This weeks idiot is brought to you by the forums at www.bodybuilding.com
Let's say somebody created a very solid and very innovative approach to training, when compared to what everyone else at the time was doing.
Let's also say that the guy that invented this approach to training drew upon resources which, again at the time, were sparse and largely unheard of in the Western world.
Further let us say that this individual has himself performed quite well in his chosen sport, not to mention having such a passion for it that he devotes a large portion of his life to it, and is even available, for free mind you, to discuss the topic at length with anybody.
Let's take this hypothetical person and put him in a funny situation. I say hypothetical because everybody knows that somebody with that much experience and knowledge would surely charge for every ounce of information and hoard his secrets like a dragons treasure. Everybody knows that's what all Fitness Expert Professionals do.
At any rate, let's take this hypothetical person and pit him against, oh I don't know, some average wannabe guru on the Internet. Maybe a guy that's read a few books, books from the same author that our hypothetical person based his training system on.
This obviously qualifies him to bash our hypothetical person, and talk down to him about how to train people, right? Of course it does!
What could a coach with several decades of experience dealing with high-level athletes possibly know about how to train people compared to an Internet expert armed with a textbook? Nothing, that's what.
For those wondering just what the hell I'm talking about, our hypothetical person in question is Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell. This particular bitch-fest is about a particular group of Internet experts armed with textbooks and a burning desire to show the world how much more they know than those stupid coaches actually getting results. Silly fucks, those coaches.
The core theme of this week's idiot jamboree was the particular choice of Louie's naming the system "the conjugate method", because according to our Internet experts, it's actually a "concurrent model".
Ok, since I'm actually going to stoop to the level of this idiocy for a moment, I might as well address the core concern here. The training process has a few defining characteristics, as noted by its creator Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky (paraphrased):
- Make sure that your overall plan will work with the body's process of adaptation to intense muscular activity.
- Think of your training as a whole, not individual units. It should be consistent, continuous, and the pieces should “fit like a puzzle”.
- Your training, as a whole, needs to be oriented towards a specific goal.
- Overlapping different types of training, with different periods of emphasis ordered according to the strength of the training effect.
- Special preparation is a priority, in order to ensure that skill is maximized
Further, in other works, Dr. Verkhoshansky goes on to state that the conjugate-sequence system in itself is relevant to point four above, where the CSS is actually a means of organizing "workloads of different emphasis". In other words, you're using completely different types of work. Note that the CSS was actually designed with competing athletes in mind; athletes that would be training for a specific event. For these athletes, which have concerns such as skill/technique, power development, metabolic training, and to whom strength training is simply one of these factors (a general one at that), having a solid means of effective, sequential use of training is an important one. Even more so once you reach the highest levels of sport, when the training is going to have very strong effects and you must have some system in place to control how this stress is applied and what lasting effects it will have on the body. Ultimately it is concerned with the interplay between the varied training approaches.
All well and good. But what happens when you've got somebody like an Olympic weightlifter or a powerlifter, where the barbell lifts themselves will comprise not only the general preparation, but the specific preparation component and skill component as well? The CSS exists to control when and where the different means of preparation are used. When you're only using a barbell, or at the very most "progressive resistance training" in the broadest sense, you've got a pretty narrow window of training means there.
It's not like a sprinter that might have to cram acceleration starts, speed endurance, tempo runs, plyometric/shock training, and strength training into a single week.
The block structure of the CSS could be applied in a very broad sense. Having a phase of general preparation, followed by a phase of concentrated strength loading, then a tapering period to perfect technique going into a meet would be an application.
But consider what you end up with if you do that. Especially consider it in relation to the Coan-style linear periodization a lot of powerlifters still use to great result. You start out with higher reps and assistance work. As you move through the phase, assistance work is gradually dropped out while the reps lower and weight increases. Over the course of the cycle, the trend is less volume and higher intensity. Dunno about you, but in the most general sense, it sounds like you're following a linear model. At the micro-level you'd have some differences, sure. You could take liberties with exercise selection and tinker with how you're performing the workouts (ie, repeated effort, dynamic effort, maximal effort, and so on). But in the grand scheme, you're still effectively doing the same thing. You wind up with something that resembles either the WSB system or the Coan-linear system. This is because the CSS isn't about strength training in isolation. It's about training multiple things simultaneously, with emphasis being given to different components as the cycle moves through its wave of volume and intensity.
