Intro
This example program is based on the last five months of my own training. It only covers the lower body sessions of this training cycle, and is heavily front squat focused (you’ll notice every session begins with front squat). This is because my primary aim was to improve front squat over a dedicated five-month cycle by doing mostly front squats. Call me crazy, but it’s my experience that doing a thing is the best way to get better at it. Secondly, I wanted to test the effects of doing only front squat while completely abstaining from back squats. At the end of this macro-cycle, I will test both front and back squat 1-rep max and measure the effect. You’ll notice I also only did RDL. No conventional deadlifts. This is because it’s well recognized deadlifts can improve back squats, and the intention was to measure the effects of front squats on back squats. So I removed this conflating variable.
But for your purposes, you could also throw in conventional deadlifts with/instead of RDL; you’d just have to keep effort and volume more conservative as conventional is more systemically taxing and harder to recover from than RDL. You could also substitute back squats for front squats if back squats are your focus, or the rest of your programming can’t accommodate the upper back fatigue from front squats. Nothing is a fixed or hard rule here. This is just an example that reflects exactly the program I ran. it isn’t meant to me copied exactly without personal adjustments. But it will hopefully give you some insight into what worked and why. It’s common enough for coaches to tell you what they think you SHOULD do to get where they are. But rarely do we see coaches tell you EXACTLY WHAT THEY DID to get where they are, what they might change if they had to do it again, and why.
It’s also worth noting that I am a lifetime natural athlete. I do not use PED’s of any kind whatsoever. For dietary supplements I use whey protein isolate/concentrate, creatine, MSM, Magnesium, Zinc, Alpha GPC, electrolytes, and that’s it. It’s true that programming and recovery will be very different for natural vs. enhanced athletes. And this is one of the main reasons I have never used PED’s. I want to be able to lead from the front for natural practitioners. I can’t do that if I remove the most valuable source insight in development: my own training. So if you’re wondering whether the progress you’ve seen me make over the last five months is possible for natural athletes, there’s your answer.
It should also be noted that before every front squat session I did the warmup I shared on my Instagram page, then worked up to the working weight gradually. You can find the link to that warmup video here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Chcx1khPRpw/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
In this program, sets are always listed first, reps second. 3x10 means 3 sets of 10 reps.
Phase 1: Hypertrophy/Strength
(Split = Push/Pull/Legs — 2 days on, 1 day off)
Session 1:
Front Squat 4x8, 6min rest, RPE6-7
RDL 3 x10, 6min rest, RPE 8
*Optional* Hams curls 2x10
Session 2:
Front Squat 3x10, 8min rest, RPE7
ROM Split Squat 2x10 each leg, 3min rest between legs and sets, RPE 8
*Optional* B-stance RDL 2x8 each leg, 3min rest between legs and sets, RPE 7
Session 3:
Front Squat 3x15, 6min rest, RPE6-7
RDL, ROM Split Squat, or both. If only one of these, same as above. If both, 2 sets each.
*Optional* Superset: seated hip abduction/adduction 3x10 each, intuitive rest
Repeat this three-session rotation 5-6 times. 15-18 sessions total. This should take roughly 10-12 weeks [adhering to 2 days on, one day off]. Whenever you feel the itch, you can throw in a session of 5 x 5, 5min rest 1-3 times duding this phase. The optional exercises are done only if I feel like it, have the time, and feel I’ll be able to recover appropriately from this added volume of work.
Progressive Overload
During phase 1 progressive overload is load-based, and intuited from session to session. This means you will add load in order to increase training stimulus, rather than volume or frequency. But only add load when you feel technical accuracy is high and RPE is under the mark. You might you might add 5kg, for example, but not much more than this. As you progress to session 13-18, RPE can climb slightly to 9.
Plyo faux pas
This phase was extremely effective. I wouldn’t change a thing about the structure of the main work. I even felt at the end of these three months I could have kept progressing, but I was starting to feel an itch to explore the lower rep ranges. Psychological fatigue is real, and we need to factor in our enthusiasm and curiosity as relevant programming variables. So when I reached week 18, I got to itch to shift gears, and followed it.
I started this phase doing some kind of jumping or plyometrics before almost every training session, and sometimes on other days too. So I was doing 3-4 jumping/plyo sessions per week. After 5-6 weeks this became too much to manage in terms of fatigue. So I dropped them and only did them on rare occasion when I felt like it from then on. But if I had to do it over, I would have only done jumping and plyo sessions 1-2x per week, and stayed consistent with this throughout the cycle. I just got too excited/curious/ambition with them: rookie mistake.
RPE and why you should learn it
RPE (Rating of Perceived Exertion) is a subjective effort rating system ranging from 0-10, 0 being no effort at all and 10 being just before the limit of absolute mechanical failure (cannot complete the movement). 11 would be failure.
It takes time to get acquainted with the rating system, as the rating can only be given relative to perception of other efforts and anticipated failure. So it requires experience of failure and what it feels like to rate effort accurately. The same goes for other effort moderation and rating systems like RIR (reps in reserve). You can’t accurately judge how many reps you have left unless you have reached absolute failure before. But it’s worth the time and energy investment to learn these rating systems. Here’s why I think so.
