a box that's going to help to advance absolute strength.

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Okay.

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And that primary accessory, is that staying in for the entire three-week wave if someone's running a three-week wave or is that changing weekly?

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No, I would change it weekly and I would change it based on what the main movement is.

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So I look at like if the main movement's a deadlift or a good morning, we can correspond the primary accessory with a squat.

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If it's a good morning, we can do a primary accessory deadlift.

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If it's a deadlift, we can do a primary accessory squat.

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It should just be...

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It's typically, in my opinion, I think it should be the movement that you're struggling with or need the most practice with.

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So if you're not a great deadlifter, not a great squatter, that would be the movement or great bencher.

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Say if you're a poor close grip bencher, poor floor presser, I would probably institute that movement in as my primary accessory so I can obtain some level of mastery or improve my ability to execute that specific movement.

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Okay.

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So then with the upper body, if they're doing a bench, would you recommend going maybe overhead or floor press or maybe dumbbell benching?

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What would you pick for upper body?

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Yeah, honestly, man, any of those really apply.

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I think at least within a month, everybody should at least overhead press one time minimum, whether that's as a max effort or primary accessory.

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And then, yeah, I mean, it could be a floor press.

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Typically, the best way to call it is the primary accessory is where the athlete needs the most work at.

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So say if I got an athlete that has an issue with triceps, issue with lockouts, maybe I have them doing banded press.

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If I have an athlete that has issues off the chest, anterior shoulder weakness, I might have them doing something like dead presses.

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If I have an athlete with a mid-range issue, I might have them doing floor presses.

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Just depends on the athlete's needs and where they need a specific focus on.

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Okay.

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And then one question that comes in a lot is if someone is running that for three weeks, let's say for the tricep weakness, are they switching that for a new exercise for a tricep or are they switching it completely different?

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It just depends.

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I mean, after a three-week wave, I wouldn't even run three weeks.

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I typically change up my primary accessory week to week.

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But if you were to run a three-week wave, I would change off to something else.

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So say if I was pressing with a focus on triceps and lockout for three weeks, I would probably maybe alternate to something that's shoulder-focused.

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just to make sure that we're not, you know, because like Lou used to say, you focus too much on the triceps and the shoulders become weak.

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There has to be balance there.

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And the same thing would kind of go for the, you know, the lower body.

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If I'm, you know, running in three weeks on the squat and say the front squat, so I'm anterior focused, I might do that next.

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If I'm going to run three week wave of my next primary accessory, I might do a good morning or some sort of maybe heavy RDLs or some sort of something that's going to focus on the posterior chain.

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So

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Just try to create balance, just ensure that we're not creating imbalance by focusing too much on one specific aspect of a lift.

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Oh, man.

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There's like two different ways I want to take this podcast now.

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All right.

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So first, if someone has that rep range of five to eight, and let's say they hit set, they hit eight on their first one, and then they bump it up and they barely hit five.

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What do you think is the best course of action next?

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Would it be lowering the weight and trying to get higher reps or how would you handle that?

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Okay.

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So say, yeah, let's, for instance, if we got four sets, the first set, we hit eight, no problem.

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We bump up the weight.

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Second set, we hit five and it's a struggle.

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On the third set, I would keep the weight where it's at.

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I would go for another set of five, knowing that that's probably going to be the last set of five I have.

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If the first set was a struggle, the second attempt might even be just a set of four.

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So...

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So ideally, third set, I hit five, then I'm going to kick back.

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I'm going to drop that weight back to the eight rep and then shoot for the eight reps again.

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And that might even be a scenario, which this is more on the fly that you call this.

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But that final set, when I kick the weight down, I would shoot for eight.

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But I mean, if we get 10, if we get 12, we kind of go for almost an AMRAP, if that makes sense.

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Okay, perfect.

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That's dead on, man.

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And so if we're switching these exercises weekly or keeping them for three weeks, whatever the individual is doing, and we're tracking this data time after time after time, let's say if that gets repeated in 12 weeks, are they trying to up the weight that they did 12 weeks with that main primary accessory?

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Yeah.

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Yeah, ideally.

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Yeah.

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I mean, if everything's dialed in and progress should be shown in all aspects of the training, we should be seeing maximum effort numbers go up, we should see dynamic effort numbers going up, and obviously corresponding velocity as well, dialed in, and then we should also see progress in the accessories.

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Yeah.

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the progress in the accessory work isn't going to be as linear as progress and obviously the maximal efforts might be or even the dynamic efforts because obviously the accessory work is always going to be affected by fatigue.

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Again, it's both the cumulative fatigue over the week and the month and then also the fatigue that's incurred for the main exercise or even the primary accessory exercise.

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So for instance, if we're talking about secondaries, you're rolling dumbbells, your ability to execute with certain weights on rolling dumbbells might be affected by the main and

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It's not going to be as linear, but yeah, over a month's time, especially for 12 weeks' time, we should see upward progress.

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You know, there should be an increase in training weight.

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Okay.

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That's, I think, one of the things, there's two main things that I commonly see wrong with accessories.

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And that's one, when visitors come here and they come train, a lot of times they will take that max effort lift way too far.

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Like they'll push almost to failure, if not failure, and then the accessories start to suffer.

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Do you have any advice for that?

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Yeah, I mean, so typically, like a lot of the things that one of the things that I think people have a misconception of is at the gym that we went all out every time and didn't care if we missed or not.

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We typically I mean, of course, you're going for a true max effort, but we did not usually miss.

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Missing was rather rare in the gym, to be honest with you.

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It wasn't something Louis was fond of either, because, you know, a miss is essentially an oversight or miscalculation.

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Uh, so there's obviously even at a true max effort, there's gonna be a lot of energy expended.

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Um, so I think that the, uh, the big thing is, is to try to find balance, right?

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We obviously want to make sure that we're reaching a true maximum effort.

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A lot of times I think the issue with the maximum effort and guys overshooting is that they won't accept just the five pound PR, you know, which Louis was big on a lot of guys get greedy.

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They're in the neighborhood to where, you know, they could bump up five or 10 pounds, make an easy PR, but they feel great.

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It's like, well, hell I'm gonna go for a 25 pound PR.

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And then you have an issue there.

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So the biggest thing is to either match or exceed your current PR by five pounds and then focus on that accessory work.

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Of course, there can be times where, hey, go for it.

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If you sacrifice a little bit of the accessory training weight, not a big deal.

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But if that's something that you do frequently, you're going to find yourself fatigued.

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You're going to probably be at a higher risk injury.

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And then you're also going to notice that you're going to have lagging muscle groups just because you're not going to have that energy on deck to be able to properly address those muscle groups via the accessory work.

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Okay.

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Well, that second issue that I commonly see is people won't know their numbers for the accessories, where they should be, so they don't know what weight to start at.

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So they start either way too light or way too heavy when they're doing that.

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What advice do you have for someone who's doing a new accessory movement or repeating accessory movement but has no idea where to start?

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Well, the first thing to do is I would just do a practice set.

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You know, like say if it's four sets, I would do one set that just doesn't count.

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Estimation is a huge thing.

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Of course, there you're going to have to have some ability to estimate where you might be at.

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And then the biggest thing is, is obviously to start keeping track of your accessories.

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I mean, I can kind of memorize mine.

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I think everybody should obviously strive to do that.

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If you're really focused on your training, you should know your numbers.

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I mean, Lou knew everybody's numbers in the gym, so you could at least know your personal numbers.

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Yeah.

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But yeah, like if it's an exercise you've never done, you have no idea, I would just take one practice set and purposely work a little bit under what you think you're at, but just to make sure that's in the range you are and then maybe increase by 10 or 15, 20 pounds.

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And then over time, because obviously if it's a new accessory, there's going to be a chance that that first week is mostly just practice, right?

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You might not even really hit an effective training weight, or if you do hit an effective training weight, it might be only for the last set or two.

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That's where we kind of talk about we're leaving...

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For certain lifters at a certain level, whether it's beginners or even intermediates, it's oftentimes best to just run the set of accessories for three weeks.

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That way you at least have a week, the first week, you know, to practice, figure out your training weights.

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Second week becomes a little bit more productive.

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Then by the third week, it's obviously very productive because you have a damn good idea of where you should be at.

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more experienced lifters, just because they're going to have, they're going to be able to, they're going to have more inter and intermuscular coordination.

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So they're going to be able to pick up different movements quickly.

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Even if it is a brand new movement, they're going to probably be able to pick up on it pretty quickly.

195
00:14:27.206 --> 00:14:32.870
And then also that they're going to have reference as far as they probably ran through a lot of different accessory exercises.

196
00:14:32.890 --> 00:14:34.631
They're going to have reference ranges for their training weights.

197
00:14:35.032 --> 00:14:38.934
So if you're an intermediate or a beginner, it can oftentimes be best to leave those accessories in for three weeks.

198
00:14:38.954 --> 00:14:40.916
So that way, you get the most of them by that third week.

199
00:14:41.356 --> 00:14:48.280
And if you're more advanced lifter and you have more reference as far as your training weights, you can kind of alternate week to week because you know the training weights you're going to be at.

200
00:14:48.300 --> 00:14:57.284
Personally, I like to alternate week to week, but I have clients that I work with that are new to these movements that I'll have them working through for three weeks just to make sure they're getting the most out of them.

201
00:14:57.304 --> 00:14:57.404
Okay.

202
00:14:58.245 --> 00:15:08.250
And then when they're taking these almost heavy effort for that primary accessory, how technical should that lift be?

203
00:15:09.861 --> 00:15:14.786
I mean, as technical as it can be, I mean, obviously, one thing that we never strive for is bad form.

204
00:15:14.806 --> 00:15:20.091
I mean, when you went into Westside, you'd see all the movements that we executed were executed with strict form.

205
00:15:20.731 --> 00:15:23.594
I think that's one of the reasons that the in-the-gym injury rates were rather low.

