In my last article, I wrote about the conjugate strength training system and the very basics of the program. In this article I want to expand on these concepts and dig deeper into building a program around the four main training sessions, giving more information about bending the conjugate principles and program around your individual needs to help you make the most progress in the shortest amount of time.
RECENT: My Simple and Effective Approach to Conjugate Training
I wrote about how the four basic sessions can be set up in a cycle ranging in length from seven to 14 days. This, of course, depends on your own needs, based on your recovery and life. It is also important to realize this is based on your level of advancement or skill. There is a big misconception that the longer you have been training, the more often you can train. I find this statement to be false in almost all cases, with athletes ranging from intermediate to advanced. Advanced lifters have much better muscle control and greater ability to recruit much more muscle fiber. They also have a better ability to contract their muscles harder, in essence getting more out the muscle. Ideally, your technique and movement ability have also become more efficient. All of this is not to mention that, as you gain strength, you automatically increase your workload during training. Combine all of these things and it basically means that, as you become more advanced, you gain the ability to push your body, muscles, mind, and central nervous system further in much less time than when you began. Over years of training, you will end up needing more time to recover from your training sessions. This is a very important concept to keep in mind because even if you currently can do the four main sessions in eight days, for example, it will probably not always stay that way. In order to keep making strength gains, it is very likely you may need to spread these sessions out in order to gain more recovery time.
Recovery and Supplemental Workouts
Frequency of the four main training sessions is not as simple as just how quickly you can recover from those sessions, though. First, you have to look at the efficiency of your recovery and what you're doing to actively recover, if anything. We ideally want to be able to do the four main sessions as often as possible to gain strength as fast as possible, but are we doing all we can to help speed recovery? This consists of many things like sleeping and eating enough, but for this article, I am focusing on training. Are you scheduling proper recovery sessions into your conjugate training? Recovery sessions are pretty basic in that they work by flushing fresh blood and nutrients to an area of the body 12 to 24 hours after it has been trained hard with a dynamic or max effort session. These recovery sessions can be performed for timed work or done with a sled or Prowler. The main criteria is that they are performed with very light weight or even just bodyweight for higher reps. They are not designed to tax the body but to help it recover. The fact is, they are damn boring but an enormous help with recovery. Timed work is based on doing an exercise for three to five minutes total with a rep rate of one rep every seven to 10 seconds. There should be constant tension on the muscles for the whole three to five minutes. I usually pick four or five exercises based on the session I am recovering from.
Sled and Prowler sessions are great for pumping in fresh blood and that they do not have an eccentric phase. This can be done in 20 to 25 minutes with very light weight and a quick pace. Don’t make the mistake of thinking these are only for lower body either, because you can do great upper body sessions with the sled and Prowler too. These sessions will help speed recovery, allowing us to train the main for session more frequently. Accessory or supplemental training sessions can also be added into the conjugate program. The main four sessions are the most important, and when considering accessory or supplement training sessions we must consider how they will benefit those. These extra sessions can consist of just about anything but should never have the intensity of the main four. I consider my BMX riding to be a supplemental training session crossed with a recovery session. I am a big fan of plyometrics and feel they fit in well as a supplemental training session, too. I have never been a huge fan of working my biceps, so for many years, I would add them in with a few isolation exercises for my shoulders or back on a supplemental training day. When I trained weights for these sessions I always kept it pretty straightforward, with a basic rep scheme of three sets of 10, and never forced reps. If I was not able to get all of my supplemental stuff done I wanted to on main lift days, I would just do them in another supplemental session later that day or week. I have also done many supplemental sessions that simply consist of doing some warm-ups, mobility, and stretching. Of course, all of these sessions were planned and thought out. They were to help injuries, speed recovery, bring up a weakness, and in turn to help me get stronger.
Max Effort Waves
Max effort days are very important to the conjugate system, and when first starting them it is often useful to run three-week waves of the max effort lift. As lifter advances, I don't feel that these waves are as important. Basically, as a new lifter to conjugate, you pick a max effort exercise based on your weaknesses and you run that same lift for three max effort sessions. This in part allows the lifter to get used to new lifts. It is also important because of their ability to push new lifts to a true max is not yet developed. For these reasons, I have found most new lifters will be able to PR in each of the first three weeks but not in a fourth week. As lifters become more advanced and familiar with the lifts, it will be better to switch up the max effort lifts each max effort session.