This brings us back to Louie's "Westside Model", since calling it a conjugate model pisses off a lot of guys with tons of posts on web forums. The idea with Louie's system is to use a day devoted to heavy work (which would normally be reserved for closer to the competition) and a day devoted to speed work or higher volumes of training. Both days use assistance exercises to develop muscle mass and general strength in the involved muscle groups.
So what Louie's done here is combine the "peaking" elements (the heavy day), along with "technique" elements (the speed/high volume day) and general preparation work (the assistance lifts, sled dragging, etc) into one weekly cycle, instead of distributing it out into sequenced phases.
This is where the nerds get their panties in a bunch. It is true that, in the strictest sense, this is not a "conjugate sequence" implementation.
Firstly, reference my points above how the CSS in the strictest sense really can't apply to a pure barbell sport in the first place. There simply isn't the required variation on motor targets.
Secondly, what Louie has done is incorporate what elements of it can be implemented. If you've bothered paying attention to how the WSB system works, they bring in occasional phases to peak for meets, which focus on the speed training day. By using various combinations of band tension and bar weight, emphasis is placed on development of force. The heavy day is placed at a kind of maintenance, with the focus then being on the development of force. A tapering period is then used to further refine technique and allow the benefit of the previous work to take effect. Sounds like a pretty good use of concentrated loading to me.
Point being, despite the "concurrent" setup, the WSB system can and is still used as a coherent long-term system by competing powerlifters.
As I touched on above, sure you could nitpick it to hell and sub in different types of training at the different phases. The general prep block could be more "bodybuilding" [sic] type training, with a lot of variety in exercises. The concentration block could do as mentioned above, or use something like the Korte 3x3, or even something like one of the Sheiko development blocks. Then you'd drop volume and refine technique as the body was recovering from the volume, again like the 3x3, Sheiko system, or ding ding ding, what WSB does with the circa-maximal phases.
Funny how this stuff comes together when you get your head out of your ass and stop being a dipshit, isn't it?
I went to the trouble of going through all that simply to satisfy the ego of the Internet geeks that think they know it all with their cool 225 lb squats.
The real issue with their argument has yet to be displayed. For a moment let us consider that the above bit on naming and implementation wasn't true. Let's assume that Louie just messed up and named it wrong.
Does this now serve as grounds for blasting him and the entire system? I had one douche tell me it did, because "nobody knows what the WSB system is, since Louie's changed it so much!!!111" (loosely paraphrased). He's changed it?
Well just why in the hell would any effective coach modify a system or leave it open for changes when he finds that some things work better than others? Why would you modify it when you've had a pool of thousands of pretty freakin' strong guys try it out and add their own tweaks to it?
God forbid somebody make something better with experience. The name on the program is what's important, amirite?????
This is neverminding the fact that the entire point of the thread was a wannabe-guru telling everyone that he could improve WSB so much with his awesome 1337 Russian methods, because Louie's program was super-flawed. His logic was that, while Louie dare not change things or he's the worst man in history, this amazing Internet guru can change things at whim and it's ok. Cause he's got the Russian secrets.
Once I was done stabbing myself in the face with a rabid badger after reading that, I tried to explain that results are what mattered and that there was no point in him being a cock when Louie had a working system, and that what he called it was irrelevant.
This wannabe Internet guru, who I won't name except to say that his name starts with "J" and ends with "ohn Prophet", was apparently unable to grasp this simple concept of "results are what matters" and went on to explain again how 1337 his Russian secrets are since I was unable to understand his brilliance.
Then he hid behind a classic style over substance fallacy, claiming he wouldn't answer my questions because I was mean to him, and went on to ignore every valid question raised in order to bitch about being insulted or puff up how awesome he is. Note: That's a hell of a convenient cover when somebody tries to pin you down and you can't answer the question, btw. More detail on this can be found in my new The Maximum Guru Hater Pros Manual . Priced to move! Dunno about you guys, but by this point I was awed for sure.
That's what makes him AMP Training's Dumbass of the Week.
P.S. - For you guys interested in how an actual conjugate-sequence model would play out in real life for a sport, check out The Charlie Francis Training System by Charlie Francis. That actually has real-world implementation from the approach Charlie's been using for several decades, not just blustering from an Internet hero.
|
