General question on lifting hindrance

Expert Discussion Strength Training
1

I’ve been having major strength problems this year. Infact, this year I’ve barely gained any strength at all. That’s pitiful, compared to last years 115lb squat gain, 50lb bench gain(should have been way higher too), and about 125lb deadlift gain. This year, I’ve only gained 20lb on squat, 25lb on bench, and about 50lb deadlift gain. PATHETIC.

Last year, I didnt have the CNS stress of sprinting. I’m going to be honest, I took a huge blow to my self esteem when I keep thinking back on how much of a failure I was this year. Yes, I did get a lot faster, but my strength gains more than halved. My squat gain is about 1/6 of last years!

I can’t take this anymore, I’m burnt out from sprinting too I believe. My last two sprint workouts I ran very sub-maximal times. My last sprint workout where I did two 50s after a 250, I ran super slow, like it seriously felt like an eternity. Of course that was thursday, and I started squats up again monday…and went too high on the volume. I’m gonna stop sprint training from Mid-May until about end of July I figure…unless you guys think I should tough it out until July 1st, then just take off for a month and start GPP again?

Besides those questions, I have lifting related questions now. What kind of routine should a sprinter with powerlifting/strength goals like me follow? I’m nowhere near my peak in strength, my best deadlift being about 475 when I wieghed about 155. I’m nearing the end of SPP I figure now. What kind of lifting routine should I follow in GPP, early Max V +Accel phase, early speed/special endurance phase (split runs example 2(3x60) done) +late max v phase, and then SPP phase?

I know cookie cutter routines might not be the best, but any serious guidance and support would help me. I was thinking of currently trying this " http://www.joeskopec.com/five.html ", but then I think about how taxing the sprintings going to be on my body, and how I’ll never lift good. This whole year I’ve been thinking about how I’ll never be strong, because sprinting is getting in the way. But I love sprinting too much. I know I’m overobsessing, especially at 16 years old, but I’m very eager for strength and sprint progress. I’ve even been thinking of extending my workout week to 8-10+ days, but I still dont know if I could get in all the weight and sprint workouts separately.

Any ideas for a messed up kid here?

2

Infact, maybe I should just do something like this, this is the BEST I could think of

  1. Squat
  2. Off
    3.Off
  3. Special Endurance I + Accel (40-50m)+Bench
  4. Off
    6.Deadlift
  5. Off
  6. Off
  7. Speed Endurance + Accel (10-20m)
  8. Off

If anyone thinks the above plan sounds like a possible option, but isn’t up to par with optimal, then can anyone suggest a better set up? It’s intended to let me optimally lift and optimally sprint

3

If you feel you’re burnt out from sprinting and or ur lifting then i would seriously sugest you take a few days off and just chill out! A rest is as good as training in this situation, I believe…

4

Well, I havent lifted in over 6 weeks! I have sprinted the past 6 weeks while I wasnt lifting, but it was only last week that I started noticing a decrease in sprint performance(HORRIBLE WEATHER…37mph gusts and rain)…and then this week when i started lifting again my sprint workout blew so much

I havent worked out since thursday anyways…so today is day 3 off.

Anyways, check the plan above your post please!

Edit: the lifting has sucked all year though…sprinting has been fine

5

I’m sorry, but you would be a complete fool to expect to see equivalent strength gains year in and year out.

That’s like complaining that, since you went from, say, 12.5 in the 100m as an 8th grader to 11.5 as a 9th grader, you’re pissed because you’re not running 8.5 as a senior in high school.

6

Are you serious dude?

115lb squat gain last year

20lb squat gain this year

Please tell me you didnt miss that. thats a HUGE decrease in progress.

Of course gains slow down…but not that much and that fast! Even Ben went from 550-600 squat in one year, and 3x330-340 to 2x407. I went from 365-385 squat, do you see the difference? I’m nowhere near the level where I should be gaining only 20lbs on my squat a year, PATHETIC.

Since noone’s coimmenting on my plan, maybe i should repost it.

"Infact, maybe I should just do something like this, this is the BEST I could think of

  1. Squat
  2. Off
    3.Off
  3. Special Endurance I + Accel (40-50m)+Bench
  4. Off
    6.Deadlift
  5. Off
  6. Off
  7. Speed Endurance + Accel (10-20m)
  8. Off

If anyone thinks the above plan sounds like a possible option, but isn’t up to par with optimal, then can anyone suggest a better set up? It’s intended to let me optimally lift and optimally sprint"

Thanks

7

If you feel as though your cns is fatigued I would not deadlift every week. Remember you are working the same muscles w/ the squat as you are with deadlift and deadlifting (especially90%+) is very demanding of the cns.
As far as your strength gains last year compared to this year, don’t forget that staying on the same program will only work for so long. Figure out your weak points and bring them up. Get as much out of a lift as you can and then rotate. For instance when your squat stops going up switch to a step up then to a snatch grip deadlift and so on. It’s easy to go to the gym and keep working on what your good at, the key is to be honest with yourself and work on what your not good at.

