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Hello, and welcome to the Ask Westside Barbell podcast. I'm Mac McFarlane, asking the questions that matter most to aspiring lifters, athletes, and coaches, and Tom's here to answer them. So let's get started. Hello, Tom. Mac, how are you today? Doing good. How are you? Good. What do we have on deck? So we have a high school coach sending a question saying, what does a proper warm-up look like for Mac Zephyr Day? Okay.

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So when we approach max effortlifting in the gym and from everything we learned from Louis and the powerlifters is that the vast majority of our warmup is with the lifts.

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We start with the bar at a low percentage and work up gradually. Some athletes will come in early and they'll do specific stuff to activate. So you might have some people do scapular pull-ups for a bench, do some sleds and reverse hypers, depending on what they want to do for a general warm-up. But by and large, we warm up with the exercise we're doing at a lighter weight, working up. Nice. Okay. Next question. How do you work up to a max effort attempt?

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There are many ways that you can work up to a max effort attempt, different strategies. But what we lean into here is once you get to the bar, we start with about six reps, roughly between 30% to one rep max. We'll go from six reps to four reps to two reps. And then at about 75%, we are into singles.

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Because the goal is to work up to a one rep, I was going to say a one rep maximal. And then we'll go from 75 to 85%. So it's one rep at 75, one rep at 85, one rep at 90%, one rep at 95%.

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one at 97.5, and then the last one we're going for, we're aiming for a PR, something above 100%. But remember, for maximum effort, we're chasing the stimulus of lifting the heaviest weight we can on that day. And the percentage I'm giving out is rules of thumb. They'll vary from person to person.

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The more novice a lifter, the smaller the jumps they're going to have to make because we see it a lot. People who might be a professional athlete may have a low physical IQ when it comes to lifting weights. So they'll make too big a jumps and they might be able to move more.

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400 pounds like lightning and then like oh let's make a 50 pound jump and then they get stapled because they're not used to those big jumps so i would context is key from working with people if they're novice you can start off with relatively big jumps maybe going from if you're a 400 pound deadlifter

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You can start with 135, go to 225, then maybe go to 275, 315, and now you're going to start making smaller jumps. And our goal is to try to get that one rep max in seven jumps, not including your warm-up, just seven jumps. Now, with those seven jumps, is that the same? Does that apply for elite lifters as it does novice lifters? And how does that apply when you don't know your max?

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Wait, you have to find your max. No matter what, it's not theoretical. Everything we are using has been taken from the best power lifters on the planet and by the best strength and conditioning coach on the planet, Louis Simmons. So we've just adapted that into how we train our athletes, but it comes from power lifting. I think if you really want to know how to max out, go read Louis' material. They understood how to make correct jumps, correct percentages, and that scales down. Now, if you're a complete and utter novice,

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You have to develop technical proficiency in the lifts because that's going to be a limiting factor to a true one rep max. But once you have that and then make small jumps, just get a record. Don't fail. Like you want to get a record. When you get a record, then that is what you're going to come back and beat. So no matter what, go out and get your one rep max. Ensure you got technical proficiency that you're not going to get hurt. And because some people will cut it off too early when technique begins to falter. But...

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But there is wiggle room there. We're not looking for, especially with athletes, we're not looking for textbook correct form. We want to push the boundaries without getting hurt. So if we see a technical breakdown that could lead to someone getting hurt, we'll stop it. But other than that, I've seen far too many people cut one or max effort day short when the form begins to break a little bit and like, no, you're completely fine. Nice.

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So to dive a little bit deeper into that, when you're going for a max effort attempt and we're talking about form breaking down, we'll use a box swap, for example. If there's an athlete that is sitting closer than further back or he's inching up each time he goes up, would that be something to call it on? Or are you looking for a different type of breakdown in form? That's a good question.

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The way you start is how you should finish. So if you're doing crazy things, something's going to go wrong because you're trying to, it's fight or flight, you're trying to get that lift. So if you are having to adjust, raise the box height, well, then you've just changed the lift completely. So with the box squat and you're on a 12 inch box, and now to get the weight, you're going to a 14 inch box. It's a completely different lift. So you want to stick to the lift you're doing. You don't want to change your technique. Yeah.

