I'm trying to come up with a summer weight program and was wondering if anyone had any experience using the westside split? The testemonials i have heard sound promising – gaining strength without weight, but the setup itself is completely foreign to me.
Westside split
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Participant
I'd like to know how you'd set this up. Can someone explain this to Rice and myself?
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Participant
what happened to all the other posts? should i retype my explanation of the split?
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Participant
mike had to correct a "bug" or something so he said that all posts from the last 2 days have been deleted.
Yes cockysprinter, please repost everything you had on here previously.
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KeymasterThe westside split is a form of conjugated periodization. Conjugated perfiodization is one which works all elements necessary to the sport in a balanced manner all year long. There is very little if any fluctuations in volume and intensity at the macrocycle level. There are however often minor changes in volume and intensity at the micro and mesocyle levels. More specifically, the westside split is aimed at developing the power lifts (squat, bench, deadlift) where max strength is the primary quality necessary to excel. It splits training up into 2 types of days: max effort (~max strength) and dynamic effort (~speed). A typical week looks like this:
Day 1: Max Effort Bench
Day 2: Max Effort Squat / DL
Day 3: Dynamic Effort Bench
Day 4: Dynamic Effort Squat / DLThere are too many nuances of the westside program to mention here but if you want more details just go to https://www.elitefts.com/
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
come on mike, i am anxiously waiting for your reply to this thread 😉
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Keymaster
A true WSBB program would be ok for a sprinter if it were used in an off-season where the primary objective was increasing strength. Otherwise, I think it would need some modification. I've been using a weight lifting program that isn't modeled after the WSBB split but follows similar (eastern/soviet-block) principles with a couple of my post-grad athletes for the past 4 mesocycles and have seen unreal results in strength, speed, and power indicators. I credit this more to the total application of the underlying concepts though to the whole training program rather than to just the weight lifting program alone. I hate to do this but I'd rather not discuss the specific details of this setup at the present time (to be fair to my HPC clients).
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
When you say you can't discuss it, do you mean the variation that you do, or the westside setup itself?
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Participant
mike thats too bad you would rather not tell us the plan you put your athletes on. i read an article (dont have the link handy) that talked about modifying the wbb split to better suit athletics. it suggested using repetition days instead of dynamic days and some other stuff i dont remember.
however, i was wondering what you might think of this mike. if you modify your weights program so that each day better suits the stimuli better on the track. i dont know about the other people on this board, but my weight training is consistently the same each day of the week i do it :wink:. i dont know if i can do this right but…here goes. on days such as accel dev and maxV use 'max effort ' type days. on days for special endurance, use a percentage of max that will cause a lot of lactic acid, just like your running would do on the track. and on days for intensive tempo, you could use those rest-pause techniques that were mentioned in another thread. and maybe for speed endurance you could use something similar to the special endurance workout or an ME day, but higher reps.
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Participant
[i]Originally posted by cockysprinter[/i]
mike thats too bad you would rather not tell us the plan you put your athletes on. i read an article (dont have the link handy) that talked about modifying the wbb split to better suit athletics. it suggested using repetition days instead of dynamic days and some other stuff i dont remember.Sounds like Defranco's article:
https://www.t-mag.com/nation_articles/311west.jsp -
Participant
that was the article i was referring to. any comments on what i suggested?
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Participant
A true WSBB program would be ok for a sprinter if it were used in an off-season where the primary objective was increasing strength. Otherwise, I think it would need some modification. I've been using a weight lifting program that isn't modeled after the WSBB split but follows similar (eastern/soviet-block) principles with a couple of my post-grad athletes for the past 4 mesocycles and have seen unreal results in strength, speed, and power indicators. I credit this more to the total application of the underlying concepts though to the whole training program rather than to just the weight lifting program alone. I hate to do this but I'd rather not discuss the specific details of this setup at the present time (to be fair to my HPC clients).
Can you now talk about the training you did with these clients?
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Keymaster
Sure. I'll give a brief rundown now and follow up when I have a little more time.