206
00:15:23.614 --> 00:15:31.381
I mean, we didn't have people running off to the hospital after a training day or getting taken out by an ambulance because we were executing these movements poorly.

207
00:15:31.401 --> 00:15:32.081
Yeah.

208
00:15:33.062 --> 00:15:39.168
So in my opinion, a lot of times it comes down to one or two things when you see poor execution.

209
00:15:39.549 --> 00:15:46.896
It's either they're obviously overshooting, which is probably the main culprit, but there's also times, especially when you work with beginners, that they're just not strong enough to execute certain movements.

210
00:15:46.916 --> 00:15:47.797
They're so unfamiliar with it.

211
00:15:47.817 --> 00:15:53.162
One of the first things you'll see with beginners, obviously, if you start working them on their first barbell squat, you're going to see some awful squat form.

212
00:15:53.582 --> 00:15:55.543
And it's not so much that they're doing it voluntarily or not caring.

213
00:15:55.563 --> 00:16:00.184
They just don't have the actual, the absolute strength and the coordination to execute those movements properly.

214
00:16:00.664 --> 00:16:04.106
And then that kind of goes into other aspects of training.

215
00:16:04.126 --> 00:16:11.848
When you start to advance, if you have an athlete that's finally mastered the squat bench and the deadlift, when you start maybe throwing them into heavy good mornings, you're going to see some, you know, weird form.

216
00:16:12.588 --> 00:16:15.009
And that's basically, again, strength and coordination issue.

217
00:16:15.029 --> 00:16:16.970
However, if you're an experienced lifter, um,

218
00:16:18.110 --> 00:16:20.872
you're either overshooting or you're just not focusing, not, you know, really caring.

219
00:16:21.973 --> 00:16:26.875
Because, you know, our intent is to perform strict reps every set, every rep.

220
00:16:28.436 --> 00:16:28.716
Okay.

221
00:16:29.737 --> 00:16:40.403
So with that, when we're talking about like squat, bench, DELF and the primary accessories, do you have a top three that you go that you have for a squat, bench, and DELF?

222
00:16:41.265 --> 00:16:52.891
Yeah, so for the squat, I like the front squat, I like the giant camber bar squat, and then I like a low box squat, even though obviously it's not competition specific, but I like the low box squat just because it obviously enforces depth, right?

223
00:16:52.911 --> 00:16:59.835
You have to reach a certain level of depth, and I think that the low box squat's a great variation for anybody that has issues hitting competition depth.

224
00:17:00.435 --> 00:17:02.878
For the deadlift, I like opposite stance.

225
00:17:02.898 --> 00:17:05.040
So whichever stance you pull, pull the opposite for that.

226
00:17:06.040 --> 00:17:08.082
I like the RDL.

227
00:17:08.503 --> 00:17:11.606
And then I typically, it's a good morning.

228
00:17:12.446 --> 00:17:13.848
I like the SSB good morning.

229
00:17:14.188 --> 00:17:20.954
I think SSB good mornings track well with the conventional deadlift, but it's also useful for a sumo deadlifter as well.

230
00:17:21.575 --> 00:17:22.376
And then the bench press.

231
00:17:22.396 --> 00:17:23.477
I like the SSB good morning.

232
00:17:23.997 --> 00:17:46.552
opposite grip variation so if the main movement you did close grip do a you know a standard grip or you know if you did a standard grip do a close grip on the primary um i like jm press and then i like some sort of a banded press or a chain press to you know accommodate resistance okay those are solid i remember that time we did the rdl so that was i wasn't expecting to go that heavy and then

233
00:17:47.117 --> 00:17:47.377
Yeah.

234
00:17:47.557 --> 00:17:47.717
Yeah.

235
00:17:47.737 --> 00:17:55.321
A lot of people will do those like for higher reps. And of course, there's value there, especially for if you're a beginner intermediate, you should probably stick with higher reps to start.

236
00:17:55.341 --> 00:17:58.322
But once you get to a certain level of strength, you can definitely push the envelope on those.

237
00:17:58.342 --> 00:18:00.563
I mean, I've worked RDLs all the way up to heavy threes.

238
00:18:01.123 --> 00:18:03.004
Obviously, that's maybe for more advanced folks.

239
00:18:03.044 --> 00:18:06.486
But I think, you know, fives and eights, it's a good rep range for the RDL.

240
00:18:07.386 --> 00:18:07.646
Okay.

241
00:18:08.707 --> 00:18:10.448
And so with secondary accessories...

242
00:18:11.653 --> 00:18:17.200
Are you trying to hit that weakness, like the main weakness the individual has first and then progress on?

243
00:18:17.823 --> 00:18:20.225
Yeah, so that's what we're going to obviously target.

244
00:18:21.326 --> 00:18:26.970
The primary, we're kind of targeting muscle groups and muscles working in collaboration.

245
00:18:27.450 --> 00:18:32.974
With the secondary accessories, we're focusing on specific muscles, right, or muscle groups.

246
00:18:32.994 --> 00:18:36.957
So the triceps, the biceps, the calves, the quads, the hamstrings.

247
00:18:37.057 --> 00:18:37.958
It's more precise.

248
00:18:38.018 --> 00:18:39.619
So that's where you're going to see.

249
00:18:39.659 --> 00:18:40.940
It's mostly single joint movements.

250
00:18:40.960 --> 00:18:42.702
There's, of course, we can use some...

251
00:18:43.602 --> 00:18:44.402
Multi-joint movements.

252
00:18:44.762 --> 00:18:50.583
I mean, I use a lot of barbell rows, different types of rows, excuse me, with the secondaries.

253
00:18:50.623 --> 00:18:58.505
But oftentimes that's going to be, for instance, on an upper day, it's going to be the rolling dumbbells, the hammer curls, the lateral raises, things like that.

254
00:18:59.185 --> 00:19:06.947
On a lower day, it's going to be hamstring curl, belt squat walks, inverse curl, leg extensions, goblet squats, things like that.

255
00:19:06.987 --> 00:19:13.108
So we're focusing more on specific muscle groups versus the multiple muscle groups working in concert.

256
00:19:15.712 --> 00:19:25.749
Got it So when someone has Like let's say a hamstring weakness What would you say is your One of your go to movements for that

257
00:19:26.633 --> 00:19:28.433
Well, I mean, there's multiple ways to go about it, right?

258
00:19:28.473 --> 00:19:45.196
So if I'm talking like the primaries, good mornings and any sort of RDL or any sort of really conventional style deadlift, I also like deficit RDLs, you know, to where I take it even to a more stretched position.

259
00:19:45.356 --> 00:19:48.797
I also think that, like I said, good mornings are great for hamstrings.

260
00:19:49.477 --> 00:19:54.918
And then aside from that, I mean, like I said, good mornings and deadlifts, RDLs would be what I do in them in secondaries.

261
00:19:55.738 --> 00:19:58.680
I would hammer that inverse curl, hamstring curl, standing hamstring curl.

262
00:19:59.421 --> 00:20:01.202
I mean, you can't really do enough of those anyways.

263
00:20:01.262 --> 00:20:05.485
But, yeah, if you have hamstring weakness, in my opinion, is one of the easiest things to fix because there's so many options.

264
00:20:05.525 --> 00:20:07.567
I mean, that's a pretty easy weakness to fix.

265
00:20:08.447 --> 00:20:08.747
Okay.

266
00:20:09.448 --> 00:20:14.852
Is there one that you think is – like, what are the top three weaknesses that you see as common?

267
00:20:14.872 --> 00:20:15.132
Yeah.

268
00:20:15.540 --> 00:20:18.841
Well, if someone's not training our system, oddly enough, it's typically hamstrings.

269
00:20:19.201 --> 00:20:27.925
But I think probably if I had to say the biggest weaknesses that I've seen when folks come to the gym to work with us is hamstrings, trunk, and then shoulders.

270
00:20:28.005 --> 00:20:31.866
I think a lot of folks have – I would say actually shoulders and upper back.

271
00:20:31.906 --> 00:20:33.987
It's almost like a mixed group there, posterior shoulder.

272
00:20:34.747 --> 00:20:38.709
upper back and then obviously lateral and anterior shoulders.

273
00:20:38.769 --> 00:20:39.049
But yeah.

274
00:20:39.309 --> 00:20:45.172
And then trunk, I think a lot of folks think they train their abs, but they probably don't train their abs as much as they think they do.

275
00:20:45.492 --> 00:20:48.713
And a lot of folks will just do like, you know, sets of 20 and 30 on abs.

276
00:20:49.114 --> 00:20:56.657
I mean, there's something to be said for like, you know, GHR sit-ups for like eights and tens with some resistance, you know, a med ball or holding a plate or something going heavy with it.

277
00:20:57.413 --> 00:20:57.713
Right.

278
00:20:58.214 --> 00:20:58.554
Yeah.

279
00:20:59.214 --> 00:21:03.677
And training the trunk, the core, that's one thing that I've seen.

280
00:21:03.777 --> 00:21:10.162
Like we do the static abs with the guys and, you know, like they tested not too long ago, hitting five minutes pretty easy.

281
00:21:10.722 --> 00:21:13.364
But I've tested some of the visitors when they come through.

282
00:21:13.384 --> 00:21:17.647
And I think the max time that a visitor has had is 17 seconds before their body starts shaking.

283
00:21:18.307 --> 00:21:18.487
Yeah.

284
00:21:18.627 --> 00:21:18.767
Yeah.

285
00:21:18.807 --> 00:21:22.968
Most, most people have a weak trunk and they'll blame a lot of times they blame their back.

286
00:21:22.988 --> 00:21:32.351
They think they have a low back, mid back, or even upper back weakness because, you know, they're having too much, you know, excess flexion during, you know, a deadlift or a squat.

