Dr. Squat - Dr. Fred Hatfield

Glenn Pendlay Guest
a note on percentages Thursday, September 25, 2003 4:13
NEW!

another note on how hard it is to see what a lifer is really doing by looking at a list of percentages, percentage ranges, reps, and that sort of thing... justin brimhall is a 16 year old 69k (152lb) lifter who i coach. his best front squat is 172.5k(380lbs), his best snatch is 115k (253lbs), his best clean and jerk is 150k(330lbs), his best clean is 155k (341lbs), and his best jerk from racks is 160k (352lbs). a typical trainig day last week went like this... front squat 50k/1, 70k/1, 90/1, 110/1, 130/1, 140/1, 150/1, 160/1, 170/1, 175 miss snatch 50/3, 70/2, 80/1, 90/1, 100/1, 105/1, 110/1, 115/1, 100/1, 105/1 clean and jerk 70 1+3, 90 1+2, 110 1+1, 120 1+1, 130 1+1, 140 1+1, 150 1+1 front squat 90/1, 110/1, 130/1, 140/1, 150/1, 160/1, 170/1 now, let me ask you, if someone tallied up these numbers, and told you what percentage of the total reps lay between 80 and 90%, what percentage was above 80%, what percentage was above 90%, what percentage was squat and what percentage was classical lifts, would that give you the whole story? not really... now envision that out of a week of similar workouts, in one or two of the workouts he had technical problems in the snatch, missing 105 or 110kilos on the way up, and went back to 90 and worked baack up in smaller jumps... this really happened... does that skew the picture... yep, we just added a big percentage of lifts in the 80-90 percent range, but you wouldnt know why... or assume he couldnt clean 150 because of being tired, and instead did a couple of doubles with 130 after hitting 140...you might assume that this big percentage of lifts in this range was by some grand plan... but it really wasnt, just a product of how he felt that day. now, justin did this basic workout 6 times last week, succedding with his bests of 115 and 150 a couple of times, but getting 110 and 140 consistently all week long... but on two of the 6 workouts, i eliminated the clean. on only two of the 6 workouts did we front squat twice in the s
e workout... again, if you read this in the format usually given by training b ooks, the listing of reps in certain percentage ranges, and the proportion of different exercises, you would maybe assume this was a grand design... but again, its not, in fact, we eliminated the clean because he was tired, one day just becasue he had a big front squat day the day before and plain had tired legs, the other day becasue he stayed up till 2
studying for a test in school, and again was tired. we did the front squat twice when i thought he could handle it because his weight was high for him and he felt good, we did it once when i didnt think he could handle it. another point... justin trained only once per day. is that a design? no. during the summer he trained twice per day pretty often. once now because of school. i have lifetrers who are better than him and lifters who are worse than him training twice per day because they can... likewise i have lifters both better and worse than him training once a day because that is all thier schedule allows. i guess what im trying to say is that its just d
n hard to look at the usuall info given for other countries progr
s and decipher what is really going on, and why.

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Chad Touchberry Guest This is "A WAY" of training.... Thursday, September 25, 2003 3:42
but is it the best way? Are there not better ways? "To hit the big weights at the end of a cycle you need to do light weights at the beginning of a cycle....." time after time on many great powerlifters over the years. If I start the cycle with 400, in 10 weeks I'll train with 500, Just take your 1RM, and take 10-20 pounds for every week for how long you want cycle to be." I just don't understand why you drop all the way back down to 50-60% after a PR? The more you advance (ie: higher totals), the more likely you are to need higher intensities to stimulate a response (adaptation), as well as higher volume. In the untrained the threshold for increases in strength is training at 60% 1RM (See kre
er and fleck for data). In the elite a progr
of 60% will detrain and lead to a decrease in performance. Like Glenn has said, and proven as well as most competitive countries in ol (poland, bulgaria, china) train as heavy as possible as often as possible. In addition you should be progressing to handle as much volume as possible. I think the down fall of some of the soviet outlines is that they spent a great deal of time at 70% or below. Thoughts? Chad

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Ian Elliott McCormick Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 3:54
Following the commencement of a training cycle aimed at contest-level performance, a little bit of time spent at a percentage that low could provide something of a respite. Of course, that's hardly the intent of including work at 50-60%, just something of an incidental fortuitousness. Isn't it common for people to achieve their "peak" AFTER they compete? I've certainly heard a significant number of people muse that they may have ended up stronger in the weeks following their competition than they were come the exact time of competition. Could that be because of the great deload that is provided by such low intensities? I almost think it'd be more appropriate to end a competitive cycle with this 60% stuff than to begin it that way. Ian Elliott McCormick

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JAG Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 3:56
Isn't that what the people at Westside barbell advocate with their max effort days? Even when they're using lighter weights at 50% they're still trying to increase bar speed, so in essence its still max effort right?

