Concurrent Strategies in Strength Training, Part 3

This is part three of a three-part series.

Please note that different classifications may be used depending on the athletes’ weak and strong points, level of development, training period, emphasis, and additional items. Those classifications are used to help the coach organize the training system and prioritize things according to the demands of sport and position. With the average athlete, primary exercises are those movements that give the “most bang for the buck” and have the greatest transfer to the field while other exercises aim to assist that transfer and provide whole body development and injury prevention.

Because every exercise category can (or should) have its own planning (different loading, progression, and periodization plans for different exercise categories and their usage/rotation in the training system), concurrent training can easily be achieved. For example, powerlifters build explosive strength with dynamic effort (DE) box squats, bench presses, and speed deadlifts with chains and bands; maximal strength with max effort (ME) squats, presses, and deadlifts and their special variations (secondary exercises); and muscular hypertrophy with repetition effort (RE) single leg exercises and dumbbell variations of presses, chins, and rows.

With the average athlete, explosive strength is developed with Olympic lift variations, plyos, and explosive jumps. Maximal strength is developed with ME/SE squats, benches, and deadlifts, and muscular hypertrophy is developed with SE/RE single leg stuff, dumbbell variations, isolation stuff, chins, and rows.

In other words, primary exercises may use ME loading protocols, secondary exercises may use SE loading protocols, and auxiliary and remedial exercises may use RE loading protocols to achieve the concurrent training approach.

However, if someone wants to nitpick (and that would be me), this can be considered concurrent training “in a whole” (because all loading protocols are present) and may not be considered concurrent depending on which movement pattern or muscle groups we are talking about. For example, in the above mentioned athletes’ situation, the legs would receive explosive strength work, maximal strength work, and muscular hypertrophy work. The situation is similar for upper body “push” muscles, but upper body “pull” muscles (used for chins and rows) will receive only muscular hypertrophy work. Ring a bell or not?

To be considered “totally” concurrent in a training program, all movement patterns must receive the same treatment (ME, SE, and RE work; not necessarily DE), or it would be only partially concurrent. For this reason, most, if not all, concurrent powerlifting, Olympic lifting, and athletic training programs are partially concurrent because only legs and push muscle groups receive concurrent treatment. The upper body pull muscles are the exception. Is this a bad thing? Certainly NOT! I am just pointing it out, and because most sports revolve around legs and push muscles, this is a fine situation for me.

However, in bodybuilding, this would underdevelop certain muscle groups. And because goals in athletic training, Olympic lifting, and powerlifting are not bodybuilding in nature and because I don’t talk about bodybuilding here (although some ideas can certainly be used with minor modifications), there shouldn’t be much concern about it. It would be very useful to classify exercises for every movement pattern (or muscle group) though in addition to the sports classifications already explained.

This way we could differ between:

• sport-based or athletic-oriented classification of exercises (according to the greatest transfer to the field or event or the most used muscle groups/movement patterns in sport)
• movement pattern or muscle group (bodybuilding) based classification of exercises

Because I have already provided hypothetical examples of exercise classifications for Olympic lifting, powerlifting, and average athletic training, here is a modified exercise classification based on movement patterns taken from an awesome article by Christian Thibaudeau called, “How to Design a Damn Good Program.”

Using this movement pattern-based exercise classification, different goals can be achieved via the different distribution of loading protocols. I will give an example using Chris Thibaudeau’s classification of loading protocols.

The training sessions for intermediate lifters can be easily designed using the presented information. The attribute “intermediate” is based on the work of Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore, the authors of Starting Strength and Practical Programming, both of which are a must for your training library. For more information, please read my review entitled, “What I Have Learned from the book, Practical Programming” published at EliteFTS.com.