Basically we did 2 consecutive blocks of a 3 day rotation followed by a rest day. The general theme for each day was very focused with as little crossover as possible:
Day 1 & 4: strength & low end power….concentric strength was emphasized. We would do things like resisted runs or hills for sprints (nothing longer than 20m), very heavy pulls or squats…often starting from the pins or using a box (no OLs); heavy MTs w/o countermovements, and short jumps (SLJ, VJ…often with no CM and sometimes resisted).
Day 2 & 5: speed & upper end power…fast eccentric power was emphasized. We would do things like 10m flying sprints; jump squats with light weight, OLs usng 50-60% of max; MTs using a light ball and countermovement; and dynamic-reactive plyos.
Day 3 & 6: metabolic conditioning; circuits, some extensive tempo; general strength, etc.
Day 7: Rest
I was super specific (even more than usual) about the pairings and exercise selections of every aspect of every day from the warmup all the way through the cooldown with the aim of making every aspect of every day very focused on a particular range of the force-velocity / speed-power spectrum. I think this is part of what made it work. The fact that the stimuli on days 1 and 2 were very high intensity but very different in nature allowed me to do 2 high intensity days back to back twice a week. Also, I felt there was a potentiating affect from day 1 on day 2. I had unreal results with this setup (based on test results from my standard tests) but it was for a unique athlete population (bobsled / skeleton athletes) who are strange birds in the sporting world in that technique development is minimal (other than for the load) and their is no real maxV and definitely no speed endurance component to the sports. I also used this setup with a 7.67m LJer and found it difficult to integrate technical training. His test performances went way up but this was in the GPP when we weren't really doing any technical training at all. With this guy I ended up using a hybrid setup with three days as above and three days of more traditional training. This ended up being better for his LJ development.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
what you described seems difficult to understand (to me anyways) maybe because of how specific you made this out to be, this seems so specific that it wouldnt apply to sprinters, you would have to modify it completely different according to athletes in different sport, However the concept would be similar or the same, no?
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Member
Have you ever considered doing this same set up with your Army athletes?
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Participant
This makes me want to try this during gpp next summer!! Seriously, when you have more time you should elaborate more for how you worked with the LJ'er….Why only 50-60% on the OL's it seems like those would fly past your head?
I think most athletes should keep the ol's between 50-80% maybe a couple reps per month over 80%.
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Participant
whats are med throws with a counter movement and what are ones without?
if you had to guess what would you say?
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Participant
I think most athletes should keep the ol's between 50-80% maybe a couple reps per month over 80%.
Why?
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Participant
[quote author="utfootball4" date="1194768441"]
I think most athletes should keep the ol's between 50-80% maybe a couple reps per month over 80%.Why?
[/quote]
Many reasons but to sum it up we are not weightlifters.
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Keymaster
Have you ever considered doing this same set up with your Army athletes?
Nope. It would work great for NFL combine preparation, throwing events, and bobsled / skeleton athletes but I think less so for athletes with any real top end speed or speed endurance requirements. Also, inclusion of technical training becomes problematic to integrate.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Keymaster
This makes me want to try this during gpp next summer!! Seriously, when you have more time you should elaborate more for how you worked with the LJ'er….Why only 50-60% on the OL's it seems like those would fly past your head?
On these days, we'd use either hang cleans or snatches if OLs were used. Jump squats with very little weight were just as likely to be used.
With the LJer, days one through 3 were as above (except later in the year we did full approaches on day 1), and 4, 5, 6 were similar to my usual speed-power development protocol. That is 4 was acc dev and heavy weights; 5 was short run jumps and general strength, 6 was intensive tempo or speed endurance. The inclusion of technical training really muddied the waters.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
[quote author="Winnesota" date="1194767781"]
This makes me want to try this during gpp next summer!! Seriously, when you have more time you should elaborate more for how you worked with the LJ'er….Why only 50-60% on the OL's it seems like those would fly past your head?On these days, we'd use either hang cleans or snatches if OLs were used. Jump squats with very little weight were just as likely to be used.
