Post by Dennis on Aug 22, 2004 18:13:34 GMT -5
Joe Average X
By Jim Parrish
In 22 months, the Joe Average system took Gene Rychlak from a 550 bench to an 810 bench. Gene held the Greatest Bench title for about 24 hours until Scot Mendelson did 821 the next day. Congrat’s to Scot!
That’s it, you say! You aren’t going to talk about Gene anymore. No more! Even though Gene is a great lifter and solid product of the Joe Average system, my focus is still on the average guys out there who just want to get to that 300 or 400 pound bench. What’s great about my system is that it can work for any level lifter if applied correctly.
Any level lifter? Yes! I received some feedback that some elite/pro lifter’s are under the impression that the Joe Average system was for beginner’s or average guys, while this is true, this system can benefit any level lifter. Sounds good, but can you prove it! Try this: find a gym with a monolift, get a set of green bands and a set of purple bands, double the bands around the base leg of the monolift and slide both ends over the bar. Yes, doubled, not choked. See if you can unrack the bar. Make sure you have plenty of spotter’s. This past training cycle, on my max effort squat work, I used those bands plus 265 pounds bar weight x2 reps. I’m 240 and drug free and that is the band/bar weight that I use. It takes an enormous amount of strength to handle that combination. As I have stated in the past, I’m an average guy and am not genetically gifted. On our ME work, I emphasize sticking to the basic core movements, I consider these workouts to be our strength building workouts. Being average and weak, is a weakness! What are you going to do to fix it? This is what I have come up with. If you are an 800, 900 or 1000 pound squatter and you cannot handle the two band combination mentioned above, just think where your squat will be when you can! Chris Reidy, an experienced 275 pound lifter joined the team several months ago. One of the first workouts he did was a ME squat workout. When I was done, he wanted to try and unrack just the bar with the bands. I know he thought he was going to be able to do it, wrong answer, he could not even budge the bar. He did not quit, no excuses, he realized he wasn’t as strong as he thought he was. What he is finding out, is how fast the body strengthens and adapts. In less than 3 months he is now handling those bands with some bar weight and his squat his moving right up. I’m not saying that this will solve all your squat problems, but it will increase your strength. There are a lot of skeptics and doubters out there. If your lifting has stalled regardless of what your total is, try my squat test with the bands, you might realize you aren’t really as strong as you thought you were and this may be just what you need to get your lifts going again.
Foundation: Any structure is only as strong as its foundation. The human body is as only strong as its foundation. The muscle, you say! No, the tendons, ligaments and bones. How is it that my team as a whole has gotten so much stronger without any of us gaining a lot of body weight or mass? The bands! Training with the constant tension of the bands over the past 2 years has made our tendons and ligaments so much stronger that it has allowed what little muscle we have to do so much more work. So many lifter’s are trying to get that ‘pump’. Doing these high volume workouts, 6-7 days a week, just pounding there bodies and not really getting that much stronger, the secret is the short quick workouts with increased band tension.
I received an e-mail the other day after Gene benched 810, that there was a video of his lift on a forum site. I went on the site watched the video and saw a comment titled something like Westside: didn't work for me! I read the comments and some of the responses. I thought, that sounded just like me several years ago. What took this guy several years to realize took me 6 months. The Westside template didn’t do a thing for me. I also realized that I tried just about everything else out there and Westside was pretty much what I was stuck with. I just knew that this westside system could work for me if applied correctly to fit my needs. The first thing I did was to stretch it out, from a 7 day cycle to a 10 day cycle, bingo, things started to happen. Then I felt that I needed to do some free weight work, so I incorporated the set to failure prior to our speed work, bingo, more progress. We originally started the westside system with chains, then Mike Miller at the time was still training with us, bought a set of bands and introduced them, so I thought why not. So, we began mixing the bands with the chains, bingo, more progress. I then realized that when the chains are sitting on the ground in the bottom half of the movements, they were useless, so we went to bands only, bingo more progress. We then went from choking and double choking to doubling the bands, so that there would be more tension throughout the entire range of motion, bingo more progress. And so on and so on. Westside in principle is a great system. If you can’t realize your strengths and weaknesses then you are going to have hard time with the westside template. It is a very complicated system. The Joe Average strength system is Westside in it’s most basic form, sometimes the basics is all you need or it is where you need to begin.