Statistically speaking, most people will undershoot effort metrics like RPE and RIR significantly. This is especially true for untrained or beginner practitioners. For example, they might give a rating of 0-1RIR when actually they could complete 3-5 more reps. They say it felt like RPE9 when really it was an RPE 6. This is because they have no orientation to the top end of the scale. They’ve never or rarely really pushed to true failure. Conversely, there is a percentage of the population (and I suspect this applies more to the individuals reading this post) who fall into the opposite bias. They overshoot these metrics. These individuals tend to either be competitive athletes or ex-athletes, or have overcome some significant form of stress, pain, or other adversity in the past. They might give a rating of 2RIR or RPE 7 when actually it was 0RIR and RPE9. This means they will face the opposite challenge. Rather than not enough stimulus, they tend to exceed recoverable training stimulus.
This is why it’s smart to get acquainted with effort rating systems like RPE and RIR. Not only do they help with effort moderation for smart programming, but they help develop internal self awareness or interoception over time. This is a skillset that has application far beyond resistance training. It means we will be better acquainted with our internal state and work capacity in all cases of effort output. Developing more objective awareness in this regard also means we’ll be better acquainted with our personal idiosyncrasies, behavioral patterns, and weak and strong points in our psychology. Do I tend to overwork and overshoot effort metrics? Why? What beliefs are contributing to this pattern? Do I undershoot? Why?
Phase 2: Strength/Power
(Split = Upper/Lower — 1 day on, 1 day off)
Session 1:
Front Squat 2-5 x 2-3, 5-8min rest, RPE 8-9
ROM Split Squat, 2x10-12 each leg, 3min rest between legs and sets, RPE 7
*Optional* Superset: Hip Abduction/Adduction 2x10
Session 2:
Front Squat 12 x 2, 2min rest, RPE 5-8
60%, 65%, 70%, 75%, 80%, 85% (60% = 1st 9-day rotation, 65% is 2nd rotation, and so on)
RDL or B-stance RDL 3x6-8
*Optional* 2 lower body mobility exercises (low volume, low-moderate intensity)
Repeat these two sessions for 4-6 rotations. On a 9-day rotation (1 day on, 1 day off) this means this phase will span 5-8 weeks. Once again, I typically use intuition to determine how long a phase should last. This is based on factors like motivation/excitement to train, recovery and perforce.
Progressive overload
During this phase progressive overload is once again load based. But fit isn’t the same for both sessions.
For session 1, we use RPE again as a gauge for when to add load. The purpose of these sessions is to approach the higher end of the intensity scale and get better at fighting heavy loads with technical integrity.
Progressive overload for session 2 is based on set percentage increases. In the latter case it’s important to adhere to these percentages and not overshoot. It will feel very easy in the fest few sessions. That’s good. Use this opportunity to aim for maximal bar velocity on the concentric phase of every rep. Move as explosively as possible, with high technical accuracy. Once we reach 75-85%, feel free to stay with a given load for two rotations if technical accuracy or velocity starts to suffer too much. It’s okay if you progress like this, for example: 70%, 75%, 75%, 80%. The purpose of these sessions is to maintain excellent technique and high bar velocity.
Westside, kinda
This phase is roughly based on the Westside Barbell conjugate method, but I’ve made significant alternations.
Traditionally this is done on a 7-day rotation, with 2 upper and 2 lower sessions per week. But my structure is on a 9-day rotation.
Also their ‘dynamic effort day’ (session 2) is 12x2 on :45-1:00 rest. But I use 2:00 rests. I don’t have any scientific or ‘evidence-based’ explanation for this. I’ve just tried both extensively, and found 2min rests produce better results. Here is my [unscientific] reasoning.
First, >1min rests are extremely psychologically fatiguing; it’s not a very long mental reset between sets. I find 2min is a lot better in this way.
Second, on >1min rests the fatigue will accumulate and perforce will drop from set to set a lot faster. On 2min rests, the technical accuracy, velocity, and effort can be more consistent and higher quality, while still maintaining the training intention and stimulus of the short rests.
Third, the 2min rests allow for slightly more load. Not a lot more—or the fatigue will rapidly accumulate and technical accuracy and velocity will fall too quickly from set to set, and we run into the same problem as the 1min rest. You’ll notice the percentages are still conservative, and the RPE on the first set starts low.
What I would change.
I actually started out only doing paused front squats on Session 1. But I found this was too demanding in terms of recovery. And I also wasn’t enjoying them. So I switched to no pause, and within two sessions my progress was back on the fast track. Secondly, I started on a 7-day rotation. This was find for the first 3 weeks or so, but started to catch up with me. I couldn’t recover fast enough and my sessions started to feel sluggish and progress was slower. So I switched to 1 day on, 1 day off. I felt much more recovered, and I had extra time to do cardio and fun activities on the off days. If I did this phase again, those are the two variables I would change.
- D