With the LJer, days one through 3 were as above (except later in the year we did full approaches on day 1), and 4, 5, 6 were similar to my usual speed-power development protocol. That is 4 was acc dev and heavy weights; 5 was short run jumps and general strength, 6 was intensive tempo or speed endurance. The inclusion of technical training really muddied the waters.
[/quote]I usually do the same, if i go lighter on the ol's the movements would usually be hang clean/snatches and heavier on the power clean/snatch.
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Keymaster
One way to look at the split (if you couldn't tell) was that day 1 & 4 were largely high force concentric contractions with little stretch reflex involvement. Days 2 & 5 were high speed with an emphasis on eccentric power and very balistic / dynamic contractions. Volumes on day 2 & 5 were especially low. As we progressed through the year I found it was actually best to make the two days even more divergent on the force-velocity spectrum.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Member
Did the percents on the lifts stay the same throughout the length of training? Or did you progress to max lifts on both days at the end of the cycle? This was in the summer right? I was looking at doing this next summer in GPP so I wouldnt want to include any technical training…
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Keymaster
Both days shifted in opposite directions on the force-velocity curve. That is, the heavier day got heavier, the faster day got faster.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Both days shifted in opposite directions on the force-velocity curve. That is, the heavier day got heavier, the faster day got faster.
Mike, did the speed increase come from increased capability of the lifter, or did you reduce weight? I have heard of some people timing the lift, with the idea that they would progress the load as much as possible as long as the speed of the lift wasn't compromised. Others wanted to keep the weight the same but try to increase the speed of the lift.
What were/are your thoughts on progressing the speed of the lift versus progressing the load lifted when the focus of the training is ballistic force production?
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Keymaster
We lessened the load slightly or switched the exercise selection to something that was more ballistic. If I had a tendo unit I might try to just keep the weight the same and focus on increasing power output at a given weight but I didn't want to leave anything to chance.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Member
I was thinking of doing a partial variation of the westside split this week due to Thanksgiving.
I was thinking of doing plyos, short approach jumps, etc. and pairing that with the lighter OL's and then the next day, doing just low end strength with no track workout.
Would this work or would it be better to do plyos, short approach jumps and low end strength one day and then lighter OL's the next day? I was thinking it made more sense to pair the jumps and plyos with OL's rather than low end power.
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Member
Im having a hard time finding some things.
What are some examples of an eccentric and concentric warm up/cool down?
What is an example of dynamic-reactive plyos? Are all/most plyos eccentric?
Are unresisted Accels suitable for the concentric days? Or should it just be resisted runs?
Hurdle Hops, Deadlift, and Inertial Squats. Are they concentric?
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Member
Some of the info you want about plyo’s can be found in Explosive Power and Jumping Ability for All Sports by Tadeusz Starzynski. I don’t have the book handy with me now otherwise I’d try to help you out a bit more. I believe for concentric days you can add in some hill sprints.
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Keymaster
Im having a hard time finding some things.
What are some examples of an eccentric and concentric warm up/cool down?
I wouldn’t necessarily look at it as eccentric and concentric warmups / cooldowns. At least that’s not quite how I break it up in this scheme. Basically, the warmups are just tweaked slightly for the demands of the day. For example, if we are doing what you’re coining an eccentric day, the warmup might finish slightly more dynamic with more balistic dynamic flexibility work and maybe some buildups off of the sprint drills or hurdle mobility work.
What is an example of dynamic-reactive plyos?
Stiffness jumps.
Are all/most plyos eccentric?
No. Short jump series like SLJ, STJ, vertical jump all have dominant concentric components….especially if you take out the counter movement.
Are unresisted Accels suitable for the concentric days? Or should it just be resisted runs?
I use both…sometimes in the same session when I employ this setup.
Hurdle Hops, Deadlift, and Inertial Squats. Are they concentric?
