Five Random Things I’ve Learned at Westside
By
AJ Roberts
AJ Roberts is an accomplished athlete in the sport of powerlifting, and is
currently ranked as one of the top 100 powerlifters in the world in two separate
weight classes. His best lifts include a 1008 pound squat, 750 pound bench
press, 755 pound deadlift and a 2430 pound total. AJ currently trains at
Westside Barbell in Columbus, Ohio. Most recently, he was Director of Personal
Training and Youth Fitness at a health club in Owensboro, KY. Previously, AJ was
an NCAA Division I strength and conditioning Coach at the University of Idaho,
and also served as editor for Sports Specific, one of the largest sports
training websites in the world.
Before I moved to Columbus, Ohio to train at Westside Barbell, I thought I
understood what went on between the four walls of the gym. After all, I had read
every article Louie had ever written, I’d bought every DVD he’d made, I’d bought
his book, and I’d spoken with him several times at meets and over the phone. It
didn’t take long, however, for me to realize that all I had really been exposed
to was a very small part of what Westside is.
You see, unless you train at Westside, you don’t get to see all the
experiments that go on, you don’t get to see the training tools that come and go
and come back again, and you don’t get to listen to the daily conversations
between Louie and the lifters. You also don’t get to watch the evolution of the
training system.
I could probably sit and write a book about all the things I’ve learned since
walking through the gym doors, but, as I know, there is still so much more that
I will learn in the coming years, and so much that will get thrown out the
window, so you’ll have to get by with these five random things:
1. The dynamic method was developed due to people not being able to handle
multiple max effort workouts in a week.
If you’ve been following my log or Matt Smith’s log, you may have noticed
that traditional three week waves are rarely done at Westside anymore. With the
amount of advanced lifters we have training there, the majority have spent years
and years doing waves and now routinely work up heavy after 3-5 sets of speed
work. This isn’t done every week, but it happens more often than not.
2. Only use the straight bar on dynamic days.
This isn’t set in stone, and occasionally the Buffalo bar is used, but 99% of
squatting done on dynamic days is with the straight bar. We use a combination of
bands, chains, and bands + chains to always make the exercise different, but the
bar remains the same.
3. You need to deadlift every week.
You’re either doing speed work or doing some sort of max effort movement, but
you need to deadlift every week. You don’t have to use your competition stance
all the time, and rack work should be done conventionally.
4. Circa Max phase is done before every meet.
From years of results, Louie can pretty much call everyone’s numbers based on
what you do during Circa Max phase. If you want to hit 1000 in a meet, then you
need to hit 600 with a blue, green and purple band. If you want to squat 900,
then you have to hit 600 with a blue and green band. 800 would be 500 with blue
and green. This is the only part of training that is actually planned out in
advance.
5. Nothing beats being strong.
Despite the gear being what it is today, nothing beats actually being super
freaking strong. There is a time and place to learn how to maximize your gear,
but what happens when you can’t get any more out of your bench shirt or squat
suit? At some point you have to work on getting stronger.
Q&A:
How often do you guys come back to the same max effort exercise? Also, I
complete raw and would like to use Westside methods to improve my bench. Any
suggestions?
We usually cycle through the same exercises every 4-6 weeks, but may do
different variations of the lift.
If you are competing raw, I would stick to basic ME movements:
- bench
- incline
- floor press
- 2-board
Do lots of high rep dumbbell work afterward, keeping the reps between 12-20 for
3-4 sets.
How do lifters at Westside manage to do one max effort bench day and one
dynamic effort bench day in a week and still stay healthy?
I've been benching twice a week since I started powerlifting, and actually
used to go heavy on both days: one being top-end work and the other being
low-end work. Switching over to ME and DE was easy for me, as it is essentially
one high and one low day. The key, though, is to listen to your body, and if
you’re still beat up come DE day, you simply deload.
Also, with all the pressing, you need to make sure you are performing the same
amount of pulling. Face pulls, rows, pull-ups, etc, should all be used in your
training.
Is dynamic work at Westside still done in “dynamic” style?
I think people have misunderstood the changes for our dynamic squat workouts.
We still perform several speed sets, 3-5, but we’re using a higher percentage,
as this is what has been working. For a while they were going heavy every single
week, but we have backed off of this for this training cycle, and so far
everyone is getting stronger.
It's actually very similar to what Westside did before bands and chains as far
as percentages go, but now we are incorporating them as well.
We’re able to do this because our max effort movement is never the same as our
dynamic movement. If you look at the bench press, regardless of what movement
you do, you are always pressing which makes going heavy twice a week miserable.
Despite this, there have been changes.
Greg and Luke perform three week waves of speed work, but using 5's instead of
3's. I recently experimented in a loose shirt for a few weeks and will probably
return to this once I figure out what’s going on with my tricep/delt, and then
there are others who still perform it the orignal way as they feel it carries
over.
AJ Roberts currently trains out of Westside Barbell and is a member of Team
EliteFTS. You can read his training log here
or you can check out his blog
http://hardcore-strength-coach.com/
