SIMPLEST SPORT ON EARTH
SIMPLEST SPORT ON EARTH
It is the simplest sport on earth. Make the bar move to the lockout position and then put it back, go as heavy as you possibly can. Why then do people try to complicate it so much? There are more theories on styles of Powerlifting training than there are religions in the world. Basically it is all going to come down to one thing, making you stronger.
Why in the world would you want to go to a gym for two hours a day and come out no stronger than you were when you went in there. Actually if you are doing it correctly, you will come out weaker, but don’t go cross-eyed on that yet. Just trying to get a pump on your muscles doesn’t make any sense. Look back on the training styles of the greatest body builders, Arnold, Ronnie, Jay, Franco, Lou; do you think they went in to just maintain or bench 135 for 5 sets of 10? No, they went in there to get stronger, because stronger means bigger. For these individuals a style of training that included a lot of repetition and maximum methods worked, it yielded the results there were after. To truly get stronger though you have to increase the strength in not only your muscles but your tendons and ligaments also. These particular body parts need more than just a few sets of 10 reps of something to build them up. You need heavy singles, maximum effort work. The only way to accomplish this is going to be to get your big ass under a bar and push it until you can only push one rep due to the weight of the bar, not the volume of training you have done previous to it. Maxing out is a key element to getting stronger.
Force = Strength x Speed - Make Sense?
Lets break this down a little into four different types of training necessary to get stronger.
First you are going to have to know what the maximum weight your body can handle is. The only way you are going to accomplish this is going to be to hit a heavy single for a max. This is going to have to be done at least one time per week. The problem starts right here for half of the lifters out there. You cannot work at over 90% of your 1RM in a particular lift for more than 3-4 weeks without seeing a negative result. The lift you are training will have to alternate every once in a while. So you are training for squats; if you cannot max out on your squat for more than 3 weeks in a row, what are you going to do on the 4th week? Pick an exercise that mimics the lift, meaning uses the same muscle groups, but it is done in a different way. The dead lift is a great example of this. When you squat properly or dead lift properly, you are training the same muscle groups only in a different way. Finding a weakness in your particular lift can also help here. Lets say that you have a problem falling forward in your squat at the bottom, maybe you should try getting your lower back stronger so this doesn’t happen. Try going to a 1RM on good mornings or something of this nature to fix the problem. If you have been paying attention, you will have noticed that under this philosophy you will not be squatting, benching, or pulling for a max every week. “But to get stronger in the squat, you must squat!” How many times have you heard that? Do you think that sprinters run sprints and sprints only all day to get faster? Or a high jumper, does he do nothing but jump over a high bar every time he trains. Linemen don’t just sit there and hit a bag or sled all day to get stronger. You have to work on all of the muscles in your body to get stronger; therefore you are going to have to train them just the same as you would anything else, max them out.
Repetition work is also a key in getting stronger. It will not only help with building your body but it will train endurance. Since you can truly only max out on one thing per session, you are going to need to train the rest of the session differently. Repetition work is nothing more than every coach; dad, big brother or anyone else ever taught you. “Go do 3 sets of 10 with that.” Bodybuilders are great at this method of training; it gives you the pump that a lot of people are looking for in a workout. What it also does is to put valuable fluids and blood back into the muscles that you have torn down so bad while maxing out. This is the time for rehabilitation and pre-habilitation to take place. It is also time to work on core muscles such as your abs, lower back, calves, and forearms.
The third component of strength is speed. How many times have you seen someone try to bench and get the bar about ¼ of the way off their chest only to have it fall right back down. Now look at how fast they were trying to move the bar. Bruce Lee was great at this component. How else could a 135-pound man put his fist through a cinder block? If he were to just hit it with no speed he would break his hand, on the other side, if he hit it as fast as he could, it will break the cinder block instead. Try this, go and hit a sheet rock wall with very little speed, hurt didn’t it. Now hit the same wall with all the speed you can muster, went right through it didn’t you. The only way to get trough a sticking point is with speed. The bench press is notorious for this. There is a point in a bench press where your lats and chest are done and your triceps take over; if you are not flying through this point, you will get stuck. So how do you train for speed? Simply lowering the weight of the bar and moving it faster is not going to work. You have to realize that when you get closer to the point of lockout in a lift that the leverages in your body become better equipped to handle the lift. To compensate for this you need to have a way to add weight to the bar, as it is moving towards lockout. Bands and chains work great for this. As the bar moves closer to lockout, more chain is lifted off the floor and the bar gets heavier, and with bands, the tension gets tighter. This is commonly referred to as compensatory acceleration. Your mind is going to play a bigger part on this day than any other day. You have to teach your self that the bar does not weigh 135 pounds, it weighs 500 pounds. The better you get at this control with your mind the less weight you are going to have to use to fire your muscles properly. Your mind-muscle link is always a key element, but even more so on this day. Now there would be no need to train your speed on a triceps press, which is not the movement that you are trying to get to. You are trying to get your core lifts up; therefore you want to increase the speed on these lifts.
Over all physical conditioning is also a great player in all of this. If you are in poor physical condition you will never make it through 9 lifts at a meet. You can increase your physical conditioning in many ways. Most individuals take this as to mean doing cardio work only. Your pre workout warm-ups are part of this also. Your post workout cool downs are part of this. There are literally a whole myriad of things to do to increase your physical conditioning. Plyos are great for this (box jumps, stairs, etc.). Cardiovascular exercise is a key here; you need to incorporate some type of this into your training. With out a strong heart pumping blood into your muscles and the rest of your body, how do you expect them to properly function? A strong heart is a must! Sled dragging works great too. Remember that when you are dragging a sled for physical conditioning you are not trying to get faster, you are building your endurance, don’t run with the sled, walk with it. Body weight exercises can be of great benefit. Pushups, pull-ups, free standing squats, lunges, calf raises, sit-ups; all of these will only help your body in the end. If you cannot walk up to the second story of a building with out having to catch your breath when you get to the top, you are in poor physical condition. Some of the strongest men and women I have ever met, have very poor physical conditioning and it shows in their health. Diabetes, obesity, arthritis, shortness of breath, headaches, can all be a sign of poor conditioning. I read once where, if you are sweating before you have finished your warm-ups, you are in poor condition. This statement holds a lot of truth to it. Power lifters are known for being overweight for some reason. Always remember this, fat does not push weight!
If you have been paying attention you will have noticed that there were many different training styles covered here. When they are all put together they are what we call the conjugate method. You must learn to train with all of them at the right time. The glory of this way of training is that very little is taboo. In the end, you will end up with the same results, moving the maximum amount of weight possible to lockout. Most people that have been Powerlifting for any amount of time will notice this as the “Westside Method”, and it mainly is. That is the greatest part of the whole thing, when you put it all together, it’s not the “Westside Method” it is “Your Method”.
No matter what road you take or what sport you choose there is always going to be turbulence. You can try whatever you like but the obstacles will come. Many things will come between you and your dreams. It takes a champion to move past them, over them or what ever it takes to get through them. Good luck.
Thane T. Harrison Jr.
3 White Lights Powerlifting