287
00:21:32.811 --> 00:21:39.834
And a lot of times it's that they're not able to properly brace the trunk and keep that upright position because they have weak abs and weak obliques, of course, too.

288
00:21:39.854 --> 00:21:40.574
I mean, obliques are huge.

289
00:21:40.954 --> 00:21:43.395
A lot of folks will train their abs and forget to train their obliques.

290
00:21:43.415 --> 00:21:44.295
And that's a problem as well.

291
00:21:45.544 --> 00:21:53.089
So getting a little bit out of the order for the podcast as far as like exercise selection and everything or exercise order, sorry.

292
00:21:53.549 --> 00:21:56.451
But you're training the abs is so important.

293
00:21:56.731 --> 00:21:59.692
And that's one of the biggest things I've seen with ones that come through.

294
00:22:00.313 --> 00:22:08.838
What are some ways that you really recommend training those abs to get them strong, both from the anterior side, the obliques, and then from the static abs or stability side?

295
00:22:09.345 --> 00:22:13.390
Yeah, so like, of course, like right off the bat, like standing abs is one of our favorites.

296
00:22:13.671 --> 00:22:15.573
And the standing abs can be the conventional standing abs.

297
00:22:15.593 --> 00:22:20.079
We can also, one thing that Lou used to do, and it kind of ties in the obliques, is go side to side.

298
00:22:20.119 --> 00:22:26.027
So instead of, you know, the straight up and down, you're going left, you're going right, you're going left, you're going right each rep. Yeah.

299
00:22:27.328 --> 00:22:34.773
So the standing abs, GHD sit-ups or GHR sit-ups, whatever you want to call them, both without and with resistance.

300
00:22:35.433 --> 00:22:37.014
Without, we're going AMRAP sets.

301
00:22:37.275 --> 00:22:42.718
And then with resistance, we're trying to keep the set count at least above 8, preferably in that 10 to 15 range if possible.

302
00:22:44.299 --> 00:22:47.341
I like, of course, like we talked about the static abs, there's various ways to execute that.

303
00:22:47.361 --> 00:22:48.341
You can do that on the GHR.

304
00:22:48.361 --> 00:22:51.804
You can do it on the 45-degree back raise, all sorts of different ways to go about that.

305
00:22:53.243 --> 00:23:00.208
Hanging leg raises, both knee raises and then obviously the L shape forward, bringing the feet up like that.

306
00:23:00.588 --> 00:23:08.694
Also the machine we have, which is a leg raise machine, that's a great option, especially for folks that aren't ready for the hanging leg raise.

307
00:23:08.714 --> 00:23:11.376
That's a good way to get them introduced to leg raises.

308
00:23:12.016 --> 00:23:19.420
Um, another thing that I like to do too, is, um, uh, you know, like the flutter kicks, like the butterfly kicks, you know, like those, that's a good way.

309
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:24.083
And that's a little bit like, it's like the GHR said, incorporate some hip flexor, uh, as well.

310
00:23:24.664 --> 00:23:31.568
Um, and then the other, like for obliques, um, uh, Russian twists and then just, uh, side, side bends are like suitcase deadlifts, things like that.

311
00:23:32.008 --> 00:23:34.730
Suitcase deadlifts and side bends are something we did rather frequently in the gym.

312
00:23:34.750 --> 00:23:35.950
Matter of fact, you've seen the bars.

313
00:23:35.970 --> 00:23:38.732
We have the bar with the suitcase handle on it specifically for those moves.

314
00:23:39.515 --> 00:23:39.775
Yeah.

315
00:23:40.356 --> 00:23:48.605
So with standing abs with that, I want to get into that one specifically because there's been a lot of times where I've seen people post videos like at commercial gyms doing it.

316
00:23:49.245 --> 00:23:52.849
And you kind of see everyone just staring at them like, what is that person doing?

317
00:23:55.112 --> 00:23:58.195
Can you talk through how to execute that movement and what they should be feeling?

318
00:23:58.853 --> 00:24:04.735
Yeah, so I think a lot of folks that I've had come to the gym and taught them standing abs, typically they don't have it down pat.

319
00:24:05.155 --> 00:24:10.937
What you want to do typically, what I do is I grab the cable and I bring my hands in like this and where my elbow's at pretty much 90.

320
00:24:10.977 --> 00:24:13.157
I keep my knuckles in front of my face.

321
00:24:13.617 --> 00:24:14.898
And what I'm essentially going to try to do...

322
00:24:15.558 --> 00:24:17.139
is I step out away from the cable.

323
00:24:17.580 --> 00:24:19.701
I make sure that my stomach is pulling the tension.

324
00:24:19.721 --> 00:24:21.903
Like you can start to feel the tension in your mid and lower abs.

325
00:24:21.943 --> 00:24:22.863
That's where you should feel it.

326
00:24:23.303 --> 00:24:29.408
And then from there, I'm just gonna essentially use my stomach, use my abdominals to pull my elbows to my quads.

327
00:24:29.948 --> 00:24:31.149
And that's really the range of motion.

328
00:24:31.169 --> 00:24:32.350
And that's really what you wanna feel.

329
00:24:32.390 --> 00:24:34.491
I think the biggest thing is to make sure you get that hand position, right?

330
00:24:34.511 --> 00:24:37.273
Like you should have elbows at 90 degrees, knuckles in front of the face.

331
00:24:37.713 --> 00:24:39.695
We typically use like a tricep push down strap.

332
00:24:39.715 --> 00:24:41.636
That's a good way to get good tension.

333
00:24:42.016 --> 00:24:43.538
And then you're just gonna step away from the machine

334
00:24:44.418 --> 00:24:47.320
in that position until you start to feel tension in your mid and lower abs.

335
00:24:47.801 --> 00:24:49.882
Once you feel that tension, you can start executing reps.

336
00:24:50.583 --> 00:24:55.947
The big thing is to make sure you're executing smooth reps, controlled eccentric, controlled concentric.

337
00:24:56.768 --> 00:25:00.231
A lot of folks will lose tension or just kind of go through the motions with it.

338
00:25:00.251 --> 00:25:06.576
If you're not actually squeezing and targeting the stomach, you're just going to be using momentum and just kind of cheating the lift.

339
00:25:06.596 --> 00:25:11.920
So the big thing is you want to feel that tension, make sure your hand position, elbow position is correct, feel the tension in the mid, lower abs.

340
00:25:12.520 --> 00:25:14.141
Uh, and then it's real simple, man.

341
00:25:14.181 --> 00:25:16.762
You just bring in your elbows down to your quads and then back up again.

342
00:25:17.622 --> 00:25:17.882
Okay.

343
00:25:18.563 --> 00:25:25.405
And the same thing with, uh, going the side to side, cause we had that rogue lap pull down and, uh, man, that stainless bar is so nice.

344
00:25:26.106 --> 00:25:26.306
Uh, yeah.

345
00:25:26.346 --> 00:25:30.648
I mean, if the, if the cable machine will permit you to go left and right, we're fortunate that ours do.

346
00:25:31.168 --> 00:25:38.771
Um, some of them, if they've got that, uh, like the plastic coating on the cable, or it can start to fray the cable cause it's going up against the, the, the wheel, but, uh.

347
00:25:39.211 --> 00:25:41.774
Yeah, I mean, that's the way that we've done them, no problem.

348
00:25:41.794 --> 00:25:42.875
It doesn't really damage the equipment.

349
00:25:42.895 --> 00:25:45.177
That is a great way to do it, to also incorporate the obliques.

350
00:25:45.718 --> 00:25:56.729
We would typically do like a mixed set to where I'd do like 30 reps and I would do, you know, like 15 standard and then 15 or like, you know, 15, 16 side to side, whatever you want to do, or 10 standard.

351
00:25:56.749 --> 00:25:58.871
You could do a set of 20, 10 standard, 10 side to side.

352
00:25:58.891 --> 00:26:00.512
A lot of different ways to go about that.

353
00:26:01.378 --> 00:26:01.619
Okay.

354
00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:09.649
Now, how does someone determine the reps, whether they should go heavy with that or they should kind of do more of like higher rep ranges to get that feel?

355
00:26:10.715 --> 00:26:13.978
I would just, there's no really way to say when you should or shouldn't.

356
00:26:14.018 --> 00:26:16.801
I would just one, I typically train my abs three times a week.

357
00:26:16.961 --> 00:26:19.864
And on max effort lower, I typically train them heavier.

358
00:26:20.385 --> 00:26:22.727
On dynamic effort lower, I'll typically train them a little lighter.

359
00:26:23.167 --> 00:26:29.934
And then on, you know, on some, one of my upper days, I typically hit abs to some degree, but oftentimes that's just like an oblique workout, Russian twist, some stuff like that.

360
00:26:29.994 --> 00:26:32.817
But maximal effort, just, you know, go a little heavier.

361
00:26:32.857 --> 00:26:34.779
Dynamic effort, go a little lighter, higher rep range.

362
00:26:35.179 --> 00:26:38.569
And then one of your upper days, just try to get some sort of ab workout.

363
00:26:38.589 --> 00:26:40.234
And it could be a mixed bag of heavy end light.

364
00:26:40.254 --> 00:26:41.878
It's just really preference at that point.

365
00:26:43.378 --> 00:26:43.738
Got it.

366
00:26:44.718 --> 00:26:48.079
So you had mentioned shoulders as a common weakness.

367
00:26:48.719 --> 00:26:50.980
You want to dive into some like secondary accessories for that?

368
00:26:51.040 --> 00:26:56.461
Because I feel like that's one that – shoulders – I feel like a lot of people don't hit because they say they have shoulder issues.

369
00:26:56.841 --> 00:26:57.061
Yeah.

370
00:26:57.481 --> 00:26:59.101
So – Right.

371
00:26:59.121 --> 00:27:01.122
They have shoulder issues because they probably – they have weak shoulders.