Bilateral and Unilateral Movements
A big mistake I have seen many powerlifters and strength athletes make is that we tend to get caught up in doing only bilateral movements. I know I have made this mistake, and these days I feel it is important to bring it up when I talk about programming. Always doing bilateral movements can lead to weaknesses in the smaller but still very important stabilizer muscles. As lifters get stronger, it is easy for the bigger muscles to overcome and adapt to many situations, but over time this will undoubtedly catch up to us. One of the greatest things that can slow or halt our strength gains is injury. In strength sports these are inevitable, but there is still much we can do to help prevent them. One of these things is unilateral movement. Fortunately, in the conjugate system, it is easy to add them in. In the main four sessions our major movement is either a dynamic or a max effort lift, which is the main focus of the session, and then we move on to accessory movements. This accessory area is a great place to add in some unilateral exercises. I am also a fan of using unilateral exercises in recovery sessions or even other supplemental sessions. Do not underestimate the benefits of unilateral movements for your health and strength. Do not underestimate the difficulty of them, either; I have seen big, strong-as-shit powerlifters struggle with bodyweight unilateral movements.
5 x 5 Method
As I wrote in my last article, I never really understood going through different phases of training, but instead thought it was possible to hit them all continuously. One of the things I had been thinking about for a very long time and finally added in my programming about five years ago with great results was some 5 x 5 training. Before I started powerlifting, I often trained 5 x 5 and saw decent results. In fact, I think this style of training gave me a leg up once I finally found powerlifting. It made sense to me to try to add it back in, and once I did, it forged in my head that this was a great idea. How I added it in was very simple: I just did my two dynamic sessions (bench and squat/deadlift), followed by my two max effort sessions, and finished with two 5 x 5 sessions. Over the years I have played around with how often I add these in and for how long to run them. I like it so much I kind of kick myself for not doing it earlier.
Adjusting for Individuality
Even though I talk about how important the four main lifts are and how they are the foundation, they are still subjected to bending around the individual. I will say I think this is something that should not be played around with so much for the beginner, but more as a lifter advances in their training and learns to read their own body. One of my greatest examples of this is how some lifters seem to just be genetically gifted with explosiveness and may not benefit as much from dynamic training as other lifters will. These athletes may choose to not do as much dynamic work or to cycle them in and out of their training.
There may also be times when a lifter feels like the max effort sessions are taxing their body and they could benefit from some heavier reps. They may choose to do run dynamic days with 5 x 5 days without max effort days for awhile. There are infinite ways to run conjugate training depending on your needs. You could run your two max effort sessions twice in a row followed by one dynamic session if you feel you maintain your explosive power but need more focus on max work. You could run your two dynamic sessions back-to-back, followed by your two max sessions if you really feel your explosiveness is lacking. If you choose to run 5 x 5 days with the dynamic and max effort, there are even more possibilities. Don’t think you have to always run both types of squat/deadlift and bench sessions together, either. You could run max bench sessions followed by dynamic squat/deadlift, then the next bench is a 5 x 5 session followed by max squat/deadlift. Sometimes I think it is just good to change it up simply for the reason of changing it up, to throw off your body. The possibilities are only limited by your own mind.
The main thing I hope lifters get from these articles about conjugate is the understanding that it is an outline; it is not some rigid program you follow to the T. It is just a set of guidelines and principles to follow. It gives you amazing building blocks to arrange in the way that works best for you. Granted, learning this ability to read yourself and what you need can take years to master, but you will never master it if you don’t start experimenting. It is okay to start out following the basic program, but never be afraid to experiment. Strength training is about education, learning, and attrition. The athletes that are always afraid to trust themselves and experiment are the ones that get left by the wayside. In my mind, conjugate is all about trusting yourself, learning, and experimenting. It is about taking very solid principles and bending them to fit your own needs. There is a reason it is my favorite program.
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