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Chad Touchberry Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 4:08
"Isn't it common for people to achieve their "peak" AFTER they compete?" Yes, most powerlifters make the mistake of working up to a max the last 1-2 weeks before competition. At that point I is high and so is V. Peaking should be so that the training max is achieved 3-5 weeks prior to the comp and the last 3-5 weeks are spent unloading. There is some research that shows strength athletes need a taper the s
e as endurance athletes (4weeks). Glenn P's research demonstrated the loading can decrease T/C Ratios up to 30% and it takes 3-4 weeks for those ratio's to peak. In addition to the recovery of T/C lifters saw the improved performance. Chad

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Razorman Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 4:18
RE: Isn't that what the people at Westside barbell advocate with their max effort days? Even when they're using lighter weights at 50% they're still trying to increase bar speed, so in essence its still max effort right? Correct.

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Eric Stone Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 4:58
If you peak after you compete you did not set up your cycle well. The point of the cycle is to peak for the competition.

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Ian Elliott McCormick Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 5:00
NO WAY!

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Eric Stone Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 5:03
You need time to recover after a long cycle and big competition. You certainly don't want to take time off, so you work at lower poundages and actively recover. You simply cannot work at higher poundage ALL the time. You just peaked your strength and competed, that is NOT the time to be pushing yourself more and more. That will lead to overtraining, injuries and ultimately let down that will effect your training. I often hear about people saying that progressive overload doesn't work because they always overtrain and get injured. I would say that is because they do not have the discipline to drop down to lower poundages at the beginning of a cycle. They just want to keep pushing and pushing, thus injury results.

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Ian Elliott McCormick Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 5:09
The purpose of my post was to suggest that in order to peak for a competition, it might be appropriate to include training intensities that are too low to create a fatigue immediately prior to competing, thusly allowing your level of preparation to climb following the intensive training you have used to prepare. Fitness/Fatigue. Of course proper planning is required to peak for a competition. That was entirely my point. I think intensities as low as 60% might be inappropriately placed in the beginning of a competitive cycle. Why would one need so low intensities FOLLOWING their peak condition? At peak condition, one should be at the highest level of fitness, and the lowest level of fatigue. Otheriwse, the timing of your peak is off, like you said. Eric, what do the weeks prior to a meet typically look like for you? Ian Elliott McCormick

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Chad Touchberry Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 5:14
You just made one of my main points. Good point:"I think intensities as low as 60% might be inappropriately placed in the beginning of a competitive cycle. Why would one need so low intensities FOLLOWING their peak condition? At peak condition, one should be at the highest level of fitness, and the lowest level of fatigue. Otheriwse, the timing of your peak is off, like you said. " Chad

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Ian Elliott McCormick Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 5:23
I think Chad mentioned this earlier, but if so, it bears repeating nevertheless. An intensity of 60% following the completion of a competition and at the outset of a new cycle might not really be as low as it seems. If this percent is based off of the recent geared-up, psychologically-involved contest maximum, it may be more like 75-80% of a "training" maximum. In this case, I don't think 60% is too low. This sort of thing really exacerbates the imcompleteness of selecting weights based on percents. Percent of WHAT!?!? IEM

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Eric Stone Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 9:16
Very good point Ian....what you can get in a meet fresh, fully geared, psyched up is usually higher than what you could do in training....which is once again why I don't like doing specific percents off my max.