372
00:27:02.382 --> 00:27:04.102
I like standard raises.

373
00:27:04.142 --> 00:27:08.543
I mean, honestly, man, like a lot of the body – just old school golden era bodybuilding stuff works.

374
00:27:08.583 --> 00:27:10.484
You know, lateral raises, front raises.

375
00:27:10.504 --> 00:27:11.664
You can go see that are standing.

376
00:27:12.784 --> 00:27:19.148
I like doing different seated overhead presses, both neutral grip or standard grip.

377
00:27:19.228 --> 00:27:23.670
Standing overhead presses, I think, dumbbells, you know, with dumbbells is great.

378
00:27:24.451 --> 00:27:32.435
I think another thing that is like single arm stuff, you know, unilateral work with overhead pressing, because that also is a good way to also, you know, target the trunk and the obliques as well.

379
00:27:32.455 --> 00:27:34.376
You know, have your dumbbells, eight to tens, go with that.

380
00:27:35.497 --> 00:27:37.418
Shoulders is one of those things that's so easy to hit.

381
00:27:38.178 --> 00:27:47.280
I think just like you said, a lot of folks, especially power officers, they think that if they press too much overhead that they're going to somehow lose progress on their bench or possibly injure themselves.

382
00:27:47.640 --> 00:27:52.962
In my experience, my bench press progress is always tracked with my overhead press progress.

383
00:27:53.022 --> 00:27:58.943
If I get a 10 or 20-pound PR on my overhead press, I'm going to probably see a 5 to 10-pound PR on my bench.

384
00:27:58.963 --> 00:27:59.724
They've always tracked.

385
00:28:00.764 --> 00:28:01.084
Okay.

386
00:28:01.439 --> 00:28:02.479
But that also could just be me.

387
00:28:02.499 --> 00:28:04.980
I mean, but I think that's probably the case with other lifters.

388
00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:08.862
I mean, if you're hitting a PR in your overhead press, you're probably going to hit a PR in your bench press for a power lifter.

389
00:28:09.762 --> 00:28:10.103
Got it.

390
00:28:11.143 --> 00:28:27.470
And so when it comes to accessories and determining how many someone should do, if someone is new to this and they're feeling kind of overtrained or they're under-recovered, really, what accessories should they take out?

391
00:28:28.950 --> 00:28:30.211
I would take out – go ahead.

392
00:28:30.231 --> 00:28:30.451
I'm sorry.

393
00:28:31.132 --> 00:28:42.102
I guess a better question is, if someone is under trained and not able to do, you know, five accessories, what top three or four or how many would you suggest that they start with?

394
00:28:43.380 --> 00:28:46.604
I would get at least the primary, get a primary and then two secondaries.

395
00:28:47.164 --> 00:29:01.220
And then if you can, I would keep those movements focused on specific muscle groups that are involved in the – so like if, say, if it's a bench press day, I'm going to hit a primary of maybe a dumbbell bench press, maybe an overhead press, something like that.

396
00:29:01.240 --> 00:29:02.622
Then I'm going to probably just hit –

397
00:29:04.003 --> 00:29:06.605
a tricep bicep or tricep shoulder, something like that.

398
00:29:07.105 --> 00:29:07.745
Keep it simple.

399
00:29:08.266 --> 00:29:10.667
On a lower day, I'm going to obviously hit some sort of a primary.

400
00:29:10.687 --> 00:29:13.188
You know, it could be a squat, could be a deadlift, could be a good morning.

401
00:29:14.049 --> 00:29:16.610
And then for the secondaries, I'm going to hit, you know, quad hamstring.

402
00:29:16.630 --> 00:29:20.713
And then I'm going to probably try to hit an ab movement in there as well because that should be a big issue.

403
00:29:20.733 --> 00:29:24.495
But, yeah, typically for folks that are struggling or just getting started,

404
00:29:25.411 --> 00:29:32.517
at least get three, three to four, and with the target eventually being at least five.

405
00:29:32.577 --> 00:29:38.142
Everybody, in my opinion, if you're in proper shape, you should be able to do a primary accessory followed up with four secondaries.

406
00:29:38.162 --> 00:29:40.344
That should be pretty standard for an in-shape athlete.

407
00:29:41.204 --> 00:29:41.525
Okay.

408
00:29:42.063 --> 00:29:52.691
And so with some of these coaches that are, you know, in private sector or high school collegiate sector, and they're dealing with a team or kind of like how we have the guys.

409
00:29:53.152 --> 00:30:02.699
If you got 30 athletes in the room and obviously all 30 can't go to the dumbbells at the same time, how would you kind of mix that where with especially with accessories?

410
00:30:03.870 --> 00:30:12.254
Group them, you know, like kind of how we do in the gym, you know, if I have five accessories, maybe I have a group of certain group doing three of them, another group doing two of them, then just switch over.

411
00:30:13.515 --> 00:30:14.715
That'd be probably the best way to do it.

412
00:30:14.735 --> 00:30:17.737
That way you don't have, you know, 20 people waiting for the dumbbells, right?

413
00:30:18.277 --> 00:30:18.437
Right.

414
00:30:18.457 --> 00:30:19.558
That'd be about your only choice.

415
00:30:20.138 --> 00:30:28.183
I mean, you could also even go so far as to have an A and a B schedule where it alternates week to week, where some guys are on their A schedule, some guys are on their B schedule.

416
00:30:28.203 --> 00:30:30.224
The next week, the guys are on their A schedule, on their B schedule.

417
00:30:30.244 --> 00:30:31.464
You could do it week to week as well.

418
00:30:31.905 --> 00:30:38.629
Just different batteries of accessories purposely programming them to make sure that there's availability for machines or for dumbbells.

419
00:30:38.669 --> 00:30:39.869
That's also a way to go about it.

420
00:30:39.889 --> 00:30:44.692
That might be maybe the better way to go about it if you're dealing with like a larger like a football team where you might have 40, 50 people in the room.

421
00:30:45.989 --> 00:30:46.270
Okay.

422
00:30:46.471 --> 00:30:51.289
And with that A and B schedule, do you want to kind of talk about that and how that works with accessories?

423
00:30:51.309 --> 00:30:51.570
Yeah.

424
00:30:52.085 --> 00:30:58.607
Yeah, what I would just do is I would just set up – I mean, they would still be focused on the standard muscle groups that we're focused on.

425
00:30:59.047 --> 00:31:02.369
I would just pick certain exercises to make sure everybody stays out of each other's way.

426
00:31:03.169 --> 00:31:14.092
So that way if group A is on the A set or group 1 is on the A set and group 2 is on the B set, they switch the next week, that should clear up some space for people to work.

427
00:31:14.493 --> 00:31:21.115
And if you have a big enough group, I mean, hell, you could have an A, B, and a C set of accessory exercises because, I mean, if I have to have guys doing –

428
00:31:21.575 --> 00:31:23.896
like, you know, pec work, right?

429
00:31:23.916 --> 00:31:25.577
I want to focus on the anterior shoulder and pecs.

430
00:31:25.897 --> 00:31:27.578
I could have some guys doing, you know, dumbbells.

431
00:31:27.598 --> 00:31:29.279
I could have some guys doing some bench press.

432
00:31:29.299 --> 00:31:41.025
I could have other guys doing pushups, you know, like you can vary things up in, you know, two to three groups or two to three groupings of accessories to where you're not going to really have any sort of issue with traffic in the gym.

433
00:31:42.113 --> 00:31:42.673
Perfect.

434
00:31:43.274 --> 00:31:51.519
Yeah, because I've seen where people will do group A is doing max effort lower and the group B is doing max effort upper and they try to run it like that.

435
00:31:51.619 --> 00:31:56.722
But then it kind of throws off, you know, some people's readiness for like game day.

436
00:31:57.243 --> 00:31:59.045
Yeah, and that's a good way to go about it, too.

437
00:31:59.065 --> 00:32:02.008
I mean, you could totally just schedule people to different days.

438
00:32:02.028 --> 00:32:06.071
You could have certain groups on certain workouts and other guys doing other workouts.

439
00:32:06.091 --> 00:32:06.872
That's also the way to go about it.

440
00:32:06.892 --> 00:32:11.837
But if you had ever been doing the same workout, I would just set up different batteries of accessories to make sure that nobody's running into each other.

441
00:32:11.857 --> 00:32:14.339
You don't have 30 guys waiting on a set of dumbbells, right?

442
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:15.260
Yeah.

443
00:32:16.641 --> 00:32:17.002
Okay.

444
00:32:17.342 --> 00:32:21.086
So I think this question is pretty interesting.

445
00:32:22.607 --> 00:32:27.454
What is the most common accessory mistake you see in gyms that say they run conjugate?

446
00:32:28.856 --> 00:32:29.657
Oh, man.

447
00:32:30.902 --> 00:32:37.125
Well, the most common accessory mistakes I see is people not giving accessories the time to do their job.

448
00:32:37.165 --> 00:32:40.367
I mean, they cycle them in and cycle them out too quick or they don't do them frequently enough.

449
00:32:40.447 --> 00:32:48.171
I mean, I cycle through my accessories weekly, but it's typically a lot of that cycling might just be rep ranges as well.

450
00:32:48.211 --> 00:32:52.794
Like you don't have to change the workout to change the training effect.

451
00:32:52.814 --> 00:32:54.174
You can change the rep range as well.

452
00:32:54.214 --> 00:32:57.816
So, you know, for instance, some weeks I might do rolling dumbbells for 8 to 10s.

453
00:32:57.836 --> 00:32:59.157
Maybe some weeks I do them for 12 to 15s.

454
00:33:00.938 --> 00:33:02.464
But I guess, oh no, man, that's a tough question.

455
00:33:03.884 --> 00:33:09.887
If I had to say the biggest mistake I see people that train our systems that they don't do rolling dumbbell tricep extensions correctly, that's probably the biggest thing I see.

