Strength Training Articles

Ideally, an athlete should be rolling into the training week feeling adequately recovered and ready to handle some heavy weights. This week, we will work up to our first max-effort single attempt of the four-week PR training plan. This week will test an athlete's most significant weakness in the bench press.

Sat Nov 12, 2022

Phase training is impractical for a couple of reasons, mainly detraining. Phase training will always lead to detraining as the athlete transitions from phase to phase. This means that you will lose a percentage of the gains you attained in the previous phase due to a lack of focus on that particular strength in the current phase. Essentially, you trade proficiency in one strength for another.

Wed Nov 09, 2022

As you accumulate training time, you may reach a point you cannot consistently hit a PR lift when you train a max-effort exercise.

Fortunately, this is not that big of an issue. The intention of max-effort training is to lift the heaviest weight possible, with the goal being to recruit the greatest number of motor units possible. By achieving maximal motor unit recruitment, we can improve absolute strength, eventually leading to a new PR lift being established.

Fri Nov 04, 2022

As an athlete new to the Conjugate Method, it is vital that you understand how to organize your training days properly. The organization of the training week is simple; max-effort lower on Monday, max-effort upper on Wednesday, dynamic-effort lower on Friday, and dynamic-effort upper on Saturday. You don’t have to train on those exact days, but you must maintain the timespan between each training day for recovery to remain optimal. 

Mon Oct 31, 2022

The giant cambered bar is one of the most effective training tools a gym can have in its arsenal of specialty barbells. What makes this bar so valuable is its emphasis on the posterior chain, significantly improving the strength of the back, glutes, hamstrings, hips, and trunk. If you want to take your squats, deadlifts, jumps, and sprints to the next level, you should use the giant cambered bar for max effort, dynamic effort, and repetition effort work.

Wed Oct 26, 2022

Dynamic effort training, or "DE" training, is used to increase the rate of force development and accumulate additional volume in sport-relative multi-joint movements. At Westside, we use the dynamic effort method to improve our RFD for the squat, bench, and deadlift.

Fri Oct 21, 2022

As an athlete, one of the most important attributes you can develop is your absolute strength. Today, many coaches dispute the need for max effort training. These coaches will say that max effort training places an athlete at an increased risk of injury, or that their sport does not require an athlete to be “that strong”.

Wed Oct 19, 2022

At Westside, we have a few different ways we go about training the triceps. To maximize your results, you must train the triceps in a few different ways to improve strength, size, and muscular endurance. Effective tricep training includes more than a few sets on the cable press-down machine after your main exercise. 

Fri Oct 14, 2022

One important attribute in all sports, especially grappling sports, is absolute strength. Absolute strength represents the maximal amount of force an athlete can produce. Gains in absolute strength for a grappler lead to stronger takedowns, better sprawls, improved control, and the ability to use strength to force submissions when technique fails.

Tue Oct 11, 2022

It’s simple; if you want to become as strong as possible, you must have a strong trunk. Without the ability to create a strong brace, you will miss lifts or experience a lower back injury that forces you to take time off. If you have a weak trunk, it is only a matter of time before something goes wrong.

Fri Oct 07, 2022

When most think of conditioning work, their mind goes to exercises like long-distance jogging or hill sprints. While these exercises are excellent options to choose when building aerobic capacity, they aren’t exactly relative to the sport. If you want to maximize the conditioning for a specific sport, you must find ways to tax and fatigue the athlete relative to their sport.

Tue Oct 04, 2022

In almost any sport, your hands are the first point of contact for the device used to play the sport. Whether you’re a weightlifter gripping a barbell, a golfer gripping a club, a basketball player securing a rebound, or a wide receiver catching a pass, having strong hands and forearms can be a great benefit.

Sat Oct 01, 2022

The incline bench press is one of the most effective upper body exercise variations you can perform to develop the chest, shoulders, and triceps. At Westside, it is not uncommon to see athletes performing various incline bench press exercises using barbells and dumbbells.

Tue Sep 27, 2022

At Westside, much demand is placed on the shoulders every week. For an athlete to remain trainable, they must put in the work necessary to build the muscles that support the shoulder. Training the larger muscle groups of the shoulder isn't tough to do. We can accomplish that with any regular barbell or dumbbell.

The question then becomes, how can we best improve the strength and durability of the four smaller muscles that make up the rotator cuff? The answer is simple, the Earthquake Bar, commonly known as the bamboo bar. 

Fri Sep 23, 2022

With a properly written Conjugate program, you can focus on multiple training goals without dedicating entire blocks to only training to improve absolute strength, power, or muscular size and endurance. This enhances the rate at which an athlete improves compared to the linear approach.

Mon Sep 19, 2022

Becoming explosive makes you dangerous, no matter the sport. If you are on the football field, an explosive player will hit you so hard that your teeth will be loose. On the baseball field, an explosive player will hit the ball further and throw the ball with greater velocity. Even a golfer can benefit, with increased power adding distance to their game

Thu Sep 15, 2022

The law of accommodation states that if an athlete wants to continue progressing in their training, the stimulus must change regularly. Athletes can achieve this in a few ways; by increasing the intensity and volume or by creating an exercise variation. It’s a simple concept and the most important law of training.

Tue Sep 13, 2022

As many strength athletes know, the bench and overhead press can be two challenging exercises to master. Both involve the shoulders heavily, which are the most moveable joints in the human body. Because of this, it is important to focus on rapidly building the upper body muscle groups that support the upper back, shoulders, and arms.

Fri Sep 09, 2022

A beginner must start with basic movements to bring up absolute strength and improve muscle mass. We achieve this by relying primarily on two of the three methods used in Conjugate training; the max effort method and the repeated effort method. 

Wed Sep 07, 2022