Topic: 13 Week Training Program

[leighton richards]

Hi Chris just looking at the program you posted up.
I have a couple of questions.
I noticed that the frequency and volume of the squatting is quite low compared to some programs I have seen.
But you used a lot of pulls and a fair amount of assistance exercises such as rack jerks and push press etc.
Is this because the athlete you were training was relatively weak at pulling and jerking compared to his squats, or do you prefers pulls for general strength building?
Also the frequency and volume of the classical lifts is not all that high.
Was the athletes technique already quite good so you wanted to concentrate more on general strength building?

Thanks, just trying to get a feel for the thinking behind the programming.
Leighton.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Leighton,

This was some time ago so I will have to review the program to try and answer some of your questions in detail. But, I will try first off the top of my head. At the time the excerpt begins, the lifter had neglected his squats considerably for some time (since I last wrote his programs) and was therefore not in shape to handle much more volume in the squats. I would guess that the volume increased over the 13 weeks but would have to look at it again to confirm. I am a big believer in pulls still, but these days I would probably use them less and do more lifts instead with this level lifter. As for push presses, I would use them far less with this level lifter these days and instead spend most of that time doing jerks from the rack both in front and behind the neck. Again, the reason, as I recall off the top of my head, that the volume of the lifts were not very high was because the most urgent need at the time was to regain the squat conditioning the athlete had lost while writing his own program. Finally, I would say that yes, the athlete's technique was already solid. I would never have allowed him to get as strong as he did before learning proper technique.   

[Shaun Le Conte]

I am curious about your counting of the strength and technical reps. At what intensity do you start counting? And do you also distinguish between reps done with different intensities in your statistics?

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Shaun, it should start the count at 80% though it is possible it started at 75% as I did start there at one time. As for breaking down the reps further by percentages, yes, I did do that during the construction of the programs but that data is not recorded but was more something I checked as I was writing. It was my intention at the time to develop a database that would automatically calculate all kinds of stats I could look at within programs I wrote but creating such a database proved beyond my technical abilities or budget at the time so I still do the math myself.