By TODD hAMMER
Day 4—Gear work for deadlifts
Heavy single off plates, elevated three inches.
Leave suit on, straps down. Back Squat: work up to a heavy set of 5. (This is done to get more comfortable in your gear and to get stronger).
After this, you should be dead tired. Pick accessories based on how you feel.
This will be the first three weeks. The only change is that you are trying to add weight each eccentric day. So if on week 1 you get good sets at 65%, then try 67% for week 2. If you get over 75%, then your math is wrong or your percentages are wrong.
WEEK 4-6: ISO WORK Day 1—ISO Bench
1a) Bench Press: 5x3 with 5-count iso, ½-inch off your chest. (Weeks 2: 4-seconds on chest, Week 3:
3-seconds on chest)
1b) Explosive Push-ups: 5x3 (rest one min) JM Press: 5x6
Croc Rows: 2xmany
Finish with some high rep accessory work.
Day 2—ISO Deads
Conventional Deads: Pull one inch off the ground, hold for a 4-count and then pull. 6x3, start around 60%
and adjust accordingly. Technique should not fall apart on these.
Back Squats: 6x3 with 2-count iso at the bottom. While doing these, be sure to bring your stance in if you are a super wide stance squatter. This will affect the weight greatly. It should be in the ballpark of 60% of your best at that stance.
Pin Pulls (competition stance): work up to 90-100% for 1-2 sets of 1.
Accessories of your choice. This depends on how heavy your heavy sets are. If you are a 500-pound deadlifter, you can probably do more accessories. If you are a 700-pound deadlifter, at this point you may not have much left in the tank.
Day 3 Gear Bench
During these three weeks you may need to take one or two workouts out of your shirt. This will depend on many things. One how good you are with your shirt two, how strong you are three, how new your shirt is and how new it is to you. My goal for these three weeks is to get down to a one board and be able to get one rep.
So there is some freedom here just train heavy!
Day 4 Geared Rev Band Deads (Comp Stance)
Heavy double on the first week and second week last week is a single.
Box Squat 6x2 with straps down 60%
Zercher Good Mornings 4x6 Abs, Glutes, Hamstrings
WEEK 7-9: TRUE DyNAMIC WORK WITh A TWIST Day 1
Dynamic Bench Press the only change from the classic 8-10x3 with 55% is that we will not touch our chest and will reverse hard as close to our chest as possible and hold lock out for a split second.
Heavy Board Work Week one heavy triples, week 2 heavy doubles, week three heavier doubles.
Accessories of your choice again.
Day 2
Dynamic Deadlifts: 10-20 singles with short rest and competition stance Dynamic Back Squats: 8-10x2-3 with 60%, +contrast of your choice.
Accessories based on where you are.
Day 3—Time for some Gear Benching
Weeks 1&2: light rev band for rep ranges of 1-3. Try to get some weight down! Add boards in to handle heavy weights for 3-5 sets of 2-3 reps.
1a) Mod Grip Bench: 2x10 1b) Pull-ups: 2x10
Add in accessories as needed.
Day 4
Gear Deadlifts off the floor: work each week based on feel, but you should hit reps around 90% for at least two of these weeks.
RDL: 4x5-6 reps—work on that lockout strength for when the gear lets go!
More accessories.
WEEK 10: ThE WEEK BEFORE ThE MEET Set openers: Sunday or Monday
Train light the rest of the week if you are up to it.
Now do your meet and set a PR or two!
I realize that the science coaches out there are going to tell me why this program is no good, as the science is not perfect. Also, the powerlifters will tell me how this program is not possible due to the percentages being too high or too low. Understand that this is written for a middle level powerlifter who is also coaching all day long. This is why I left the accessories open to what you need.
As I said at the beginning, this workout is here for you to interpret how you see fit. Add to it, subtract from it, and see what works for you. If you think there is one good thing in this workout, then please steal it and tell me how it helped—or did not—help you.
Good Luck & Be Strong!
My training is usually derived from a one-rep max on squat and deadlift. I first take percentages and determine the weights I’ll be doing, and then I put them into three-week waves, increasing the weight and decreasing the volume over time. It is a program that my friend Al Caslow had originally sent to me. We had bounced ideas back and forth and finally came up with this, which is a little different than the original program but seemed to work well for me. For my bench training, I decided to try some things that I felt had worked for me over the years, which in this case were heavy boards. However, I also took some ideology from Brad Heck and decided that I would touch every week so that when the meet came, I wouldn’t be like a lot of shirted lifters and not be able to touch.
SQUAT:
You take your most recent one-rep max to depth.
EX: Let’s say it’s 835 pounds. You then take this and multiply it by .95. This makes the base number 795.
Week 12: 85%, 3 sets of 2, reverse bands 100% 2 sets of 2
Week 11: 80%, 2 sets of 3 and 1 set of 2, reverse bands 90-95% (depending on how you feel) Week 10: 75%, 5 sets of 3, reverse bands 85% 2 sets of 3 it’s easy make another jump. If it’s easy yet again, I’d go up.
Week 3: 75%, 4 sets of 2 (you are now de-loading) Week 2: 65%, 4 sets of 2
Week 1: 55%, 4 sets of 2 (this should be one week out from the meet)
When doing this training style, you will want to gauge how you feel on that day. If you are feeling really beat up, drop the weight a bit—but make sure you get the allotted sets and reps listed for that day. The work is what makes you strong in a program like this, so you want to make sure it gets done.
If you are unsure whether you want to go straps up or straps down with your briefs, I personally like to just go straps up on all my working sets and adjust the tightness of them to ensure I hit depth. Some people may not be able to get to depth with straps up on some of the lower weights, so you can do straps down. I really prefer to wear straps up though, due to the fact that many people fall apart when the straps go up. Using them as much as possible allows you to be more comfortable when the weight gets heavier.
Accessory work is the same for all of the lifts. Find out which lifts are you worst and work them. In regards to the squat: if you are terrible at good mornings, work these into your routine. If you have weak hamstrings and glutes, start hitting the glute ham raises. Admitting to yourself you have a weakness is a huge step forward.
Everyone has them, and they should be addressed. Many guys will do what allows them to do the most weight; however, this is going to build deficiencies. I didn’t do much training for my quadriceps for a long period of time, and I developed a huge deficiency. This lead to a slew of injuries because I was compensating for this with other muscles.