Monday, January 02, 2012

Max effort/Special exercise press day.



One of the cornerstones of the WSB system is using special "same but different" exercises of a classical lift- say a military press- and going to a maximum lift for 1-3 reps each week. There is no faster way to gain strength than by lifting a maximum weight.

The only problem with this approach is that after 2-4 weeks you, and EVERYONE, will lose strength and go backwards.Louie figured out that if one changed the exercises every 1-3 weeks( depending on how advanced you are). The key is that lift is very close but not exactly the same as the classic lift.

For the KB military press bottoms up presses,military barbell press, dumbell press, waiters( palm ) press, handstand press, etc., etc, can all be used.

The other key is to find the special exercises that actually transfer to making the classic lift better. If you improve your bottoms up press and it doesn't convert into your kb military press than it's not a good special exercise for you.

I haven't been able to even think about doing this type of conversion with the kettlebell as it's been so recent that I've even been able to train instead of just surviving the day and doing rehab.I still can't believe it's true.

But I've hit an impasses just using the kb press to improve the kb press so I thought I would give this a go.
I figure I will do two week on a specific special exercise before switching.

The goal is to do, according to Prilipen's table, between 3 and 6 lifts at 90 % of max and above.Since with kbs there are pretty big jumps this means 3-6 lifts with the same weight will have to suffice.It's tough enough

Warmup
one arm swings
16 kg x 5/5/5/5x 3
cleans 
16 kg x5/5 x2


Bottoms up clean and press
16 kg x 5/5
           x3/3
 20 kg x 2/2
24 kg x 1/1  easy!
          x miss right, make left ?
          x miss right, make left
          x 1/1 finally!
20 kg x 3/3
here is one of the misses


this is a very different groove and my right is different from my left. Once I figured it out it calmed down but I'm not use to missing.
All I can say is that my kbs now have a lot of handprints in chalk on them;))

probably didn't help that I did heavy bottoms up clean on saturday but oh well.

Two hand cb arm casts
20 lbs x 10/10
25 x 8/8
35 x 5/5
     x 6/6 
     x7/7
getting stronger here!

Superset with
Bodyblade laterals
4 sets of 10/10

handstand on p barz
5 sets of 10 seconds, all free stand no wall touch. this is easier on the pbars than the floor( not to touch off the wall first)

HS pushup attempts

just two sets of 1/8-1/4 pushups. mainly worried about the shoulder subluxing as I descend .I have more than enough strength and balance to do the full pushup- just worried about the shoulder moving.especially since it's been so solid of late.



datsit. Sisu

5 comments:

guy said...

This post is the reason that I get all the fitness info that i need from yours and Mr.s riff's blogs. You two continuosly provide excellent fitness content. Thanks alot and best wishes for the new year.

Mark Reifkind said...

thanks guy and happy new year to you and yours. we just keep working on our own training journey and hope it benefits others as well. glad to hear it does:))

Boris T said...

I've only dealt into WSB years ago for a bit and didn't enjoy it, I saw better results on a percentage training cycle. But I should carry over the "same but different" aspect, I know I've personally been stuck doing things the same too long. Thanks for the inspiration Rif.

Mark Reifkind said...

boris

Westside is a unique animal, that's for sure. I was very lucky to be coached by Louie himself (on the phone) and that made a huge difference in truly understanding the system.

glad to inspire anybody! :))

Mike C said...

Hi Rif Sir- Thanks so much for posting your experiments with WSB stuff applied to KB's. It's super interesting for me to observe.

155 x 3 x 5, 160 x 3 x 5, 20 kg swings 5 x 8/8, floor pushups 40, 35

 Thought about going back to 5x5 for a hot second then my left shoulder  reminded me why I stopped doing them before. It doesn't seem to...