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Eric Stone Guest This is Thursday, September 25, 2003 9:21
The weeks prior to a meet are heavy in weight but very low in volume, i.e 2x2 on the main lift and nothing else. You need to drop down after your peak because it is your PEAK. I think we all know what happens after peak.....a valley. So right after your peak, which should be at the meet, you obviously are not going to be the s
e, you need to drop down and cycle back up. One thing I don't think you guys realize is how tough it is to do a meet.....three heavy attempts on each of the three lifts (in powerlifting) on the s
e day, and in a relatively short
ount of time if the meet runs well. Physically and mentally you are drained after a meet, you need to let your body recover from the heavy weights of the end of your cycle and the meet.

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Jeff Finlayson Guest percent of what? Thursday, September 25, 2003 9:30
Good points. Meet maxes can be higher than gym maxes due to extra rest and pysching as you mentioned. It works much better to base training weights on gym lifts. These could be previous gym maxes or cycle target weights. - CJF.

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kelly Guest This is Friday, September 26, 2003 10:47
the way that I do my training, is that when I do drop back down to about 60% after hitting a PR, my overall volume doesn't drop all that much, I do more and heavier assistance to fix what the weak point was that caused the last cycle to peter out. The increased assistance seems to make up for the reduced volume on the big 3 which are done lighter to focus on technique and speed.

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Eric Stone Guest This is Friday, September 26, 2003 12:24
Very interestnig Kelly. I think alot of us hit the assistance stuff harder at the beginning of a cycle. For me, espeically the core and upper back and those can get neglected at the end of a training cycle with very little assistance.

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glenn pendlay Guest a note on training intensity Thursday, September 25, 2003 4:44
some of the discussion on training intensity that has been going on here is i think missing some of the common sense "in the trenches" type of perspective... for instance, there has been some talk on max singles or at least heavy singles in OL. there are different perspectives on this, to say the least... but not much talk about why different levels of training intensity are neccessary for different athletes. since chad is well known on here, ill use him as an ex
ple. chad is real strong, but not the best technician in the world on the snatch. as i remember, he did a 122.5kg lift when he was tranining with us. now, please understand that chad had the basic strength to do at least 20k more had he taken the time to become a better weightlifter... he had the strength, just not the other skills that are neccessary. but, for a strong guy like chad, a 100kg snatch was a toy. not much training effect. hell, 110 often done like a toy when his technique was "on". chad wouldnt have gotten very far doing a lot of training with 70-80% weights... it took 90%+ to even challenge him, simply because even 90% wasnt really heavy for him, since his strength outstripped his lifting ability. had chad stuck with lifting, he would have been doing a very large percentage of his lifts with 90-95%... simply becasue anything less would have no training effect, and going to 100% all the time would lead to form breakdown, since as ive said that was his reason for not lifting more in the first place. so you have a majority of a lifters lifts being in one narrow range, for a very individual reason. i have another lifter who snatches 135kg, he has good form, and can consistently do 130,132.5, and 135 with good form, even the form on 137.5 is good, he just doesnt have enough pull to get the bar high enough. this lifter has good recovery ability and can go to max continually through the week and recover. for this lifter, in each training session, we are pushing the max, trying to get as high as possible, since i t hink the heaviest weights are the best training stimulus, and he can do them with good form and recover just fine. this lifter has gone from a 120 snatch to a 135 snatch in a a couple of months after coming to wichita falls, after being stuck at 120 for almost a year training elsewhere, so i think this approach is working. i have anohter lifter who also snatches about the s
e, best of 135, who doesnt recover so well, and has some shoulder problems. he needs to get stronger to snatch more, but he cant recover from constant heavy snatching. so we do more pulls, reps with lower weights, and other things to work around this, snatching heavy when possible, and getting a training effect from other means and lower intensities when we cant go heavy. all three of these appraoches can and have yielded results... all three look very different, but indeed all 3 DO adhere to my basic philosophy which is go as heavy and as often as possible... its only what is possible that what changes. if you looked at the progr
for any one of these 3 guys, you might think that, again, there was some grand design at work, a training philosophy completely different in each case... but in fact its just one philosophy bent in different ways to work with 3 very different athletes. the real problem in coaching, as i see it, isnt in writing the perfect progr
, or following any golden guidlines for reps or intensities, its working with individuals and coming up with something that works for them. i remember seeing women basketball players once doing 15 reps with really light weights on the hang power clean... being a bit nosey, i had a look at one of their progr
sheets, which in fact didnt say one set of 15, it just said 3 sets of 5 at 80%. now this particular female had a max of 50k on the hang power clean, but 40 was so easy she didnt see why she had to put the bar down between sets, and just did all 3 at once, very easily i might add. on another date i saw her "maxing" and saw her do 50k like a warmup, put on 60k, do a little pull up with her arms with no real effort, quit, put the bar on the floor, and write down 50 on the square where she was supposed to put her max for the day. this is self explanatory. anyone knows that when you arent good at the O lifts, if yo jump to big, youll just arm pull and not get the lifts, going from 50 to 60 for a girl is like going from 100 to 120 for a guy... even if you have a max of 125 or 130, you might not make a jump that big, especially if you are not motivated strongly to do it. so there you have it, because her "strength coach" was an idiot, didnt properly supervise either her max out sessions or her regular workouts, she was allowed to continue at a max of 50 for a year, doing workouts that gave little or no training effect, and in reality wasting her time in the weight room totally. im sure her coach had a very good progr
drawn up, correct in all its percentages and rep ranges, and the last t crossed and the last i dotted. but the devil is in the details, not the written progr
.