I received an e-mail concerning our day 6 in each cycle. I was asked why we deadlifted before we did our ME squat workout. Day 6 is the only day in each cycle that we do any deadlifting. Day 1 is focused entirely on squatting, so on day 6 we focus on our dl while we are fresh prior to doing the ME squat workout. I know what you are thinking, won’t your ME squat suffer? I thought the same thing at first, actually it has not effected our ME squat workout at all. We view our dl work as a warm-up for the high band tensions that we will be using and second, GPP, our GPP is at a level that no matter what we do on any given day, we are good from beginning to end.
GPP: My interpretation of increasing your GPP, is increasing your bodies ability to do more work. How is that done, primarily by pulling that sled, I hate it! The sled pulling has increased our conditioning to such a level, that even our most intense workouts have become routine. Now, some people may think that you need to do more exercises and more high rep high volume sets. All this does is prevent your bodies ability to recover from your core workouts. I look at some workouts and think, this looks like a body building routine to me. We do special workouts following our core workouts. These workouts are specifically designed for conditioning and assistance work. These workouts supplement our core workouts without effecting our rest and recovery. Powerlifting has become an exact science, knowing your system and knowing exactly what needs to be done so that you can get the most out of what you have.
Train hard and train smart: I’ve read articles now and then about guys boasting about the competitive nature of there workouts, especially their ME workouts. How guys have passed out or have become injured trying to outdo one another in the gym. It sounds good, but is it smart. I teach all my lifters to train within themselves. I have such a wide variety of lifter’s on my team, that rarely anyone could actually go head to head. I tell my guys, don’t worry about what I am doing or anyone else, do the best that you can and be patient. I’ve learned that you have to progress smartly through a training cycle so that you are at your best on meet day. As Dave has said to me in the past, it doesn’t matter what you do in the gym, only what you do on the platform. Now, if anyone thinks that this is some sort of cop out and that we don’t train hard, bring yourself on down to the Body Factory and see if you can handle one of my ME squat or bench workouts with the bands. I’ll go head to head with anyone! Except, Gene! The guy is a freak on ME day. We train hard, but we also train smart!
By Jim Parrish
In 22 months, the Joe Average system took Gene Rychlak from a 550 bench to an 810 bench. Gene held the Greatest Bench title for about 24 hours until Scot Mendelson did 821 the next day. Congrat’s to Scot!
That’s it, you say! You aren’t going to talk about Gene anymore. No more! Even though Gene is a great lifter and solid product of the Joe Average system, my focus is still on the average guys out there who just want to get to that 300 or 400 pound bench. What’s great about my system is that it can work for any level lifter if applied correctly.
Any level lifter? Yes! I received some feedback that some elite/pro lifter’s are under the impression that the Joe Average system was for beginner’s or average guys, while this is true, this system can benefit any level lifter. Sounds good, but can you prove it! Try this: find a gym with a monolift, get a set of green bands and a set of purple bands, double the bands around the base leg of the monolift and slide both ends over the bar. Yes, doubled, not choked. See if you can unrack the bar. Make sure you have plenty of spotter’s. This past training cycle, on my max effort squat work, I used those bands plus 265 pounds bar weight x2 reps. I’m 240 and drug free and that is the band/bar weight that I use. It takes an enormous amount of strength to handle that combination. As I have stated in the past, I’m an average guy and am not genetically gifted. On our ME work, I emphasize sticking to the basic core movements, I consider these workouts to be our strength building workouts. Being average and weak, is a weakness! What are you going to do to fix it? This is what I have come up with. If you are an 800, 900 or 1000 pound squatter and you cannot handle the two band combination mentioned above, just think where your squat will be when you can! Chris Reidy, an experienced 275 pound lifter joined the team several months ago. One of the first workouts he did was a ME squat workout. When I was done, he wanted to try and unrack just the bar with the bands. I know he thought he was going to be able to do it, wrong answer, he could not even budge the bar. He did not quit, no excuses, he realized he wasn’t as strong as he thought he was. What he is finding out, is how fast the body strengthens and adapts. In less than 3 months he is now handling those bands with some bar weight and his squat his moving right up. I’m not saying that this will solve all your squat problems, but it will increase your strength. There are a lot of skeptics and doubters out there. If your lifting has stalled regardless of what your total is, try my squat test with the bands, you might realize you aren’t really as strong as you thought you were and this may be just what you need to get your lifts going again.
