Rather than just writing one cycle, I’ve decided to make an easy to follow quasi-article that contains all the different cycles for the squat that I’ve used with success. YES to chains and bands.
Ashley’s off-season program uses the conjugate system—focussing on neural, mechanical, and metabolic work. Plus, core accessory rehab exercises.
Let’s boil down program design for the tactical athlete into five main categories: peak sustainability, stress management, [click for more].
Are you over 35, a busy professional, love to train, and hate to feel like shit? Perfect! This training template is for you!
Dropping from the 320s to the 250s and competing as a 308 to a 242, I was forced to switch up my training split. Here’s the split!
A simple and practical solution for those on tight schedules. With this setup, add hundreds of pounds to your total.
Kalil Sherrod is a strength coach at The Rack Athletic Performance Center. He hosts The Get Clean Podcast, helping young strength coaches and parents expand their knowledge. He is a former Division 2 and semi-pro basketball player. Kalil is certified through Westside Barbell and Byrd Sports Performance.
The key to the program is to never accommodate to movements and exercises. Change some aspects of your training every time you train.
Sam shows Dave a conjugate crazy powerlifting video and keeps the surprises coming when he gives Dave a surprise Christmas gift LIVE.
Take a deep dive into how you can work conjugate into your training if you are restricted by what your commercial gym offers.
Twenty tips aka twenty ways to control and advance your training, especially if you’ve reached a sticking point. If all else fails, you have a long list of great online programming services to help your clientele reach their goals.
How many sets and reps do you do with max effort work and accessories? Here’s what I prescribe for my conjuphasic clients. You’ll notice I love coming up with ways to self-regulate my athletes and clients through exercise prescription and programming.
Many mistakes were made over the first one and a half years of this program. I tested and made tweaks using Julia and me as guinea pigs so that my clients (and now you) can benefit from combining conjugate with triphasic.
We’re gonna use everything from books, bricks, blocks, and buckets, to water softeners, siblings, and soccer balls. Convenient, right?
The great thing about this system is that it’s flexible. Here are four different methods you can choose from this in-season so your athletes feel good and get stronger.
Jim Seratt doesn’t understand how anyone wouldn’t want baseball players to bench press. Here is his method for implementing conjugate training in his baseball program.
Interested in creating your own strongman conjugate program? I consulted with the experts and wrote a guide to give you all the information you need to set yourself up for strength gains in your lifts — where it matters.
How do you prepare for your next week? When do you start preparing? Jeff Guller likes to get started with conjugate powerlifting nine weeks before meet time.
Have you ever asked the question, “How should I adjust conjugate for X sport?” Find your answer? If not, here’s what I’ve found to be the most productive and efficient way to adjust things.
After a sickness that kept Dave out of the office for a few days, he returns to the table to talk everything conjugate. Joining in on the collaboration, our trusty strength and conditioning editorial intern is by his side. Tune in and enjoy!
Conjugate training can make a huge difference in track and field athletes’ overall performance. For throwers in particular, give this conjugate workout a try and see the improvement for yourself.
Peaking technically is reeling in your training from general to specific as a meet approaches while changing and removing variations and setting yourself up to be at your best technically. This is important when transitioning to a conjugate approach.
Many lifters with anxiety and/or depression find that during or following max effort, their mental health symptoms worsen, and/or their sleep quality and recovery suffer dramatically. These three modifications to max effort work may prevent or lessen some of these issues.
Geared lifters who want to do a raw meet or transition to raw need to relearn or unlearn certain things, which is why this program can be manipulated for different weaknesses.
I’m going to share a program with you that someone asked for my advice and input on. I know very little about this lifter. I got a little bit of information from them through Instagram, but other than that, what I’m writing are my initial thoughts and an improved program based on this information.
This little old man’s secret to recovery lies in one word: bands.
Believe it or not, sometimes max effort work is not the best option. Here are a few scenarios where that may be the case as well as what you can do to fill in the gaps where the max effort method would be.
The conjugate method isn’t simple for everyone, which is why Dave decided to write down an explanation on the Table Talk table.
Strongman, like any strength sport, can be programmed intelligently, allowing an athlete to reach their zenith for that time in their life. No training style has allowed me to do that quite like the conjugate method.
Not sure how to apply the conjugate method for training general population clients? Don’t worry about it; I’ll break it down for you right here. It’s easier than you think.
It’s hard to argue that triphasic training produces results. But what happens when you combine triphasic and conjugate training methods? I decided to find out with an experiment and apply it to my squat. The result: I added more than 50 pounds to my squat in 4 months.
