In case anyone is interested, I’m stopping my Westside Barbell Training regimen. Although, my strength and explosiveness have dramatically increased following their methods, my muscles are just too tight in the evening due to the hard morning workouts. I’ve injured my lower back and rotator cuff due to this while grappling. I’m going back to my trusty two-week splits of bodyweight/odd object stuff and PTP. I’m going to give my kettlebells another try during this period to see if I can change my opinion on them. I have no qualms with the Westside methods. If you want to get stronger, then it will definately work, but the work was just too much for me to function athletically as well as in the weight room.
There is a powerlifting gym named “Westside Barbell”. They follow a conjugated periodization plan that a lot of Russian olympic lifters use. Using this plan, they have a few 1,000 lbs squatters, a myriad of 900 lbs squatters, 700 lbs benchers, etc. In other words, they make guys really strong.
I gots some footage of Shaolin doing resistance training with those old granite dumbbell looking things. One was doing an exaggerated lat row balancing himself on plum posts. Another was doing a one armed clean and press on the posts. Just thought you’d want to know.
I agree. Working with your own body will build you a strong foundation to work with. However, there is only so much you can do before you need some additional resistance to work with.
Let us know how the kettlebell workout goes. Looks interesting and I’m looking for some compound exercises to go with my deadlift/one arm press workout. (And it doesn’t hurt that I can make my own kettlebells)!
Ford how do you plan to achieve anything with your bodyweight workouts? I’m just curious…it’s kinda like benchpressing 250 for reps and then all of a sudden just doing the bar each workout. You aren’t going to have any progression and will just get weaker and smaller.
Unless that is your intention..to just let your strength and hard work go to waste…
Nope. I’m cycling two-weeks of bodyweight/odd object stuff with two weeks of Power to the People cycles for the bench and dl. If you’re not familiar with PTP, it’s basically just step or wave loading protocol where you start light and work to a new PR. Then, on the next cycle, you dip back down to 10 lbs from where you started and work to a new PR.
Even during the bodyweight stuff, I still do difficult movements like hand-stand push-ups, feet elevated one-arm push-ups, explosive one-leg squats, one-arm pull-ups etc. Obviously, even these drills will plateau their benefit without increased resistance, but strength-endurance is more my goal during these cycles anyway.
Ford, I remember you saying you didn’t like kettlebells. Why? I have never used them. If you decide you don’t like them, do you wanna hook me up? How heavy are yours? Do you have the RKC book or video?
It’s not that I don’t like kettlebells. I just didn’t find them as effective as a lot of the guys over at Dragondoor think they are. I think they definately have their place in a strength-endurance workout, but I think you’d miss a lot of things if you based your entire program on them. To each his own though… They would definately build a good chuck of muscle along the posterior chain. I just found them best when used in conjunction with BWE’s and wind sprints.
I have the 1 pood and 1.5 pood bells and the video. I got them way back when there wasn’t even a book available.
How heavy are yours? Do you have the RKC book or video?