456
00:33:11.068 --> 00:33:17.051
I see a lot of guys that go for too much weight, and then they'll turn it into the rolling dumbbell press.

457
00:33:17.551 --> 00:33:24.835
And then you have guys that will purposely use bigger dumbbells because the head on the dumbbell, the bigger it is, that's actually almost less range of motion.

458
00:33:24.875 --> 00:33:32.059
Some people do the 150s and think they're strong because it's actually shorter range of motion to where if you made them do the 90s strictly, they might not be able to even do the 90s strict, right?

459
00:33:33.700 --> 00:33:38.945
I mean, I might even fell into that category at times in my life to where, you know, because the 150s, the head on the dumbbell is so damn big.

460
00:33:38.985 --> 00:33:40.687
It's actually almost less range of motion.

461
00:33:40.767 --> 00:33:44.050
It's giving you position to where the lighter dumbbells are more difficult.

462
00:33:45.071 --> 00:33:50.536
I think another thing that people make a mistake with our system is that they don't train their accessories heavy enough.

463
00:33:51.317 --> 00:33:56.542
I think a lot of people just think that, you know, go through the motions and as long as I'm sweating and got a bit of a pump, it was effective.

464
00:33:56.562 --> 00:33:56.962
Yeah.

465
00:33:57.002 --> 00:33:58.543
And that goes back to what we were talking about earlier.

466
00:33:58.583 --> 00:34:02.024
Over time, you have got to see progress in these movements.

467
00:34:02.044 --> 00:34:11.407
I try to escalate my weights weekly, especially if I'm in a situation where I'm focused on gaining weight, getting stronger, getting as big and strong as possible.

468
00:34:12.447 --> 00:34:18.190
Every week or two, I should be seeing some sort of five to ten more pounds on each accessory movement I'm doing.

469
00:34:18.210 --> 00:34:18.990
Yeah.

470
00:34:19.752 --> 00:34:25.059
So I think that's probably the if I had to say the biggest thing is probably that folks are just training too light.

471
00:34:26.081 --> 00:34:29.385
You know, some people don't know the difference between effective and difficult.

472
00:34:29.525 --> 00:34:36.415
You know, they think that effective is whatever they can get done when really it's probably the more difficult option is going to be most effective.

473
00:34:37.175 --> 00:34:46.837
That's a great point, especially because like using that rolling dumbbell tricep extension, that is a perfect example because, I mean, we've seen it where the guys come in and, oh, yeah, I do this much weight.

474
00:34:47.197 --> 00:34:55.239
And then when they go to do it, that elbow is all the way flared out to the side and they're treated like a – basically, they turn it into a dumbbell bench press.

475
00:34:55.799 --> 00:34:59.840
Yeah, and when you actually enforce the technique standards on them, then they'll say they're down 30 pounds on their working weight.

476
00:34:59.860 --> 00:35:00.160
Yeah.

477
00:35:00.404 --> 00:35:00.584
Yeah.

478
00:35:01.245 --> 00:35:12.434
I mean, that's an important thing to like, as much as we want to focus on working weight, I do have to say like with certain movements, specifically like the rolling dumbbell tricep extension or any movement that is more precise, it's better to execute properly than focus on the weight.

479
00:35:12.834 --> 00:35:18.779
You know, get the movement down properly because the rollback's not effective if you're not actually rolling back and extending the tricep.

480
00:35:19.119 --> 00:35:24.203
If you're rolling it back and then pressing, it's just a dumbbell press, a little bit extra movement.

481
00:35:25.815 --> 00:35:27.296
Yeah, love that you hit on that.

482
00:35:27.756 --> 00:35:35.520
Are there any other like staples, similar to the dumbbell rollbacks that work for the triceps or upper body?

483
00:35:35.540 --> 00:35:39.202
Oh, yeah, the Williams extensions and then the rolling dumbbells, you know, and Williams extensions.

484
00:35:39.222 --> 00:35:41.583
We can do those on, you know, a flat bench or an incline.

485
00:35:41.603 --> 00:35:45.025
I think a lot of folks forget that you can add an incline to those, and that's very effective.

486
00:35:46.205 --> 00:35:51.729
Another thing I like, aside from those movements, especially for upper work, is AMRAP dumbbells.

487
00:35:51.749 --> 00:35:57.013
That's something Louis was big on is grabbing a set of dumbbells, starting as heavy as you can and just hitting as many reps as you can.

488
00:35:57.653 --> 00:36:01.696
Short breaks, 45 seconds to a minute, picking those dumbbells up again, hitting as many as you can.

489
00:36:03.697 --> 00:36:07.120
Honestly, and I don't want – this isn't really for everybody because obviously we were in –

490
00:36:07.975 --> 00:36:11.817
At the gym, you have a certain caliber of lifter, and those lifters can handle certain demands.

491
00:36:12.757 --> 00:36:14.058
But a lot of our stuff was AMRAP.

492
00:36:14.138 --> 00:36:15.939
I mean, we'd still use heavy weights, no doubt.

493
00:36:15.959 --> 00:36:17.840
We're still pushing as much weight as we can.

494
00:36:19.141 --> 00:36:26.685
But say if I'm working with the 150 dumbbells or 180 dumbbells, even if in my head I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to go for a set of five.

495
00:36:27.565 --> 00:36:28.866
If I've got 10, I'm going for 10.

496
00:36:29.366 --> 00:36:30.827
You know, if I've got 12, I'm going for 12.

497
00:36:31.887 --> 00:36:32.247
Excuse me.

498
00:36:33.348 --> 00:36:41.172
It's not for everybody, you know, because if you're not somebody who knows how to predict and address fatigue, that can throw you off.

499
00:36:41.252 --> 00:36:46.774
You know, it can throw a wrench in the hole, your ability to predict where you're going to be at next week and then the following workouts.

500
00:36:47.535 --> 00:36:53.237
But yeah, man, a lot of times in the gym, we would go into a workout with, you know, certain rep range in mind.

501
00:36:53.758 --> 00:36:55.659
But if the weight on allowed us to...

502
00:36:56.719 --> 00:37:00.481
You know, like I said, if I load up weight that I think I have for 10, if I can do it for 15, I'm doing it for 15.

503
00:37:00.561 --> 00:37:01.822
That's kind of how we went about it.

504
00:37:02.802 --> 00:37:03.503
Not for everybody, though.

505
00:37:03.523 --> 00:37:06.124
It's more of an advanced technique, to be honest with you.

506
00:37:07.084 --> 00:37:12.307
But that's a great point, though, because you'll see where some people kind of take it, especially with accessories.

507
00:37:13.088 --> 00:37:14.048
Oh, I'm supposed to stop at eight.

508
00:37:14.208 --> 00:37:15.169
This is where I'm stopping it.

509
00:37:15.329 --> 00:37:15.969
And then it's over.

510
00:37:15.989 --> 00:37:17.430
And they got plenty left in the tank.

511
00:37:18.123 --> 00:37:30.969
And that that Louie's mindset was just get the most out of it, because, you know, as much as we want to be regulated and we want to stay within certain framework to like I said, again, a lot of that's just to make sure that we can predict fatigue and control fatigue.

512
00:37:32.830 --> 00:37:36.511
Ultimately, you're going to make you're going to make progress by getting the most out of everything you do.

513
00:37:37.152 --> 00:37:42.214
And that's just one of the ways that's a simple way to get the most out of everything you're doing is if you're going for AMRAP sets.

514
00:37:42.894 --> 00:37:46.275
still, like I said, if it's five to eight and you hit five to eight and that's all you got, cool.

515
00:37:46.795 --> 00:37:50.236
But I mean, if you hit eight easy, you're cheating yourself if you don't go for 10 or 12.

516
00:37:52.116 --> 00:37:57.097
And so for like that, is there any advice you got where, hey, eight was eight was easy.

517
00:37:57.257 --> 00:37:59.518
I know I could probably get maybe 15 or 20.

518
00:37:59.818 --> 00:38:02.778
Should I just cut the set there and just do another set of eight heavy?

519
00:38:02.938 --> 00:38:05.219
Or do I try to push that one as like an AMRAP?

520
00:38:05.339 --> 00:38:06.379
Yes, that's a good question.

521
00:38:06.399 --> 00:38:07.619
So it ties in what we do.

522
00:38:07.659 --> 00:38:09.580
A lot of the reason that's that's why we did the AMRAP.

523
00:38:09.600 --> 00:38:10.680
So if you if you

524
00:38:11.380 --> 00:38:12.920
sort of undercut yourself that day.

525
00:38:12.980 --> 00:38:16.982
And you'd say we're working with the 120s on the dumbbell bench and we had a set of 10 and you did 15 easy.

526
00:38:17.342 --> 00:38:18.882
We're going to do 15 on that AMREP set.

527
00:38:18.902 --> 00:38:20.543
We're going to go for it for that specific set.

528
00:38:20.843 --> 00:38:22.263
But on that next set, we're going to bump it up.

529
00:38:22.623 --> 00:38:28.245
So if I just hit the, you know, say if I hit the 120s for 15, I can go to the 140s and go for 10 more than likely.

530
00:38:29.305 --> 00:38:30.465
And that's what I would do next set.

531
00:38:30.525 --> 00:38:34.306
I would, I would escalate the weight and then go for the rep target.

532
00:38:35.087 --> 00:38:35.467
Got it.

533
00:38:35.847 --> 00:38:39.768
And does that really apply to all the accessories that someone's doing that

534
00:38:40.789 --> 00:38:41.109
It does.

535
00:38:41.230 --> 00:38:43.051
I mean, it can, I should say.

536
00:38:43.131 --> 00:38:44.152
It depends on the athletes.

537
00:38:44.172 --> 00:38:56.862
For beginners or intermediates, that might not be the best approach, especially because you're talking about intracet fatigue at that point, too, to where if they go for an AMREP, you might start to see some really poor technique towards the last few reps.