I’ve seen a lot of articles about the max effort method on here lately, but I haven’t seen many address the fact that there are two types of max effort methods! One method might work better than the other for you, so before you give up on conjugate, give this a read.
Dave’s going to go over more simple conjugate method and answer more questions, so be sure to have your questions ready and are tuned in to listen closely.
It’s back to the drawing board for Dave Tate — specifically the drawing board for explaining how to set up a conjugate method training program.
The goal with this series is to get to you to think about how you can manipulate the max effort, dynamic effort, and repeated efforts to fir your needs and to understand that conjugate is a fluid system that requires experimenting.
In conjugate, accessory work plays a huge role, even if it isn’t one that gets the attention. Accessory work is going to help fill your gaps and prevent you from developing new ones.
Ed Coan and Dave Tate explain their rationales and favorite accessory movements and variation lifts for training weak points.
As I said in Part 1, conjugate is one of, if not, the most effective training systems when it is executed properly. Moving a light weight fast isn’t enough to make the dynamic effort method work. Moving a light weight fast with intention is.
Dave Tate and Nate Harvey, die-hard supporters of the conjugate method, sit down on this Table Talk Podcast episode.
In my opinion, conjugate is one of, if not, the best training systems — when employed properly. If it isn’t working, don’t disregard the system; instead, check your application.
I recently turned 78, and that certainly hasn’t stopped me from training. After the responses from last month’s article, I decided to delve a bit deeper into my little old man conjugate training program. Enjoy!
Remember Cody, my client I talked about in my last article about benching? He absolutely destroyed at the Iron City Open and got a 10-pound deadlift PR total. The secret to his success? It’s in this program… because it IS this program.
As with anything in training, the answer always is “it depends.” With the max effort method, I can do one of these things for two hours just on advanced principles that deal with the max effort method, or I can do one very that’s simple. I choose simple.
People have asked me to write about how I train. I haven’t done it because I figured you guys thought it’d be boring… until now. Here’s a look at my training and the process behind it.
If you understand the conjugate method, can devote 4 to 5 hours of training per week, not competing in sports but is trying to look and feel better, boy, have I got the perfect program for you!
For the first time in our head coach’s time at Indiana State, the entire roster passed their fitness test before the start of the spring season — and did zero conditioning outside of morning practice sessions. Thank you, conjugate method!
When a Union Fitness client approached me for training, I was foaming at the mouth. He had experience in powerlifting and wanted a conjugate training approach. With this program, he added 10 pounds to his bench! You might as well give it a try.
During Richland High School’s last football season, I combined the conjugate method and the tier system for programming game day lifts. Seeing the results thus far, I intend to continue the program with a few adjustments — but not before sharing it.
Here’s a red pill for you to swallow: The conjugate system is like an XL shirt that fits differently on different people. With a few modifications, that shirt can be made to fit just about anyone. Same goes for the program in this article.
Consider how your clients are responding to stress and the demands of your program and what we need to consider to devise a better plan. That’s how we’ll improve this sport.
I learned a large portion of my knowledge of supplemental training from many mistakes I made in the gym. I am hoping to help all of you readers avoid at least a few of the mistakes I made and get more out of your supplemental training.
Conjugate. You keep using that word. We do not think it means what you think it means. Why is conjugate training so hard to understand? It’s not! In fact, because it’s so easy to understand, Jim Wendler can explain it in two minutes. Two minutes! It’s that simple.
Don’t be the newbie lifter who falls into the tiger pit traps during your training cycle. That’ll only hurt you in the long run — or at least in those first competitions. Don’t be afraid to start training too light and save your attempts for the platform. Not enough advice? I’ve got six other tips, so read on…
Over the past few months, some things in my back training have made a big difference — variations coaches often overlook. Considering paused reps at the chest/stomach, slow eccentrics, scap movements with a rowing motion, and handle/grip variations, back training is limitless.
His answer — revolving around canvas gear, Westside, and Louie — may surprise you.
In this video clip, Tate and Rusin compile these learnings to develop a comprehensive training program. Together, they discuss how to adjust the workouts to best suit Rusin’s development of the “big three” lifts, planning around his traveling schedule as needed.
I don’t know exactly where this concept came from—that they are essential to athletes’ being explosive and strong. I do know that this concept has grabbed on tight and locked into the heads of coaches for decades. I say let’s cut to the chase and trim the fat.
Do you teach them the squat, bench, and deadlift the same way you would teach a powerlifter? If not, what differences are there?