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and for the last three reps you should be starting out how you're going to finish and if you're doing that well then i would question your setup and everything i might be due to not understanding the lift but that could be a good reason to stop it like okay this is the most amount of weight i can lift lifting this way and unless your technique is so bad that it has to be adjusted like there's context is king and everything but to me how you start is how you finish nice

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It says, do you have to fail for it to be considered a true max effort attempt? From what this coach is aware of, max effort is two to three lifts above 90%. Can you confirm or clarify this? Sure. You don't want athletes to fail.

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You don't want lifters to fail. You don't want them to get a taste of failure because max effort is a really good way of setting goals and achieving those goals. You're right. We're looking at about three lifts above 90%, but we're chasing the stimulus. We're chasing the heaviest weight that can be lifted in that day. Obviously, we all want to get PRs. Sometimes it does not work out depending on what's happening. If you're an athlete in...

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Your life, you might be coming back off a game. You might be in college doing a bunch of exams. All those factor in. But leave a rep or a set in the tank. Keep that five pounds. Don't get too greedy. Because a few things can happen if you get too greedy and you go all out. It's going to take from your accessory work, which is about 80% of your workouts. And that's where everything is built through. So you don't want to take away from that.

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And then two, like you're going to come back and try to beat that PR. And it's good to know in your head that you have something in the tank. Like Louis always said, train optimal. In the last podcast I just did with Burley over in the Westside podcast, we went into that Mel Siff encounter when Mel came up on the podium. His wife's in the wheelchair, pushed her to the side. I've told a story a thousand times. Louis has said it a thousand times. But to me, it's a fantastic story that changed the direction of Westside Barbell.

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But the difference between training maximally and minimally, train optimally, keep a set in the tank. Don't give your athletes a taste of failure because that's not your job. You're setting them up for success. We've had people that I know very closely here that used to avoid, they go from 85% straight to 100 plus percent. But those reps in between are so crucially important. And again, these percentages are guidelines. They're not set in stone. But getting those three lifts over 90% is crucial for the development of absolute strength.

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Now, when you say you have to know your max, what about when does that change? For example, like if an athlete came off an ACL injury or if we tweak something in practice and he's out for two or three weeks, how does that – how do those numbers change when we're going for a retest? If you're coming back from a setback, you start from zero. Yeah.

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It's now a whole nother set. And hopefully we will in the longer sense of things, we'll come back and be back to where we are even better. But if you're coming back from a setback, you just basically erase the board and start from scratch. And then you build yourself back up again, especially from an athlete perspective. It's basically you want to set your up for success, not failure.

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Awesome. All right. So we have another question. He says he used to run four-week cycles, but now he's on a six-week and retesting every six weeks. So what is the recommended time in between retesting a lift? Is there any more background? How much success do they have in the six weeks? So he says he's got 95% of the time the lifters hit a five-pound PR. The other 5% is caused by lifters' daily activity, whether they're not sleeping enough, they came off a long shift.

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um that's it gotcha one if it's not broke don't fix it so if you're hitting pr's in the six weeks great like good that's phenomenal it's a bit soon for me like usually i will do stuff eight to 12 weeks if it's with like power lifters um normally for the athletes we have a wide variety of max effort exercises so we might pre and post test the competition lifts

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once to four times a year. But every, every eight to 12 weeks to me is a good point. But if you're getting the results of six weeks, great for you. Just if it's working, don't change it. Got it. This one's a good question. So with the max effort variations, how do you determine the different types of resistance for the level the athlete's at?

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For example, do newbies use only straight weight? Novice, do they use chains and mostly straight weight? And then pros and advanced lifters, do they use mostly chain and bands? And then a few lifts, they'll do a straight weight.

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Keep it simple at the start. So when you have a novice lifter, they have to gain proficiency with the compound lifts. So before you start adding in bands and chains, make sure they're able to actually execute the exercise correctly with just bar weight. Then as they progress, add in bands and chains as a variation. That doesn't mean all your max efforts are now going to all have bands and chains because you still need straight weight variations because with the nature of variable resistance, you're going to have to do that.

