Why I Chose Triphasic

2019 brought many blessings and many hardships for me personally, as I’m sure it did for many of you as well. January started with a liver biopsy and drug change to treat my Ulcerative Colitis. I opted for shoulder surgery in the summer to repair a slap tear (labrum). A month later I ended up in the hospital with an ‘unknown’ virus - turns out it was Lyme disease. Around that same time I parted ways with the company that I built Union Fitness for.  All the while my circle of friends has gotten smaller - but stronger. I’m grateful for all of it, because I can stand here today with a better understanding of who I am. Did I have to go through that for this realization? I don’t know- maybe.

Through all of that, training took a back seat. For a vast majority of it, I didn’t even train at all. Partially due to physical restraints, but honestly it was mostly due to the fact that I didn’t want to train. That was hard to admit at the time, but easy to see now. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

When I was cleared by my doctor to start training about 6.5 months post-op, it was a relief of sorts- almost a period on 2019. I wasn’t motivated to start training again, really, But I did want to. And it was tough creating that habit again - in fact I’m still struggling with it. I’ve elicited the help of clients, friends, and training partners to hold me accountable. In the beginning, I took the most logical approach I could. For bench- bar-65-85-105-125-etc for 10s until I felt like I could take on something more structured.

I wanted to use something that would keep the reigns on me, provide structure, but also force me to focus on technique instead of just moving weights. I had used Triphasic with clients in the past and even had my training partners go through a couple cycles with it. Given my strength levels and goals, I thought it matched up pretty well with what I needed.

What is Triphasic?

For those that are unfamiliar with Triphasic, it's a program that breaks down the three phases of the lifts into mini cycles to emphasize the eccentric, isometric, and concentric phases. Cal Dietz created this program for his collegiate athletes and has used it with much success. I don't know the details beyond a few articles and a couple conversations with him about it, but I know how I have adapted it for powerlifting (which there are many other ways to do it besides what I have done, Christian Anto has used this in the past as well).

Eccentric - the ‘lowering’ or ‘loading’ phase of the lift. This comes first in triphasic and in my opinion is the most important. If done properly, it sets you up for an optimal lift. If done improperly, everything else goes to shit- it’s hard to recover from. The other thing to consider here is this phase of the lift creates the most trauma or micro tears to the muscle. So it’s a great tool for hypertrophy - and a reason I may revisit this again in the near future.

Isometric - the phase between the lowering and the reversal- this phase reinforces positioning and creates the feeling and ability to withstand pressure in the toughest portion of the lift. It can be a great confidence builder as well, when done properly. Maintaining tension here is imperative, as well as reversing STRAIGHT into the concentric and not dipping to gain leverage over the bar again.

*Training both portions of this lift SUBMAXIMALLY is important for a number of reasons - it allows you to maintain or relearn technique (can’t be done effectively with too high a load). It also allows you slow down and feel what your body is doing, as opposed to the grip and rip it nature a lot of you young bucks do on a daily basis. Finally, it allows you to learn how to accelerate the bar (hopefully) using good technique, instead of just for acceleration’s sake.

Concentric - this is the fun part. It CAN be done as pin squats, pin presses, and competition deadlifts, but I don’t prefer to do the first two heavy for different reasons. Pin squats are just a pain to get into position. And pin presses on bench are inherently dangerous. However, you can use accommodating resistance to load up the concentric, which is obviously my jam. I did that for weeks 1 and 2, but let it fly for week 3. Again, multiple ways to skin a cat here. I had tested my max with no acc. Resistance leading up to this so I kept it apples to apples here.

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Here is the training broken out by week, along with a link for easier viewing (copy and past it if need be):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LHCW8VnB7fKlogQIbAEVTNcw4efDYVWpOlYM6imej8w/edit?usp=sharing

For reference, assistance work followed:

Linear progression - increasing weight on the barbell by small increments each training session

Progressive overload - a gradual increase in volume (sets, reps), intensity or frequency over a training cycle.

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Why I chose Triphasic

1. Safety - I could take 315 on my squat (40% of my best training squat, but 75% of my most recent heavy squat) and make it harder using tempo. 5 second eccentrics and 3 second pauses can get tough when done properly and repeatedly. But I wasn't putting myself in danger of going too heavy, too fast.

2.  Technique - Those tempos through each portion of the lift can feel like an eternity. And they give you time to really think about what you're doing. And it becomes apparent very quickly when you're out of the groove. This is the best my squats have looked with the SSB because I took 9 weeks to work on it - when before it would just be a 3 week wave as heavy as I could handle.

3. Volume - The way I run triphasic, it's at most 15 reps for the main movement. So I didn't have to be in great shape to complete the 9 week cycle. In fact the short rest periods allowed me to train hard and get in shape at the same time.

Some takeaways with my training, both successes and failures:

Squat went extremely well- both with technique and strength improvements. I squatted an ugly 405 in wraps and a belt before starting. During training I never squatted over 365 in term of bar weight, didn't wear a belt until week 7-8, and hit a solid 500 at the compound on the last week of training.

Bench actually started off great even after shoulder surgery, but around week 7 I started to have some pinching that I didn't like. I actually think it came from deadlifts/carries. So I backed off of that and will be upping my physical therapy to make sure that I'm able to put my foot on the gas during my next training cycle. For the next six weeks I'll be doing a lot of push ups and other closed chain work.

Deadlift was easy - this was one area I was purposely holding myself back. I worked up to an easy 405 and felt like I could pull 600 with a gun to my head. But my shoulder didn't like that so I backed off for the rest of the cycle. I will be implementing zercher squats (with a harness) and good mornings for a full 8-12 week cycle.

The final piece to look at was my assistance work - if you click on the google drive doc and see the way I had it laid out for everyone to follow - a combination of linear progression and progressive overload from week to week- I wasn't able to keep up with that myself. Partially due to limitations and partially due to training in different places week to week. Being a more advanced lifter, this didn't hurt me very much. I know when and where to push and when to back off. The lifters that joined me for this free 9 week program however, did really well with this. Some even commented that they were 'finally working hard in their training.' So that, ultimately, was a big success in my opinion.