538
00:38:57.282 --> 00:38:59.564
So that's going to obviously escalate the risk of injury.

539
00:39:00.645 --> 00:39:13.101
When I'm talking about those AMRAP sets and the way we went about it, that's more of an advanced technique and something that I would reserve really for strength athletes just because it's going to be more predictable and we're not going to have as – I mean, when you're talking about strength athletes, the specialty is lifting weights.

540
00:39:13.141 --> 00:39:16.725
So they're obviously going to be – they're going to have a high level of coordination and ability.

541
00:39:17.266 --> 00:39:25.289
When we're talking about athletes, obviously we know the fatigue that they could have within the session, but they also have a lot of other sources for fatigue, you know, in sports practice, sports competition.

542
00:39:26.049 --> 00:39:41.774
So at that point, it becomes a little bit more important to be stricter with the rep ranges and adhere to those rep ranges and make those adjustments set to set versus what an AMREP allows you to, you know, gauge what you can go up next just to avoid having an athlete, you know, get to a point where they're exhibiting very poor form and potentially exposing them to higher risk injury.

543
00:39:42.551 --> 00:39:42.872
Got it.

544
00:39:43.232 --> 00:39:52.747
And so for like gen pop or people that are getting into powerlifting, when they're hitting these accessories, how should they go about that approach?

545
00:39:54.232 --> 00:39:55.573
Just go pick away.

546
00:39:56.114 --> 00:39:56.995
Try to make it effective.

547
00:39:57.575 --> 00:39:59.337
And obviously try to hit your rep targets.

548
00:39:59.357 --> 00:40:00.958
And if it was too easy, go up a little bit.

549
00:40:01.058 --> 00:40:03.120
If it was too difficult, go down a little bit.

550
00:40:03.861 --> 00:40:09.906
I wouldn't go with the AMRAP strategy I discussed just a second ago with a beginner just getting into profiting or with general population.

551
00:40:10.807 --> 00:40:12.929
I think at that point, it's just, you know, shoot for the rep range.

552
00:40:12.969 --> 00:40:14.150
If it was easy, go up a little bit.

553
00:40:14.170 --> 00:40:15.371
If it was difficult, go down a little bit.

554
00:40:15.411 --> 00:40:16.192
Just keep it simple.

555
00:40:16.892 --> 00:40:19.193
But just try to make sure that each set and each rep is effective.

556
00:40:19.213 --> 00:40:30.559
Like I said, if you are just kind of gliding through your accessories, especially within the conjugate system, you're rendering almost 80% of your training volume ineffective.

557
00:40:33.581 --> 00:40:34.061
Perfect.

558
00:40:34.522 --> 00:40:43.967
Yeah, because I think when a lot of people first get introduced to the system, whether they're gen pop, getting into powerlifting, getting into training for football or whatever sport it is,

559
00:40:45.360 --> 00:40:49.625
I think they try to make this more of a race instead of seeing this as long-term success.

560
00:40:51.006 --> 00:41:00.456
And so dealing with long-term athletic development, if they can hit those weights for the given set and rep ranges, they always have next week that they can progress.

561
00:41:00.516 --> 00:41:02.939
It doesn't have to necessarily be that day, right?

562
00:41:02.959 --> 00:41:03.139
Right.

563
00:41:03.467 --> 00:41:03.627
Yeah.

564
00:41:03.867 --> 00:41:04.047
Yeah.

565
00:41:04.087 --> 00:41:11.230
No, some I tell anybody I work with is, you know, as far as decision making goes in the gym, one of the things you should always have in mind is, you know, live to lift another day.

566
00:41:11.610 --> 00:41:12.930
It doesn't all have to be done today.

567
00:41:13.050 --> 00:41:13.831
We got next week.

568
00:41:13.851 --> 00:41:14.391
We got the next.

569
00:41:14.471 --> 00:41:17.732
I mean, hell, we got two upper and two lower days, especially when we're talking about accessories.

570
00:41:18.232 --> 00:41:24.655
If you, you know, smoke the rolling dumbbells on max effort upper, I mean, hell, we can go for a little bit of heavier weight on max effort.

571
00:41:24.675 --> 00:41:25.675
I mean, dynamic effort upper.

572
00:41:26.095 --> 00:41:27.196
And there's always the next option.

573
00:41:27.216 --> 00:41:28.898
It doesn't have to be done in one day.

574
00:41:29.238 --> 00:41:34.763
The other thing that people have to think about, this is something that we, you know, as far as lifters in the gym went, you know, you kind of have to play this game too.

575
00:41:35.844 --> 00:41:37.125
Training doesn't get easier, right?

576
00:41:37.205 --> 00:41:38.065
Especially as you get stronger.

577
00:41:38.085 --> 00:41:39.046
Like that's something Lou used to say.

578
00:41:39.066 --> 00:41:40.848
Like people think that as you get stronger, it gets easier.

579
00:41:40.868 --> 00:41:42.970
It actually gets more difficult just to be training with heavier weights, right?

580
00:41:42.990 --> 00:41:48.574
And there's going to be more fatigue incurred and more demand on recovery, you know, diet, lifestyle, all sorts of things.

581
00:41:49.315 --> 00:41:52.396
So you have to kind of strategically select your...

582
00:41:53.176 --> 00:41:55.457
I'm never saying don't put out effort.

583
00:41:55.477 --> 00:42:09.440
I'm not saying cut your effort, but you have to be strategic with your weight selections based on what you did last workout and then where you're going next workout to make sure, A, I'm recovering from the last workout and not throwing a wrench into things by this workout, and then B,

584
00:42:10.340 --> 00:42:13.222
I'm not going to throw a wrench into my next workout because what I'm doing this workout.

585
00:42:13.262 --> 00:42:21.488
So like, for instance, on max effort upper, you'd have to start making decisions to think about, okay, well, I have dynamic effort lower coming up on Friday.

586
00:42:21.828 --> 00:42:23.409
I don't want to smoke my upper back too much.

587
00:42:23.509 --> 00:42:24.510
I definitely want to address it.

588
00:42:24.910 --> 00:42:25.871
Don't want to smoke it too much.

589
00:42:25.911 --> 00:42:28.373
Don't want to smoke my shoulders too much because it can be difficult to get under a bar.

590
00:42:28.933 --> 00:42:47.349
And then the upper back, it's going to be difficult to keep posture under bar, especially, you know, if we're doing, you know, 12 sets of two, uh, dynamic effort squats, if my shoulders and upper back are totally smoked because I wanted to be a, you know, a frigging accessory exercise, all-star all of a sudden, you know, my dynamic effort lower day went to shit, you know, because I can't maintain posture.

591
00:42:47.369 --> 00:42:48.170
My shoulders are sore.

592
00:42:48.550 --> 00:42:49.871
And then that can become a cumulative thing.

593
00:42:50.231 --> 00:42:53.674
You do that enough, you know, three or four weeks, all of a sudden your shoulders are so bound up.

594
00:42:53.694 --> 00:42:56.837
You can barely get under a, you know, a comp bar, uh,

595
00:42:57.057 --> 00:42:59.159
And you're having, you know, neck pain and all sorts of issues.

596
00:42:59.179 --> 00:43:08.725
So we obviously want a high level of effort, but it has to be controlled to ensure that the athlete can both make progress within those specific lifts and then progress overall.

597
00:43:08.765 --> 00:43:12.508
We don't want to sacrifice the whole training week because we're trying to kick ass on one day.

598
00:43:13.232 --> 00:43:21.576
I love that you just mentioned the progress part because if an athlete is supposed to hit, let's say, five reps or eight reps on something, let's say eight reps on the inverse curl, for example.

599
00:43:22.236 --> 00:43:31.521
If they hit five, that's solid, and they go back to do it the next week, and they get eight perfect form, that's still progress even though it was the exact step rep range, right?

600
00:43:31.882 --> 00:43:33.142
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

601
00:43:33.162 --> 00:43:33.703
That's the thing, man.

602
00:43:33.723 --> 00:43:38.544
Progress can be evaluated in weight, but it can also be evaluated in the way that the exercises perform.

603
00:43:38.564 --> 00:43:43.685
So like good mornings, for instance, if you have an athlete that hit a set of five in the good mornings and they looked, eh, not so great.

604
00:43:44.025 --> 00:43:50.547
Then, you know, two weeks later, they come back and hit that same weight, but they hit it for eight reps and they're very dialed in reps. That's also a way to measure progress.

605
00:43:50.867 --> 00:43:55.429
And that comes down to coaching or if you're an athlete without a coach, the athlete's ability to identify that, right?

606
00:43:55.769 --> 00:43:58.009
That's not going to be – it's not going to be quantifiable.

607
00:43:58.029 --> 00:44:00.010
It's not going to be something we're going to have written down in the notebook.

608
00:44:00.390 --> 00:44:09.798
But it is something that we can look at and, you know, discern that there were, I should say, draw a conclusion that the athlete's making progress to some degree.

609
00:44:11.139 --> 00:44:12.640
Perfect.

610
00:44:13.060 --> 00:44:18.665
I also wanted to touch on GPP and including that as an accessory or as a finisher.

611
00:44:19.746 --> 00:44:21.367
How do you go about putting that in the program?

612
00:44:21.387 --> 00:44:21.487
Yeah.

613
00:44:22.527 --> 00:44:22.927
Real simple.

614
00:44:22.947 --> 00:44:24.088
I mean, it always comes at the end of the day.

615
00:44:25.269 --> 00:44:28.853
At Westside, GPP work is always something that we pretty much end the day with.

616
00:44:29.093 --> 00:44:34.177
We would, of course, open the day with sled pools and stuff, but that was mostly just warm-ups and that was to preference, right?