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you're going to lose weight at the bottom and that's where straight weight is very important um but as you progress you can be more complex but if you start too complex then it's going to be a disaster because it's going to fail so start simple start with more of the general competition lifts and then as proficiency comes through adding more variation got it

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All right, this next one is really good. It says, how do you use the max effort method when traveling? For example, like in home gyms or local community gyms. I guess you're at the mercy of what equipment you have access to.

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But if you're traveling and you want to do max effort stimulus, one thing you could rotate in is an isometric if you're not able to execute the actual movement. And then it's a good time to put in a new variation because then every rep and weight you hit is going to be a PR because you've never done it before. So basically goes, you're at the mercy of what you have access to.

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And then from there, just pick something new, pick a variation that you know you can do. Normally, everybody's going to have a rack, so it's going to be relatively easy to do a free squat or something along that lines. But if they don't, if it's minimal equipment, never overlook the power of doing an isometric in lieu of max effort. Or you could just do dynamic effort, but that's another subject. Now, if you're using the isometric for that max effort main movement, how would you do that? Yeah.

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um you would do it for a squat or a deadlift very sorry not a squat for a bench or a deadlift variation uh usually set it up against an immovable object so a pin is a really good way to set up the bar and you're going to push or pull into that pin for about three to five seconds of about three to five reps of three to five sets

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And you don't need a lot of weight in the bar, but you want to give maximum intent while you're pulling or pushing. And for a deadlift, it could be mid-tie. It could be just at the starting point of a deadlift or right at lockout. The same with bench. But that stimulus is very taxing, but it does carry over. Awesome. And just to mention this, I want to make sure that when people are trying this, to make sure that the rack is bolted down. Good point. If you're in a hotel.

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But this kind of leads into this next one right here where it says, how do you modify the max effort movement when you're working off a long shift? So to give you context with this, he's coming off a 12-hour shift and he's wanting to see what should he do to modify it if he's not feeling 100%.

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Well, it depends on how long you're doing long shifts. If this is a one or two time deal, then you can either pick a new movement you've never done before and just work up on it. And again, it's going to be a PR. Then if this is something that you're going to be doing for weeks and months on end, you're just trying to build up the capacity. Because if you start avoiding doing max effort lifts, you're going to lose...

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two, four, six, eight. That's eight trans sessions in a month. And that's going to greatly affect your absolute strength. So not having the context of if this is a short term or long term. If it's short term, a good way to do it is pick an exercise you've never done before and work up on that. Remember, you're chasing the stimulus, not an all-time record. So lift as heavy as you can on that lift.

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If this is a, you're doing long shifts for the long haul, well, then you're just going to have to build up the tolerance and maybe start over again, getting new PRs for your long shifts.

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Awesome. But on that, I remember there was guys in the gym that would work construction. I met Tony Ramos, Jimmy Ritchie, all these guys were working all out in the blistering heat. They'd start six in the morning. They might come in at five or six in the evening, and they would max out. Louis, he worked construction. He would come home and never miss a max effort. They just build up the tolerance to it.

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Nice. Like one of my favorites, especially after coming off a long trip or a long drive or flight, would always be a zurcher squat. Is there one that you favor?

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a pin deadlift i think a pin deadlift or as uh sleds like work up to a max sled is a great stimulus for the lower body um that and then i think a pin press or board press for the bench and remember you're chasing the stimulus the heaviest weight you can lift on that day so you know that there's stuff out of your control that's going to potentially take away from getting a pr but

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but you're chasing that stimulus. So lift the heaviest you can in that. And you'd be quite surprised. Sometimes on your worst day, you will lift your best lifts. That wraps up today's episode of Ask Westside Barbell. The questions we covered came straight from the members of the Conjugate Club, our private training community. If you'd like to join, head over and sign up. You'll get access to exclusive content, direct Q&As, and a chance to have your questions featured on the show.

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Make sure to follow us on social media to stay in the loop, and we'll catch you next time.