Hurdle hops-no. Deadlifts and inertials squats- yes.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Member
Mike, I’m having a hard time with visualizing the dynamic-reactive plyos. I’ve checked out about 10 books (including supertraining!), but still cant grasp the idea. When you use this term, are you referring to plyos in which there is a jump and ‘stick’ movement? For instance, doing 180 jumps with a pause in between the next jump (instead of continuous jumps)?
As far as the 300m benchmark for total volume accels that most use. What should total volume be on accels when, lets say, half of the total volume is resisted accels?
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Participant
is this ur summer program?
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Participant
Seems like an interesting method, I’d be willing to give it a run for 3-4 weeks and keep a detailed log throughout. I have access to laser timing for testing purposes as well. If Mike is willing to fill me in on the specifics I’ll make it happen.
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Participant
A true WSBB program would be ok for a sprinter if it were used in an off-season where the primary objective was increasing strength. Otherwise, I think it would need some modification. I've been using a weight lifting program that isn't modeled after the WSBB split but follows similar (eastern/soviet-block) principles with a couple of my post-grad athletes for the past 4 mesocycles and have seen unreal results in strength, speed, and power indicators. I credit this more to the total application of the underlying concepts though to the whole training program rather than to just the weight lifting program alone. I hate to do this but I'd rather not discuss the specific details of this setup at the present time (to be fair to my HPC clients).
The need for a ‘dynamic’ session in the gym is highly questionable since sprinters are getting such a high stimulus to RFD from their work on the track.
Infact I contend that ‘Periodisation’ as a concept is an outdated one and certainly should not be applied to the novice and intermediate populations found in track circles. As a friend said: “Periodization is just socialistic nonsense developed to make coaches feel important. Sure, there are some basic ideas in the doctrine that are perfectly valid, like doing more conditioning in the ‘off-season’, tapering for a contest, etc, but the idea every lift has to be planned is utter nonsense and will only serve to stifle and control great athletes from transcending their coach.”
To illustrate, take any athlete and ask them to do two sessions per week. Either a. power clean up to a maximum single or b. squat to a maximum triple
e.g. for a lifter who can squat 100×3 and Power Clean 100
50x3r (2)
70x3r
82x3r
92x3r
102x3rOR
50x2r (3)
60
70
80
85
90
95
101 – 2 attemptsThese simple programs would have a FAR greater impact on an athletes track performance than 95% of programs you guys do. Additionally it will amount to less than an hours weight training per WEEK!
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Participant
Keep promoting ‘the system’ . . . want me to post a link to your website as well?
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Participant
Keep promoting ‘the system’ . . . want me to post a link to your website as well?
no
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Participant
These simple programs would have a FAR greater impact on an athletes track performance than 95% of programs you guys do. Additionally it will amount to less than an hours weight training per WEEK!
I have a big problem this statement. You are talking about one aspect of training; the weight room. While most will agree it is important, it is a complete program that has a FAR greater impact on performance. I have never and will never go a conference in which a coach says one particular aspect is the Mecca of training. That only comes from self-promoters, idiots, and supposed gurus.
Apparently you don’t know the 95% of track coaches that I do, because most of them are doing the work necessarily to build complete track athletes, not just weight room heroes.
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Participant
[quote author="David Woodhouse" date="1298481107"]
These simple programs would have a FAR greater impact on an athletes track performance than 95% of programs you guys do. Additionally it will amount to less than an hours weight training per WEEK!
I have a big problem this statement. You are talking about one aspect of training; the weight room. While most will agree it is important, it is a complete program that has a FAR greater impact on performance. I have never and will never go a conference in which a coach says one particular aspect is the Mecca of training. That only comes from self-promoters, idiots, and supposed gurus.
Apparently you don’t know the 95% of track coaches that I do, because most of them are doing the work necessarily to build complete track athletes, not just weight room heroes.[/quote]
I think you mis understood my post. MY criticism is of the WEIGHT programs employed by track athletes not of their programs as a whole. My suggestion would mean a REDUCTION in frequency, volume AND exercises. That means a huge amount more adaptation energy is available for specific work on the track… and far LESS time is spent in the gym!
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