617
00:44:34.217 --> 00:44:37.120
Some people did a little bit, some people did a lot, just depending on your preference.

618
00:44:37.140 --> 00:44:40.483
But when we specifically focus on GPP, it's going to be at the end of the training day.

619
00:44:41.143 --> 00:44:47.229
It can be up to really six times a week if you needed it, but typically four times a week we will do some sort of GPP work.

620
00:44:48.570 --> 00:44:57.276
For lower work, it's typically sleds, you know, 10 to 12 trips, anywhere from 30 to, all the way up to 60, 70, 80, how we've went even, you know, 100 yards.

621
00:44:57.957 --> 00:45:04.001
And then obviously based on the trip and the distance, that's gonna decide your working weights, right?

622
00:45:04.021 --> 00:45:05.883
Like there are ways to figure that out.

623
00:45:05.923 --> 00:45:13.288
Like sometimes you can pull like 50% of your squat or something like that, but typically it's just gonna be the lifter's capability based on the trips and the distance.

624
00:45:13.528 --> 00:45:16.831
We also obviously for lower and sometimes upper, the wheelbarrow,

625
00:45:17.992 --> 00:45:26.639
But for upper GPP, a lot of the stuff I like to use is like push-ups, things like that, different variations of push-ups.

626
00:45:26.719 --> 00:45:30.883
Then obviously we have the sled extensions, sled face pulls, different things like that.

627
00:45:30.903 --> 00:45:31.724
You can do sled rows.

628
00:45:31.744 --> 00:45:35.307
I mean, there's a lot of different stuff you can do with the sled for upper GPP as well.

629
00:45:35.367 --> 00:45:39.430
But yeah, I mean, keep it simple, but it should be strenuous.

630
00:45:39.710 --> 00:45:44.515
And especially for strength athletes, you know, that's going to be pretty much the base of your conditioning.

631
00:45:45.035 --> 00:45:48.596
So that's extremely important for strength athletes to keep included.

632
00:45:48.676 --> 00:45:57.019
Athletes, conventional sports athletes have a little bit more leeway with that because you can kind of dial in the GPP based on what they've got going on in sport, practice, competition, all those types of things.

633
00:45:58.199 --> 00:46:02.061
But, yeah, for strength athletes, the GPP needs to be done at least four times a week.

634
00:46:03.161 --> 00:46:03.441
Okay.

635
00:46:03.801 --> 00:46:09.023
So with GPP being the basic conditioning and being done four times a week,

636
00:46:10.553 --> 00:46:20.269
Should those exercises be heavy on like max effort lower and max effort upper day and lighter on like dynamic effort and, you know, higher volume trips?

637
00:46:20.830 --> 00:46:22.032
Or how would you organize that?

638
00:46:22.947 --> 00:46:25.588
It just depends on the athlete and where they're at at that point in the session.

639
00:46:25.628 --> 00:46:33.490
I mean, typically, I'll be honest with you, man, after like a max effort day, pulling a heavy sled can be a really shitty way to end a day, right?

640
00:46:33.510 --> 00:46:35.190
Like I actually might even go the opposite.

641
00:46:35.210 --> 00:46:36.711
Like you might go lighter on the maximal effort.

642
00:46:36.731 --> 00:46:38.191
You can go a little heavy on the dynamic effort.

643
00:46:38.731 --> 00:46:45.673
But honestly, dude, I typically just I look at the trips in the distance and then I just set the – then that's how I'm going to pick the weight.

644
00:46:45.853 --> 00:46:48.334
It's not really – there's not any sort of formula because –

645
00:46:48.694 --> 00:46:49.535
You can use a formula.

646
00:46:49.555 --> 00:46:50.695
You can say, okay, here's the standard.

647
00:46:50.715 --> 00:46:54.857
We're going to use X amount of your squat or X amount of whatever, and that should be your sled weight.

648
00:46:55.278 --> 00:47:05.943
But that's not going to translate to every athlete because some folks might be mega strong statically, but you get them moving and start bringing the cardiovascular system into the equation, and they're just going to crap out.

649
00:47:06.143 --> 00:47:08.865
They're not going to have any gas to go.

650
00:47:08.945 --> 00:47:10.906
So it just depends on the athlete.

651
00:47:10.966 --> 00:47:15.128
Of course, if you're a more in shape athlete, you've got a high level of GPP, you're going to be able to work with heavier weights.

652
00:47:15.468 --> 00:47:18.070
For instance, one of my training partners, Jake Anderson.

653
00:47:19.211 --> 00:47:24.858
come around GPP time, you know, Jake could throw whatever on the sled or whatever on the, uh, wheelbarrow and he'd be, you know, just fine.

654
00:47:24.878 --> 00:47:26.080
He ain't going to get out of breath.

655
00:47:26.781 --> 00:47:34.871
Uh, but you might have a, you know, somebody that's pulling, you know, 900 plus pounds and they're going to struggle with that, the same weight that Jake's using on the sled just because they're not as in shape as he is.

656
00:47:34.891 --> 00:47:35.632
So, um,

657
00:47:36.053 --> 00:47:41.700
Strength is one thing, but when it comes to specific GPP training, it really just depends on the athlete's fitness.

658
00:47:41.840 --> 00:47:48.669
Strength's, of course, a component because the stronger you are, the less difficult things are on you, the less it registers, especially from the cardiovascular standpoint.

659
00:47:49.570 --> 00:47:51.052
But, yeah, I mean, once the heart starts pumping,

660
00:47:51.672 --> 00:47:55.894
and you're doing GPP training, the training weights you use are really just depending on your fitness.

661
00:47:57.114 --> 00:47:59.035
I would use, obviously, same thing as accessories.

662
00:47:59.055 --> 00:48:08.098
You want to find an effective weight that challenges you, allows you to complete all sets and reps to standard, and then just slowly start to escalate that as your fitness and capabilities allow.

663
00:48:09.732 --> 00:48:22.915
Yeah, I like how you mentioned it being based on the listener's capability, because I think what I've seen, especially recently, is that people are taking GPP a little too heavy, where it's negatively impacting their training sessions.

664
00:48:23.715 --> 00:48:26.416
Now, if that's the case, what should they do?

665
00:48:26.616 --> 00:48:34.438
Would they lower that volume on that training session until they can get back to an optimal level and then lower the GPP weights?

666
00:48:35.218 --> 00:48:35.818
Yeah.

667
00:48:35.858 --> 00:48:42.481
I mean, if you overshoot on anything, the only thing you can do to go forward is to scale back a little bit.

668
00:48:42.961 --> 00:48:52.185
And I think that's with any lift, whether it's a maximal effort, a repeated effort, or if we're talking about GPP training, if you're overshooting, especially if you're overshooting for too long, there's going to be excess fatigue.

669
00:48:52.506 --> 00:48:55.447
So the only thing you can do to solve those issues, get back on track is to pull back.

670
00:48:56.788 --> 00:49:01.572
Whether that's lowering the weight or lowering the actual volume of the training.

671
00:49:02.472 --> 00:49:06.135
But yeah, that's the big thing is do what's effective.

672
00:49:06.255 --> 00:49:07.216
Don't go all out.

673
00:49:07.256 --> 00:49:15.423
Specifically with the GPP work, that's something, especially for strength athletes, because they're going to likely not be in the best of shape when they get started with GPP work if they've not already instituted it.

674
00:49:16.003 --> 00:49:20.927
You know, start with something that's difficult, that's challenging, but not so much to where you're puking in the parking lot.

675
00:49:21.307 --> 00:49:29.353
And then also, you can't really always gauge the difficulty or the recovery implications that day, right?

676
00:49:29.793 --> 00:49:31.795
You got to start reading the whole week, the whole month.

677
00:49:32.195 --> 00:49:36.819
So, you know, say if it's Friday and it's dynamic effort lower and I pulled a sled that was maybe too heavy.

678
00:49:37.579 --> 00:49:42.543
I'm going to be looking at Monday and if I'm, you know, shit out of luck on Monday and I'm just not doing well at all.

679
00:49:42.623 --> 00:49:43.404
My lifts are crap.

680
00:49:43.424 --> 00:49:48.188
I'm not, you know, say I'm 30 pounds under what I would typically pull off like pin two if we're doing a rack pull.

681
00:49:48.928 --> 00:49:53.432
I can quickly look back and be like, man, I probably pushed it a little too far on Friday with those sled pulls.

682
00:49:53.792 --> 00:49:55.033
So it's just looking for correlation.

683
00:49:55.234 --> 00:49:57.996
I mean, or negative correlation or positive correlation.

684
00:49:58.016 --> 00:50:06.263
You might find like, hey, you know, I've been kicking, you know, these sled pulls up and I'm noticing that I've easily, you know, added 10, 15 pounds in my deadlift.

685
00:50:06.863 --> 00:50:08.947
Or if it's, you know, you're under shooting, it's,

686
00:50:10.814 --> 00:50:12.475
You read the workouts.

687
00:50:12.495 --> 00:50:15.337
So like I said, it can show up in the maximal effort work.

688
00:50:15.378 --> 00:50:20.682
It can show up in the dynamic effort work if your velocities are struggling, if your technique is struggling, if you're feeling wore out.

689
00:50:21.422 --> 00:50:22.943
It's really that simple.

690
00:50:23.204 --> 00:50:37.595
And the GPP work is typically the first thing that we would cut back on if we're starting to notice excess fatigue that's affecting performance for the main exercises and the different variations that we're doing or the different upper and lower days that we're working through.

691
00:50:38.512 --> 00:50:44.798
Okay, when you're talking about cutting back on that, you're talking about cutting back on the weight or total volume, it would depend, it would depend how

692
00:50:46.615 --> 00:50:48.376
how excessive the fatigue has become.

693
00:50:48.476 --> 00:50:54.741
If it's so excessive that the athlete is tremendously underperforming, we would just cut it out, you know, maybe for a week or two.

