Hey Iron,
Luckily I had the ability to have Dave Tate explain these to me rather thoroughly. I’ll give you a brief run down and feel free to ask me any questions after that.
A) Weight Lifting
Westside Barbell splits their lifting days into four days. Two days are for max effort work (one each for upper and lower body) and two days for speed work (one each for upper and lower body). The cycle they recommend, but you can switch to fit your needs is:
Monday: Max Effort Legs
Wednesday: Max Effort Bench
Friday: Dynamic (speed) Legs
Sunday: Dynamic Bench
What a Max effort Day consists of is:
*Main Exercise: this exercise is the exercise with the most carry over to maximal strength in the squat, dl, or bench. The rep range for any Max Effort (ME) exercise is between 1 & 5. You should do 2-3 light warm-up sets followed by 5 or so work sets building up to your 1-5RM. Only rest 1-2 minutes between sets. They generally split lower body like this:
70% of ME Legs days are done with a goodmorning variation (regular goodmorning, wide/narrow stance goodmorning, arched-back goodmorning, goodmorning squat… etc)
20% of ME Legs days are Box Squats
10% of ME Legs days are deadlifts variations like regular DL, sumo, snatch pulls, clean pulls, etc
For upperbody there is numerous exercises they do: board press, floor press, close-grip incline press, pin press, incline pin press, and they’ll even do dips occasionally.
*Supplemental Exercise: This exercise is meant to cause strength/hypertrophy gains in the muscles that are used in the “main exercise” Generally hamstrings for leg days and triceps & back in bench days. The rep range is anywhere between 8-15 and the rest is only 1 minute between sets for every exercise done after the main max-effort exercise.
Lowerbody common supplemental exercises:
4x15 Romanian DL
8x8-12 Pull-throughs
8x8-12 glue-ham raises
6x8-12 DB snatches
6x8-12 reverse hypers
Upperbody supplemetal exercises for triceps:
6x2-5 pin press (since it is similar to ME exercise only do on dynamic day)
60 reps total skull crushers (no more than 10 reps/set)
60 reps total DB extensions (regular and elbows out)
60 reps total dips (same as above)
Upperbody Supplemental exercises for back:
6xfail pull-ups
6x8-12 seated cable rows (use grip most similar bench)
6x8-12 Barbell Rows
*Accessory Exercises: These are exercises that reinforce the previous exercises done or exercises that work other muscle groups that can be inportant for the lift. Work in the 8-12 rep range and only rest 1 min between sets:
Typical Lowerbody acessory exercises:
5-8x8-12 Pull-down Abs (very good exercise for abs. should do at least one or two abs exercises every leg day)
4xfail Foot-to-bar hanging leg raises
4xfail Dragonflags
4xfail ab wheel
4x8-12 flat bench (romain chair) hyperextensions or reverse hypers
Typical Upperbody accessory exercises:
3x8-12 face pulls (rear delts. they usally do this every work)
3-4x8-12 exernal rotations (every workout or every other)
3-4x8-12 shoulder press or upright row (every or every other)
::catches breath::
Now onto the Dynamic Upper and Lowerbody Workouts. These workouts are structures the EXACT same way the Max Effort days were except instead of doing a lifting for a 1-5RM in your main exercise you:
Lowerbody-
Box Squat 8-12 x 2 * done explosively as possible; rest max of 30 seconds between sets and only use 45-60% your 1RM (a minimum of 135 lbs)
Upperbody-
Bench Press 8-12 x 3 * done explosively as possible; rest max of 30 seconds and only use 45-60% 1RM (minimum of 135 lbs) Also alternate grip every set. Alternate between close-grip bench, moderate grip (slightly further out than close grip), and wide grip (pinkies on power rings)
Bench Press
After this you go onto your supplemental and accessory work. It is quite common to do two hamstring supplemental exercises after a dynamic lowerbody day.
B) GPP work
Westside guys like to do sled dragging on off days for recovery and GPP building. They like the sled because there is no eccentric action, so basically the muscle is just pumped with blood for recovery. Light calesthenic work is also done. Just don’t do anything that you couldn’t easily rip off sets of 25 with.
That’s about it. Let me know if you have any questions.