8

Hmm…so maybe I should follow my plan above…except on DEADLIFT DAY maybe for 2 weeks I’ll just do power snatches, powercleans, and speed deadlifts off blocks or moderate snatch grip deadlifts(both would be light percentage…50-65), and then every 3rd week I’ll max a deadlift variation, either extra ROM deadlifts, rack pulls, and especially my weakness…sumo deadlifts, and id adjust my overall volume for that week). Of course, I will probably change up the assistance exercise choices more often so that I wouldnt just do snatch grip deads and speed deads. I know you said I shouldnt deadlift every week, but how does that sound?

How does that sound then? My plan is to follow the 5x5 routine for squat and bench, and whatever I feel like doing for deadlifts. I’ll focus my assistance lifts around my weaknesses too. I’ll be using the 10 day split above i guess, unless you recommend against it?

9

As far as the squat and bench I would try the following: Week1 10,8,6
Week2 5x5
Week 3 3x3
Week 4 Deload 3x2 95 % of week 3
week 5 6x4
week6 5x3
week 7 3x2

Instead of the cleans and snatches, I would do dynamic box squats 10x2 w/ 50-60 percent.(a couple of days after the bench and squats.) And as you said work on weak points with your assistance exercises. Just letting you know what I have personally had success with.

10

Sounds like you’re referring to westside here a bit. I’ve had tremendous progress with westside. Infact, thats where all my progress has come from! For some reason I decided not to do westside this year, and wow, I made almost no progress. A realization has been made! But since I’m dependent on the weight belt, I want to do a lot of no belt lifting…which is why I dont think I can go back to westside just yet.

I’m horrible with choosing weights by feel though, which is why I like routines where the emphasis is on maxing (westside), or percent based routines (coan/phillipi…5x5…3x3…etc). That is why I’m having a problem with thinking about doing your idea. I tried making my own routine before and doing my own weights I chose, and I didnt make any progress. Any tips?

11

Dude - progress is not linear and grinds to a halt as you get older. there are guys who fight for 10 years for 5 pounds on their total. any gain is good.
Ben was also world class, and never had to have a job other than track, weights, and recovering in his career.
You’re just being impatient.
And if you just want to get a lot stronger, then by all means, be a powerlifter, its a great sport.
But so is track - and that’s about getting faster. Plenty of guys without big numbers have done well. Weights are general for all athletes (except lifters), anyways.
Just don’t worry about the numbers other than the ones on the track.

And there isn’t anything wrong with Westside. You don’t even need a belt!
just make sure you keep in mind less is more.

if you haven’t I’d suggest reading both Jack Reape’s “You could’ve been a contender” over at dragondoor, and Jim Wendler’s Westside for HS athletes at elitefts.

One last thing - looking over your plans, I notice no tempo, no GPP, no means of recovery, and no mention of diet.

JMHO, but alll athletes, especially young ones, should focus on those before worrying about how to change their routine to eke out massive gains.
Numbers come, health needs to be in place before that.
I’d watch my diet closely,
Incorporate at least one good recovery practice each workout,
and gradually bring up the volume of gpp (see "the Superior Circuit series at T-mag) and tempo - improving the quality of the quality work.

1:Max V + ME Bench
2:Tempo
3:Speed Endurance
4:tempo + Repition Bench or DE Bench
5:Squat workout
6/7: off or maybe tempo
-Squat Workout
– Dyn Flex (before bench, too)
– GPP Warm-up (Light Lat-pulldowns, ghr, push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, before bench, too)
– DE Box 5-6x2x50-60%
– Work up to a “heavy” single
– Deadlifts 6-8x1x60-80%
– Glute hams
– Abs

give that a try…

12

"Dude - progress is not linear and grinds to a halt as you get older. there are guys who fight for 10 years for 5 pounds on their total. any gain is good.
Ben was also world class, and never had to have a job other than track, weights, and recovering in his career. "

-I’m in highschool, and dont have a job. But going to school is a problem I guess, compared to Ben at least.

"You’re just being impatient. "

-I dont know…20lbs compared to 115lbs…we both know I should have gained around 50 if my gains were to halt due to genetics at least

“And if you just want to get a lot stronger, then by all means, be a powerlifter, its a great sport.”