694
00:50:55.341 --> 00:50:57.803
And it's not to, you know, give the athlete a break.

695
00:50:57.843 --> 00:51:00.645
It's to really just give them a leg up on recovery to get them back on track.

696
00:51:00.665 --> 00:51:09.792
Then we would reinstitute the GPP training just at a lower weight because obviously the training and the feedback, the loop has indicated that we overshot last time.

697
00:51:10.372 --> 00:51:15.837
So obviously, if we can't, if we can avoid cutting it and still get the athlete back on track, we'll do that.

698
00:51:16.578 --> 00:51:21.963
But sometimes if you just cut something for a week, give an athlete a quick week to get back on track, the body recovers rather quickly.

699
00:51:22.443 --> 00:51:26.067
Then you can kind of go back and now you kind of know your limits, right?

700
00:51:26.087 --> 00:51:27.368
We know the upper limit now.

701
00:51:27.908 --> 00:51:32.693
So we dial back from that upper limit a little bit and we should be within a range that can be productive.

702
00:51:33.153 --> 00:51:34.034
And that goes with anything, man.

703
00:51:34.054 --> 00:51:37.796
That goes with maximal efforts, maximal effort variations.

704
00:51:37.916 --> 00:51:38.897
It goes for accessory work.

705
00:51:39.337 --> 00:51:46.702
If you overshoot, you know, just give it a week, you know, cut back for a week, not all the way, but cut back a little bit to give yourself a leg up on recovery.

706
00:51:47.102 --> 00:51:50.524
And then the following week, you know, kick it up a little bit because now you know your upper limits.

707
00:51:50.964 --> 00:51:56.328
And I think that's something real quick I will say, man, that's something important I think everybody needs to discover within their training, especially with accessory work, but with anything.

708
00:51:56.808 --> 00:52:02.635
You have to establish your upper limits because if you don't know too far, you don't always know where your range is.

709
00:52:02.715 --> 00:52:05.058
So you don't want to go so far that you hurt yourself.

710
00:52:05.519 --> 00:52:09.163
But pushing it a little too far isn't always a bad thing because at least that's going to provide you feedback.

711
00:52:09.223 --> 00:52:10.144
Okay, that's my upper limit.

712
00:52:10.364 --> 00:52:11.386
I got to watch out there.

713
00:52:11.786 --> 00:52:15.711
But anything under that or slightly under that, I know that's going to be an effective range to train within.

714
00:52:16.661 --> 00:52:16.961
Yes.

715
00:52:17.501 --> 00:52:31.527
Yeah, because you got you got some athletes that they love to they feel that they had a successful training session based off like a muscle pump or if they feel extremely fatigued and oh, look, I can take my shirt off and wring out all the sweat.

716
00:52:33.328 --> 00:52:39.070
So that kind of changes a lot of how to organize that and set those parameters for them.

717
00:52:39.763 --> 00:52:45.606
Yeah, I mean, like I said, knowing your upper limit really does allow you to calibrate where your effective limit's at.

718
00:52:46.006 --> 00:52:50.448
And like you said, just because you have a muscle pump or you sweat at a bunch doesn't exactly mean that you would train within an effective range.

719
00:52:50.789 --> 00:52:56.892
And when we're talking about the physiological adaptations that we're trying to incur, you have to be training within those effective ranges.

720
00:52:57.272 --> 00:53:00.493
And if you don't know what that is, your training's not going to be optimized.

721
00:53:01.174 --> 00:53:01.734
All right, Burley.

722
00:53:01.994 --> 00:53:07.417
So for those that are listening, what are some of the big takeaways you want them to get from your blog?

723
00:53:09.269 --> 00:53:14.251
Really just how to organize accessories, how to dial in accessories, and just how to get the most out of them.

724
00:53:14.271 --> 00:53:22.694
Because when we're talking about our system, I think one of the greatest points of failure is folks not executing or dialing in their accessories correctly.

725
00:53:22.794 --> 00:53:29.837
They'll blame the maximal efforts, they'll blame the dynamic effort, but those accessory exercises is really where most of your growth and progress will be made.

726
00:53:31.157 --> 00:53:33.598
Of course, the maximal efforts are reflective of the work.

727
00:53:34.299 --> 00:53:35.839
A lot of the work gets done within the accessory work.

728
00:53:35.859 --> 00:53:45.264
And then specifically, going back to those primary accessories, everybody complains about competition specificity within our system when it comes to powerlifting.

729
00:53:45.764 --> 00:53:48.546
Those primary accessories is where that competition specificity lives.

730
00:53:48.906 --> 00:53:56.269
You'll have some folks that act like they're reinventing the wheel because, oh, they're going to teach you how to run competition specific exercises within the conjugate system.

731
00:53:56.570 --> 00:53:57.250
We've been doing it.

732
00:53:57.690 --> 00:53:59.012
It's just not everybody knows how to program.

733
00:53:59.032 --> 00:54:02.598
It doesn't know the depths, you know, the depths of the programming, the levels of the programming.

734
00:54:03.019 --> 00:54:04.662
It can all be done within the conjugate system.

735
00:54:04.682 --> 00:54:08.869
It's just where are you, how are you thinking and what are you thinking and how are you programming?

736
00:54:08.889 --> 00:54:09.390
Yeah.

737
00:54:09.659 --> 00:54:22.484
Like I said, that primary accessory slot allows for any athlete to practice any sort of competition-specific exercise they want to, whether it's squat, bench, deadlift, if you're a strongman, overhead presses, or anything that's competition-relevant.

738
00:54:22.884 --> 00:54:29.787
If we aren't hitting it during the main movement, we can always address it in the primary accessory, and we can address it at a variety of different intensities and rep ranges.

739
00:54:30.733 --> 00:54:31.073
Okay.

740
00:54:31.694 --> 00:54:34.217
And then I also want to add in one key takeaway.

741
00:54:34.717 --> 00:54:47.650
So for those that are listening, if there's an individual that is, hey, my bench has stalled at this point for the last six months or three months, whatever that is, what would you want them to do with their accessory work this week?

742
00:54:48.863 --> 00:54:51.527
Well, if you've been struggling, you've got to first identify why you're struggling.

743
00:54:51.647 --> 00:54:52.889
That'd be the first thing you have to do.

744
00:54:53.350 --> 00:54:55.634
And then, I mean, it's really simple, man.

745
00:54:55.714 --> 00:54:59.239
Once you know where you're struggling and why you're struggling, then it's just addressing the muscle groups.

746
00:54:59.259 --> 00:55:00.221
And it really is that simple.

747
00:55:00.702 --> 00:55:03.566
Unless you have some sort of a neurological issue or some sort of an injury.

748
00:55:04.967 --> 00:55:09.850
the answer is typically just to get the muscle groups that are contributing to that lift stronger.

749
00:55:10.210 --> 00:55:11.651
Of course, there's technique involved as well.

750
00:55:11.671 --> 00:55:14.252
I'm not going to sit here and say it's all about strength.

751
00:55:14.292 --> 00:55:20.435
Sometimes you have athletes that might be strong, just have awful technique, or they're not dialed in on their technique enough.

752
00:55:21.336 --> 00:55:27.399
But in my experience, what I've seen at the gym, of course, I was always lifting around very high-level lifters that had dialed-in technique.

753
00:55:27.439 --> 00:55:28.520
It's almost always a strength issue.

754
00:55:29.240 --> 00:55:35.844
Um, a lot of folks will say it's a technique issue because there's a technique breakdown, but oftentimes those technique breakdowns happen because the athlete's not strong enough or the muscle group's not strong enough.

755
00:55:36.384 --> 00:55:39.967
So yeah, first you have to find out why you're failing, which is easily identifiable.

756
00:55:40.007 --> 00:55:43.649
As long as you're, you know, videotaping your maximal average, you'll be able to kind of see where you're fading out at.

757
00:55:44.149 --> 00:55:49.593
And then wherever you're fading out at that specific joint angle, you're going to say, okay, what muscle groups at that point are contributing most?

758
00:55:50.093 --> 00:55:53.515
And then you just figure out those muscle groups and, you know, start to, uh, uh,

759
00:55:53.515 --> 00:55:56.997
to tilt your accessory work towards those muscle groups accordingly.

760
00:55:57.438 --> 00:56:07.305
I will say, though, when doing that, don't get so obsessed that your entire accessory work becomes focused on that muscle group alone because that's essentially, you know, you got a hole in the end of this boat.

761
00:56:07.325 --> 00:56:08.426
Now we're throwing the water in the other end.

762
00:56:08.446 --> 00:56:09.827
We're, you know, we're taking on water the other end.

763
00:56:10.187 --> 00:56:10.807
It makes no sense.

764
00:56:11.167 --> 00:56:16.591
You still have to make sure you address all relevant muscle groups accordingly with just a slight bias towards what's weakest.

765
00:56:18.172 --> 00:56:18.653
Perfect.

766
00:56:19.917 --> 00:56:20.297
All right.

767
00:56:20.337 --> 00:56:23.818
For those that are listening, hey, guys, make sure you guys subscribe to the channel.

768
00:56:24.218 --> 00:56:24.858
Like the video.

769
00:56:24.898 --> 00:56:25.619
Drop a comment.

770
00:56:25.919 --> 00:56:29.300
And if you felt this helpful, go ahead and share it with a training partner, okay?

771
00:56:30.440 --> 00:56:31.220
That's all we got.

772
00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:33.081
Burley, thank you for jumping on the podcast.

773
00:56:33.461 --> 00:56:33.621
Yep.

774
00:56:34.141 --> 00:56:34.341
Thanks.

775
00:56:34.821 --> 00:56:35.641
All right.

776
00:56:35.841 --> 00:56:36.862
Make sure you guys stay tuned.

777
00:56:37.302 --> 00:56:37.862
Stay strong.