It's a repetition day. It's like a day devoted to some degree of volume with bench work. Many times people do this with dumbbells, but I've definitely seen people use barbells here with success. You can do 5x5, 6x6, 4x8, 3x10, etc. Goal though is to hit the prescribed reps for that day. If you want to go to failure on RE then you can do so last set, or you can save it for accessory work. I have been doing the latter.
I alternate between DE upper and RE upper. I try to do a lot of hypertrophy work in between lifts on my lower days, so I don't find I need as much RE work there yet. Not only have the guys at Westside found this to be a very effective way of training, but we know from bodybuilders that bodybuilders have some of the biggest benches out there as a population when compared to powerlifters. You could probably ask anyone at a NPC nationals* event to bench, and many in the heavyweights and up classes would rep out 500 lbs with just wrist wraps. Go to any powerlifting meet ever, and you'd be hard pressed to accomplish the same there. This is because the secret to a big bench has to include some degree of repetition work. This could be because of the hypertrophy that extra volume induces, or it could be that they're practicing the bench more than many powerlifters because they perform more total reps with a bench overall. Don't ask me, I don't know. Bottom line is RE days should be included in your mesocycle, unless you really know what you're doing and there's a reason your meso is based around just ME and DE work.
Thanks man. I'm itching to hit 315. I hit it once back in March maybe during a cruise phase of DC training. And I did that with a massive case of bicep tendonitis, too, which first got aggravated from straight bar squatting (also when I was cruising). So I want to get that back again. If I don't hit at least 300, I'm going to be real pissed. I hit a 475 on cambered bar squats not long ago, so I'm sure my 445-450 squat is going to look more like 500 than 450, and I am hoping my deadlift will be better than 515, which is what I hit last time (I hit 535 easily back in June/July for that IML promo), but I don't know. I don't seem to do well when I don't deadlift frequently. It's like I forget how to do it almost.
It can get pretty rough for sure. Traps feel on fire and I am usually laying on a bench wishing for a third lung.
As needed, yes. Pay good attention to your body though, and at some level understand that if you're not at least deloading the speed work every 6 weeks you should check to see if you're doing it right (are you fast or explosive enough?). Max work, general rule of thumb is probably 4-8 weeks. Some people can really go hard on it depending on your recovery (sleep patterns, supplements, volume of training used throughout the week).
I like pronated grip with my rows. After 275 I use a hook grip (actually on these I used the hook at 275 since I was doing sets of 6 all the way up to my working sets, and I can't do more than 2 otherwise). Westside is definitely a cool program. I am not going to lie, but I really want to go back to DC training. Funny, the only thing that was holding me back was having a training partner (you have to go to concentric AND static failure on upper body exercises), but now that I can't even touch a straight bar for squatting I'm not too sure what to do. For now I'll stay here, at this gym with this training system, since it's kind of nice. Squats are definitely going up! It's funny because since I started training my bench and deadlifts always went up but my squats sucked.
My squat went from a 380 for 1RM in July last year to a 405 for 4 clean reps in April along with a 315 for 20 reps. That was through DC training. I got really burnt out on that, and I had no partner, so I just dicked around till July/August of this year when I began westside.
Thanks, Sean. I definitely got beat down by this week, but I managed to shrug (pull?) it off
Hey rob. Thanks for the support. Are you into powerlifting as well?
), tall glass of milk, and mixed berry bowl.
