One of the biggest struggles people have when designing their own Conjugate / Westside based training program is – What movements should I choose for my Max Effort Days?
As you know, a Conjugate / Westside based routine typically calls for Max Effort Day twice per week. Once for the lower body and once for the upper body. On Max Effort days the lifter will work up to a 1-rep max in the exercise of their choice – usually some variation of the Bench Press on upper body days and a variation of the Squat or Deadlift on lower body days.
Because we are going more or less all out on this exercise, the lifts are rotated out each week. Trying to work up to a max on the exact same exercise week after week is generally a bad idea and typically results in pretty steep regression after about 2-3 weeks or worse, injury. So we don’t do that.
So lifters need to come up with a list of (on average) about 6-12 exercises for each lift they can rotate through each week. Some more advanced guys might actually want to expand that.
The problem is that many lifters work themselves into knots trying to decide what exercises they should choose. A little bit of Paralysis by Analysis often rears its ugly head here. Here is the good news – it doesn’t matter that much.
There is no magical combination or sequence of max effort movements that is going to unlock a hidden reservoir of gains that have been eluding your for months or years.
The purpose of the Max Effort day is to train your body’s ability (and keep it trained) to strain against maximal loads in a movement pattern that more or less resembles a Squat, Bench, or Deadlift. The problem with some programs that focus exclusively on high volumes and low intensities for long periods of time is that you can detrain your ability to work against max loads. So after many weeks of making progress at higher volumes you go to unrack that heavy single attempt and – “Oh Shit!” – it feels like a Volkswagon on your back.
The Max Effort day within a Conjugate system goes a long way in preventing those “Oh Shit!” moments by keeping you in practice with maximal loads every week, while avoiding the potential for overtraining / burnout by going too heavy too often with the same movement over and over again each week.
The Max Effort movement isn’t necessarily there to train your weak points as I often hear many people say. To me, it’s better at IDENTIFYING WEAK POINTS than training them. The volume of the Max Effort lift is very low and therefore not a great BUILDER of weak points. Supplemental lifts and assistance lifts are the better BUILDER of weak points because the overall volume is higher on those exercises and thus the potential for muscle mass is higher.
So working up to a 1-rep max on a Close Grip Bench Press may not do a great job of building your triceps, but it will identify if you have weak triceps. If this is a very weak movement for you then, in addition to using Close Grips as the occasional max effort movement, you can perform Close Grips once per week for 3 sets of 5-8 reps. Now we are building the triceps. In addition, you may want to dedicate extra attention to building the triceps with different types of extension movements for sets in the 10-20 rep range twice per week. Now we’re turning a weak point into a potential strength and this will transform your lifting.
Many lifters have a Rack Pull that isn’t much higher than their Deadlift. In this case – it may be a very good indicator that you have weak erectors relatively to your quads, glutes, and hamstrings. So don’t just max out on the Rack Pull every week. Instead – build the erectors with Rack Pulls in the 5-15 rep range and perhaps some work on the 45 Degree back extension, the reverse hyper, or even some barbell rows. This will eventually lead to a bigger 1RM in the Rack Pull and ultimately and more importantly – a bigger Deadlift.
Here are a few guidelines that can help you select good Max Effort movements for your rotation:
1: Safety First – not all movements are appropriate for 1-rep maxes. In general I don’t like movements that put you into maximally stretched positions. For example – goodmornings and stiff leg deadlifts put a deep stretch on the hamstrings. Either keep them for supplemental movements only and train them for moderate volumes or if you are going to use them for Max Effort Days – train them for 3-5 rep maximums, not singles. Same goes for movements like Cambered Bar or Bow Bar Bench presses. I like those movements but not for max singles. Reserve them for volume work or like 5-rep maxes if used for max effort days
2: Avoid very short range of motion. Some partial movements are okay. Rack Pulls / Block Pulls, Floor Presses, Pin Presses are fine, but you don’t need to be rack pulling from mid-thigh. Or doing Pin Presses 3 inches from lockout. These movements are good for the ego but typically the range of motion doesn’t do a good job of building or identifying weaknesses. The leverage is just too advantageous and it just doesn’t translate well to full range of motion raw lifting.
3: Vary the absolute load. If you Back Squat 500, Box Squat 485, and Safety Bar Squat 465 that isn’t a tremendous variance in load week to week. I find that burnout rate is much lower if we intentionally throw some lifts into the rotation that lower the absolute loading on occasion. Front Squats are excellent for this, for example. Maybe you are a 500 lb Back Squatter but only a 300 lb Front Squatter. Throw these into the mix a couple of times during your 12-week rotation to give the body a reprieve. For the upper body – throwing in some Overhead Pressing every few weeks. While still “maximal” relative to the Bench Press movements the Overhead Press variations are lower in absolute load
4: Vary the movement pattern. This is tied in very closely with the above in that varying the movement pattern will alter the absolute loads being lifted but also shifts the stress around so that the same sets of tissues are not loaded maximally every week. This goes a long way in reducing injury rates. For lower body training, the simplest way to do this is alternate between Squatting and Deadlift variations each week. For the upper body, alternate between flat, incline, and overhead angles throughout the cycle is a good idea, as well as varying the grip on the bar.
Conjugate Training is an extremely fun way to train. My lifters that follow the Conjugate Method have far less mental burnout and maintain higher enthusiasm levels than those that train with the just the basic lifts year round. This isn’t true for everyone of course and personality has a lot to do with it. I’d also say that injury rates (especially chronic overuse type injuries) are far lower with Conjugate Training.
If you are curious about starting a Conjugate routine but unsure of where to start, give my online coaching group a try. We run a year round program based on the Conjugate Method inside the Club and you can learn how to tailor the training to you with help from me and dozens of other lifters who are successfully running the programming.