Here are two examples aimed at increasing explosive strength (via Olympic lifts and explosive jumping), maximal strength, and muscular hypertrophy. One is based on a whole body split, and the other is based on a lower/upper split. Here’s the example of the whole body split:

And here is the lower/upper split:

Once we arranged the training sessions, we can plan progressions for loading protocols. For example:

Different types of weekly progressions can be implemented, with or without the unload period. You can use a modified Poliquin accumulation/intensification scheme for ME and DUP for SE to name a few. You could also use narrow pyramids, waves, stages, or whatever crosses your mind that allows an increase in defined goals concurrently and avoids injury and overtraining. Please note that the mezocycle (usually one month) progressions depend on goals, context, and the level of the athlete so don’t get too creative. Keep it simple stupid.

One may also implement the Starr Texas method into the proposed system. For example, for ME work, you would do primary lifts for a 1 X 5 scheme (ramp up), and for SE work, you would also do primary lifts but for 5 X 5 (sets across). For RE work, you would do secondary/auxiliary exercises with less weight as recovery. This scheme uses intensity/volume/recovery instead of ME/SE/RE, and it is not considered concurrent training. So it isn’t the subject of this article, but I’m still going to present a modified system (just to show that it can be done).

Here is a modified whole body split:

As I have pointed out earlier, this concurrent solution will work very well for intermediate lifters. Some of the characteristics of intermediate lifters are as follows (taken from my review article entitled, “What I Have Learned from the Book, Practical Programming”).

• They progress from week to week (hit PRs) due to a greater need for recovery.
• This is why ME work is done only once per week for a movement pattern.
• They need regular off days during the week or within week load fluctuations (wave-like).
• The DE/ME/SE/RE rotations within a week provide variety and unload (in some cases). Also, the lower/upper split provides this kind of unload during the week.
• This doesn’t necessarily mean total unload, but rather unload for a particular movement pattern.
• They need longer unloads (mostly a week) with a greater reduction in load.
• Unloading week every 4–6 weeks may be beneficial.

Dave Tate gave the following recommendations in one of his Q&A posts on EliteFTS.com.

The average cycle is the duration of the usage of the specific exercise. After this cycle, the exercise rotates, and the lifter uses another exercise from the movement pattern group.

Please note that those numbers are just estimates, and they will be different for everyone because we all have different recovery needs and training backgrounds. Some abilities may be deloaded while others are pounded. This should be the way it goes for most of the year. Before a meet or when worn down, a full blown deload should take place. A full blown deload involves deloading all abilities.

The art of deloading is a topic in itself, and I guess Eric Cressey did a fine job explaining it in his new manual titled, The Art of the Deload: Special Report, although I haven’t read it yet. You can use a larger number of exercises and their variations. This is why the usage of primary, secondary, auxiliary, and remedial exercises has its place.

For beginners, this is too complex. Beginners can improve at a much faster rate and with less complexity using programs designed for beginners. These programs utilize only the primary lifts with a higher frequency during the week (they can hit PRs every time that they take the bar) and much less volume.

Lucky for me, almost all of my athletes never left the intermediate stage. This is because their other obligations (skill work, speed work, plyometrics, general and specific conditioning) and priorities limited their strength increases compared to those athletes in the iron sports.

Advanced athletes are notorious because of the following characteristics:

• They can’t develop everything at once. They need to prioritize their training goals, or they will suffer from overtraining and limited progress.
• The cumulative/delayed training effect of a series of workouts becomes more and more important.
• Training must be organized into longer periods of time, and those periods progress from higher volume and lower intensity toward lower volume and higher intensity.

I must admit that I haven’t had a chance to work with advanced lifters yet so the text that follows is my opinion based on other’s work (as is most of the text anyway), not my own experience.

I advise you to explore block training (conjugate sequence system). Although it is sequential in its nature (and also criticizes concurrent or mixed training), it is a valid form of training for advanced athletes who utilize cumulative/delayed training effects and training residuals. I suggest reading Vladimir Issurin’s article, “Block Periodization Versus Traditional Training Theory: A Review,” published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness. In my opinion, it is far more readable and understandable than most of Verkhoskansky’s stuff.

