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Westside for High School athletes

Sat, 03/27/2010 - 2:03pm — tsears

What do you guys think about a dynamic and max effort days for high school athletes? We currently run a mix of olympic lifts along with power lifting and have seen good results. But, always looking to improve. My main question is about max effort days. Would you guys have 14-15 year old boys/girls max out on a weekly basis once form is good? What variations would you consider for the squat and bench? Would this also work (dynamic and max effort days) for the clean and jerk along with the snatch?

Other thoughts/advice is greatly appreciated. I have been reading a lot of their information from their website, and they are very strong. But, I have never trained like this and need all the advice I can get. Thanks.

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Sat, 03/27/2010 - 2:14pm — Todd Wilson
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HS kids don't have the

HS kids don't have the strength to benefit from alternating max and dynamic effort.

Now, inevitably, some numb nuts is going to post how they've used it with high school athletes with results.... No crap. Really?

HS kids are untrained. ANYTHING will get results, therefore, what the point on putting them one something like a Westside program unless one just doesn't know how to design a useful weight program?

Emphasis on Squats, dead lifts, Romanian dead lifts, leg curls, Lunges, split squats, step ups, trap bar dead lifts, dumbbell squats along with pull up variations, bench press variations and dips for reps in the 6-20 rep range will put high school athletes way ahead of the game. Another invaluable tool for HS athletes is a sled, &/or a Westside Prowler.

Anything other than that is overkill. Putting high school kids on a westside stylized PPL routine would be like giving my dad an iPhone or BlackBerry.

Sat, 03/27/2010 - 9:55pm — Charles Izzo

Yeah, I'm with you on that

Yeah, I'm with you on that one. There is no need for a highschool student to be training like a powerlifter unless he/she is going to be competing in powerlifting. There is no need to put them on an advanced training system.

There is one thing I would argue though about the rep range. The rep range should depend on the athletes goals. High school athletes will gain the best mass off from doing sets of 20. They should definitely be doing that initially and especially if their goals are to gain mass and strength. But if for what ever reason strength is the specific goal and size is not desired then clearly doing lower reps is going to work better.

Just to give an example of specificity at its best, we had a guy on the Metal Militia team training exactly as everyone else did since he was in high school. He did not get very big at all. But because of the specifics of his training he did end up becoming incredibly strong and at such a light weight. There is no doubt he has the potential to break a world record bench press in the 165 lb class and I'm pretty sure he will do it.

So you have to consider the goals and specificity. If a students goals is to be a line backer on the football team then they belong doing high rep sets initially. They can do all the low reps they want and I'd be willing to bet they aren't going to grow; they might get stronger if they are lucky, but growth will come slowly. If they want to be a light weight powerlifter then clearly doing it right straight from the beginning is going to work.

Sat, 03/27/2010 - 11:02pm — Todd Wilson
Todd Wilson's picture

There's little reason to go

There's little reason to go below 6 reps for beginners. They don't have the intermuscular coordination to benefit from low reps. I.e., they can't recruit enough of the proper motor units.

Hence for the first 2 years of training 6-20 reps are optimal for strength and hypertrophy gains.

The only time 1-5 reps would be used would be in teaching the olympic lifts (as high reps in olympic lifts and their variations lead to injury), but unless the kid is interested in Olympic lifting, I'm not even bothering with the power clean and power snatch until he has gained significant strength from more conventional exercises.

For guys who have been training for 5-8-10 years, triples can be magic for strength and size increases. It won't do squat for young kids. Experienced lifters use low reps to increase neural drive, efficiency, and to teach themselves to recruit more high threshold motor units that in turn help to lift more weight. For the beginner, even at 60% 1RM most of the initial strength adaptations are neural in nature, i.e., they are simply learning how to lift, how to recruit more motor units, literally every session. Inter-muscular coordination.

Plus, increasing work load should be a priority as well, particularly if they play multiple sports and/or have college potential. It's easy to get stronger in college, it's more difficult to adjust to the increased physical workload of practices, conditioning sessions, walking 2-8 miles across campus a day, etc. It's often where good high school athletes get left behind, they just can't adjust to the workload of college athletics.

Sat, 03/27/2010 - 11:24pm — Todd Wilson
Todd Wilson's picture

Also of note, for any of you

Also of note, for any of you who work with kids....

The weaker the kid is, the more reps he needs. If you have 2 juniors in high school and one can bench press 135 8 times, he'll do well in the 6-15 rep range, but for a kid who struggles with the bar for 12 reps, he needs to reps in the 15-20 range almost exclusively. Obviously with something lighter than the bar like 20-25lb DBs.

The stronger they are the more conventional of a program you can put them on, the weaker, the more reps they need on virtually every exercise.

If they can't do 30 push ups or 8 pull-ups, that's a priority.

Skinny kids will get to 8 pull ups pretty quick by just doing 8-10 second eccentrics. Most skinny kids will be able to do a few anyway.

Obese kids, which is more and more common will need to build upper back and biceps strength with DB rows, chest supported rows, & seated rows to the waist. Pull downs are fine, for higher reps last in the workout, as their carry over is low.

When I've worked with HS kids, I never bothered with it. On a basketball team once when we tested 1st day of school, max pull ups were 3 if we allowed crap form. 6 weeks later the low number of reps were 4 for the team with a high of 12. Had a few that were struggling to just hold on to the 2 inch bar that was our pull up bar. I do feel that sled draggin had to carry over though for two reasons.... stronger upper body pull musculature, & we got leaner quickly. August, september, early October in Mississippi is still summer, dragging a sled outside at 2 in the afternoon tends to cause sweat... But the key was volume of work, not intensity. As mentioned, most strength gains for beginners are neural in nature anyway. That's why beginners get stronger doing anything. Even Crossfit & P90X.

Tue, 03/30/2010 - 12:54pm — Luidl

Re: Westside

The Westside program is a highly specialized training system for powerlifters, who compete in specific powerlifting federations.

Periodized training with specific short and long term goals should be created to meet the physical potential and sports requirements for each athlete. Maxing out continually will be counterproductive and possibly harmful until a foundation of fitness is established.

Some basic rules.

Reps - 5 to 8. Keep reps relatively low so athletes can practice proper form and technique without incurring fatigue and to promote propery muslce type growth for sports. Do not max the weight continually. Percentages should vary between 50% - 85%.

Exercises - Stay with basic compound movements. Squats, benches, overhead lifts, deadlifts, olympic lifts. Avoid machines and isolation exercises unless they are needed to address weaknesses or a sports specific need.

Avoid box squats. They are counter productive to sports performance mechanically and will inhibit lateral movement.