  • I care about speed too much

“But so is track - and that’s about getting faster. Plenty of guys without big numbers have done well. Weights are general for all athletes (except lifters), anyways.”

-I love track. But I have a long experience with lifting, and love it too much. I cant stand not progressing much either, I must get strong!

“Just don’t worry about the numbers other than the ones on the track.”

-If I could, I would

"And there isn’t anything wrong with Westside. You don’t even need a belt!
just make sure you keep in mind less is more. "

  • I meant, I’m bound to the belt. I need to develop my core again.

“if you haven’t I’d suggest reading both Jack Reape’s “You could’ve been a contender” over at dragondoor, and Jim Wendler’s Westside for HS athletes at elitefts.”

-I’ve probably seen the Jim Wendler one, but hey its worth seeing again even if I did. I’ll check the other one too

13

One - I am taking genetics right now.
Forget “genetic limitations.” there are just too many other pertient factors.

two -
check my edited post

three-
check, read, then reply

14

"JMHO, but alll athletes, especially young ones, should focus on those before worrying about how to change their routine to eke out massive gains.
Numbers come, health needs to be in place before that.
I’d watch my diet closely,
Incorporate at least one good recovery practice each workout,
and gradually bring up the volume of gpp (see "the Superior Circuit series at T-mag) and tempo - improving the quality of the quality work.

1:Max V + ME Bench
2:Tempo
3:Speed Endurance
4:tempo + Repition Bench or DE Bench
5:Squat workout
6/7: off or maybe tempo
-Squat Workout
– Dyn Flex (before bench, too)
– GPP Warm-up (Light Lat-pulldowns, ghr, push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, before bench, too)
– DE Box 5-6x2x50-60%
– Work up to a “heavy” single
– Deadlifts 6-8x1x60-80%
– Glute hams
– Abs

give that a try…"

My bad, I forgot to mention I will be doing tempo on off days, but if there were 2 off days in a row id do tempo on one day, and take off the other. My diet isnt always the same, but either way could use work i guess

About that split idea, my upper body wouldnt need the 2 day a week emphasis, I think, since I’ve benched 275 before, but only squatted 385. Unless this is where your idea of “less is more” comes into play with the lower body?

I was also recommended to ease off on the Max V work while in SPP, and focus on speed endurance, what do you think?

Also, in that split idea, I’m guessing you took in mind my core problem, and just recommended a DE squat workout kinda?

I know for a fact that split would work for my upper body, no doubt about it. The reason I was considering the 5x5 routine for squat was that it planned it out for me overtime how i would progress, and it seems to be a semi heavier based routine where i could get some quality unbelted squat work in. Plus, my deadlift plan would allow me to do unbelted speed deads at the same time, and every 3rd week max out a deadlift variation belted westside style. Do you see a reason why your workout split is better?

Finally, I’ve often times had problems where I dont feel good on a given day, and lately I’ve been thinking of extending my workout week to give me more recovery between workouts, and thusly give me more freedom and leeway in my split. Any thoughts?

15

u seem to be more concerned with progress in weights than progress in sprinting…

is your sprinting improving or is at a hault too…

u mentioned u gained with westside and progressed and then this year u stop westside and dont prgress,why did u stop westside training??

16

Hell no…I’m deeply concerned with both. If my sprinting was having problems, I’d be bitching about my sprinting.

Nah, my sprinting has just this week seriously messed up…I think I fried my CNS from trying to work out with the weights again monday.

I stopped because I did coan/phillipi…made a huge gain on deadlifts(wanted to pull 3x bodyweight at 15 years old.), then i thought id make my own 10 week routine…failed miserably…then took off of lifting basically until now.

17

I got a routine that I made up. I incorporated your ideas, brian, and some of mine and oithers. thanks!

By the way, what do you guys think of jump squat? like with dumbells ?

18

Re: Jump Squats -
Why?

Re:Sample template -
the DE Squat workout is something Jason Feruggia and Joe Defranco use with their atheltes who are inseason. Its a compromise that should allow you to recover better. You already stress the shit out of your legs, p-chain, etc, with the sprinting. Why the two upper body workouts? why not? the second one doesn’t really take that much out of you, and everyone likes to look good.

In general, I’d say you miss the forest for the trees, like a lot of us have done.
just remember, all training is cumulative and the best secrets to progress are simply showing up and working hard.

19

Yeah you’re right. One lower body weight day is enough!

I was thinking jump squats for vertical jump and power, but maybe theyre not needed, idk.

Thanks!

20

What is your end game?

Sprinting or lifting? Now you’ve mentioned vertical jump?

Whats at the top of the list?

More than likely whats happening is you’re trying to do too much.