In the mentioned programs for intermediates, lifters seek to improve everything at once—Olympic lifts, squats, deadlifts, benches, chins, presses, and rows—while also pounding secondary and auxiliary movements for muscle mass. This will work for a decent amount of time (if the week structure is optimally organized based on the athlete’s adaptability and recoverability), but after some time, you will soon find out that you can’t do everything at once. Trying to increase your clean performance will leave you fatigued for squats. Squats will leave you fatigued for presses and so on. This is the time when you need to prioritize your training. You need to focus on a couple of things while maintaining others (unless you utilize block training where you are using training residuals instead of maintaining them). This is the basis for the emphasis method (modified concurrent training)

In my humble opinion, there are three things that may direct prioritization in strength training:

• Movement pattern: One may decide to pursue Olympic lifts (or the clean, snatch, or jerk), concentrate on improving his bench press, or concentrate on developing his deltoids. In the bodybuilding world, this is called “muscle specialization.”

• Physical quality: One may decide to pursuit relative strength and maintain his hypertrophy or one may maintain fat levels and strength while aiming for maximal muscular hypertrophy.

• A combination: One may decide to pursue his speed in the bench press and work on his sticking points while also maintaining strength and hypertrophy in his pectorals and the rest of his body.

Lyle McDonald, a man whom I quoted earlier, in his article, “Periodization for Bodybuilders,” presented loading guidelines for loading and maintaining different strength qualities.

Certainly this depends on many factors such as the level of the lifter, the number of exercises per movement pattern/muscle group, and so on. But you get the point. Thanks Lyle.

Implementing this idea would be pretty easy. For example, a lifter may use a couple of training blocks (note the similarity with block training; don’t let me confuse you because this is not block training per se, although there are some similar points) to develop muscular endurance, muscular hypertrophy, and maximal strength.

Weekly progressions can be utilized for the ME/SE/RE loading protocols for each training block and easily implemented into either the whole body split or lower/upper body split examples that I gave earlier. This would allow advanced lifters to concentrate on a given physical quality while maintaining others without overtraining and limited progress.

Another solution for a powerlifter would be to devise special blocks toward improving the squat, deadlift, and bench press.

It’s pretty easy for me to get creative with this emphasis switch, utilizing training loads and maintenance loads. However, once again, I must repeat, I haven’t done this yet! Take my words with caution.

Another solution that can be utilized with advanced lifters is based on a volume/intensity interaction. Accumulation phases (where the aim is to accumulate training volume and elicit cumulative/delayed training effect) may be rotated with intensification phases (where the aim is to express the delayed training effects and utilize maximal training intensity with lowered volume). This is similar to the volume/recovery/intensity solution from the Starr/Texas method for intermediate athletes, although with intermediates we are talking about workouts and here we are talking about weeks and even months. The more advanced the lifter, the longer the durations of the phases.

I guess this may kill someone so we could rotate between accumulation/intensification for a particular strength quality.

Advanced athletes may use 1–2 week phases while the most advanced athletes may use longer phases up to 4–6 weeks to accumulate and express strength potential. In addition, the classical linear scheme (higher volume/low intensity to low volume/high intensity) may be used in the ME block. This is just an example.

Various other schemes may be developed for advanced athletes utilizing the three mentioned requirements. For more valuable information, I suggest checking out Mark Rippetoe’s book, Practical Programming. I fulfilled my need to “spare my wisdom,” although I haven’t tried this advanced stuff yet. I love to have pre-planned plans of action if I find myself in that situation. Maybe I won’t use it as written here, but I guess it is ok to have some starting opinions and solutions from which you build on depending on the situation and experience.

As Mark pointed out in his book, the programming of strength training for advanced athletes is so complex that it must be approached individually without any generalizations. To be honest, talking about programming for advanced athletes is way out of my league. I deal with a bunch of kids who can’t even squat well.

Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit us at www.EliteFTS.com.