Foundation: Any structure is only as strong as its foundation. The human body is as only strong as its foundation. The muscle, you say! No, the tendons, ligaments and bones. How is it that my team as a whole has gotten so much stronger without any of us gaining a lot of body weight or mass? The bands! Training with the constant tension of the bands over the past 2 years has made our tendons and ligaments so much stronger that it has allowed what little muscle we have to do so much more work. So many lifter’s are trying to get that ‘pump’. Doing these high volume workouts, 6-7 days a week, just pounding there bodies and not really getting that much stronger, the secret is the short quick workouts with increased band tension.
I received an e-mail the other day after Gene benched 810, that there was a video of his lift on a forum site. I went on the site watched the video and saw a comment titled something like Westside: didn't work for me! I read the comments and some of the responses. I thought, that sounded just like me several years ago. What took this guy several years to realize took me 6 months. The Westside template didn’t do a thing for me. I also realized that I tried just about everything else out there and Westside was pretty much what I was stuck with. I just knew that this westside system could work for me if applied correctly to fit my needs. The first thing I did was to stretch it out, from a 7 day cycle to a 10 day cycle, bingo, things started to happen. Then I felt that I needed to do some free weight work, so I incorporated the set to failure prior to our speed work, bingo, more progress. We originally started the westside system with chains, then Mike Miller at the time was still training with us, bought a set of bands and introduced them, so I thought why not. So, we began mixing the bands with the chains, bingo, more progress. I then realized that when the chains are sitting on the ground in the bottom half of the movements, they were useless, so we went to bands only, bingo more progress. We then went from choking and double choking to doubling the bands, so that there would be more tension throughout the entire range of motion, bingo more progress. And so on and so on. Westside in principle is a great system. If you can’t realize your strengths and weaknesses then you are going to have hard time with the westside template. It is a very complicated system. The Joe Average strength system is Westside in it’s most basic form, sometimes the basics is all you need or it is where you need to begin.
I received an e-mail concerning our day 6 in each cycle. I was asked why we deadlifted before we did our ME squat workout. Day 6 is the only day in each cycle that we do any deadlifting. Day 1 is focused entirely on squatting, so on day 6 we focus on our dl while we are fresh prior to doing the ME squat workout. I know what you are thinking, won’t your ME squat suffer? I thought the same thing at first, actually it has not effected our ME squat workout at all. We view our dl work as a warm-up for the high band tensions that we will be using and second, GPP, our GPP is at a level that no matter what we do on any given day, we are good from beginning to end.
GPP: My interpretation of increasing your GPP, is increasing your bodies ability to do more work. How is that done, primarily by pulling that sled, I hate it! The sled pulling has increased our conditioning to such a level, that even our most intense workouts have become routine. Now, some people may think that you need to do more exercises and more high rep high volume sets. All this does is prevent your bodies ability to recover from your core workouts. I look at some workouts and think, this looks like a body building routine to me. We do special workouts following our core workouts. These workouts are specifically designed for conditioning and assistance work. These workouts supplement our core workouts without effecting our rest and recovery. Powerlifting has become an exact science, knowing your system and knowing exactly what needs to be done so that you can get the most out of what you have.
Train hard and train smart: I’ve read articles now and then about guys boasting about the competitive nature of there workouts, especially their ME workouts. How guys have passed out or have become injured trying to outdo one another in the gym. It sounds good, but is it smart. I teach all my lifters to train within themselves. I have such a wide variety of lifter’s on my team, that rarely anyone could actually go head to head. I tell my guys, don’t worry about what I am doing or anyone else, do the best that you can and be patient. I’ve learned that you have to progress smartly through a training cycle so that you are at your best on meet day. As Dave has said to me in the past, it doesn’t matter what you do in the gym, only what you do on the platform. Now, if anyone thinks that this is some sort of cop out and that we don’t train hard, bring yourself on down to the Body Factory and see if you can handle one of my ME squat or bench workouts with the bands. I’ll go head to head with anyone! Except, Gene! The guy is a freak on ME day. We train hard, but we also train smart!