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chad touchberry Guest a note on training intensity Thursday, September 25, 2003 11:30
Glenn, I agree, but by on the other hand, you very rarely go below 80%. As you said. Go heavy as often as possible. I agree, I tend to look at it from a percentage point of view. 75% is my cut-off, I don't see much value in going lower than that in training, especially in situations where the trainer is advanced. The exception to this of course would be during a taper. My main argument is in the fact that I think PL's could learn a lot from PL's in terms of training. In addition I strongly disagree with starting over every training block at 60& and working back up to a max over 12 weeks. I think that method of training is archaic, and not best in most situations. Chad

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glenn pendlay Guest a note on training intensity Thursday, September 25, 2003 2:37
well, of course, you dont want to start with 60%... hard to have an honest discussion about that with most PLers, though, as they start most cycles (at least those that train in this fashion) without gear or with less or looser gear than they wear in a meet, so they arent REALLY training as light as they say. take a 500lb squatter in PL, ive known several who couldnt squat 350 raw, say they start their progr
with sets of 250-275lbs raw for 5 reps, which in reality could be as much as 80% or more for sets of 5, if they are doing 4 or 5 sets, thats a pretty good workout... but most dont want to admit that their real squat is somewhere shy of 350lbs, so they say they are trainig with 50%... BUT, taking out the powerlifting assistance/equi
ent part of the equation, of course one isnt going to make the best progress training under 80%... your going to have some light weeks but when your pushing it, your going to want to do so with challenging weights.

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Chad Touchberry Guest a note on training intensity Thursday, September 25, 2003 3:29
I find this too. When I was powerlifting, I started my cycles out in a full squat and based my max, off of my previous raw pl squat. This was not hard to do as I never lifted with gear, but I think this is a better methodology of training that most PL's will admit. By the way Glenn, tread carefully when brining up gear..."it doesn't add to your lifts, its just for safety." At least thats what they tell us on here... .

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Allen Bradley Guest a note on training intensity Thursday, September 25, 2003 3:39
Chad, I think Doc is against them too. This is his forum you know!!!

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Chad Touchberry Guest a note on training intensity Thursday, September 25, 2003 4:10
Whats your point? And what is Doc against? Chad

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Joe Skopec Gold Member and Forum Moderator View Profile a note on training intensity Thursday, September 25, 2003 6:35
Chad. Most of the powerlifters here are very up-front about the pounds gear adds. As much as ten percent. I actually took a poll. And I'll say it again, compare the raw records to the equipped, add even an overtly generous
ount to the raw lifts to compensate for the gear and you still aren't close to the equipped lifts. I honestly believe that the gear allows you to become stronger. The evidence sure seems to suggest that.

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Phillip H Guest a note on training intensity Friday, September 26, 2003 1:09
I think Glenn makes valid points here. Chad, the message that I'm getting here is that it is not so black and white. Volume and intensity is not a "one size fits all" arrangement. Individual differences and thresholds have to be taken into consideration. I agree with Joe. The argument about equi
ent ranks up there with the whole bodybuilder vs powerlifter rant that surfaces here. It really isn't either/or.