If you aren’t an Olympic Weightlifter, but you love using the Olympic lifts in your training, then I think you’ll love this training program.
I’ve written this out for about 5 or 6 private clients of mine this year and it has worked like a charm each and every time. While that isn’t a huge sample size, in general if something works really really well for 5 or 6 people it’s probably a keeper of a program.
As I was writing up a program for a new online client of mine this morning, I included this little Squat & Deadlift cycle as part of his overall program, and I thought “what the hell!” let’s throw this thing out there to my readers as food for thought and a thank you for supporting my blog!
Who is this program for?
I would recommend this program to an intermediate or advanced trainee who has some skill with the Power Snatch and Power Clean…..or at a minimum, just the Power Clean. I’m an advocate of the Olympic lifts, but only for those who can kinda naturally “get it.” If you just suck at them, then you probably don’t get much out of them. “Suck” doesn’t necessarily mean “weak” at them. It just means you have very poor skill, timing, and coordination. If you don’t have that, you probably won’t get real strong on these. If you are reasonably proficient at the lifts, then you can get stronger at them, even if you aren’t strong on them now.
Overview……
My experience with this program has been part of a 4-day split routine (2 days upper / 2 days lower). In general, the routine is just kind of a mish-mosh blend of some concepts that stem from the Texas Method, the Westside Barbell method, and a healthy dose of my own influence and experience.
Basically you’ll have one lower body day per week that is higher in Intensity and lower in Volume and this day alternates weekly between a Squat emphasis and a Deadlift emphasis. The second day of the week is higher in volume and lower in intensity. Both days have a Speed / Power element in the form of Dynamic Effort Squats and Pulls and/or Power Cleans and Power Snatches.
The Program….
Week 1 / Day 1:
- Back Squat – work up to 85% x 3+
- Speed Deadlift 70% x 3 x 8 (8 sets of 3)
Week 1 / Day 2:
- Speed Back Squat or Box Squat 5 x 5 x 70%
- Power Clean 15 x 1 (30 sec btw reps)
Week 2 / Day 1:
- Power Clean – work up, in singles, to a miss. Go down 10% and work back up to a miss. Done.
- Deadlift – work up to 85% x 3+
- Front Squat 5 x 3 (5 sets of 3)
Week 2 / Day 2:
- Speed Back Squat or Box Squat 6 x 4 or 8 x 3 @ 75%
- Power Snatch 15 x 1 (30 sec btw reps)
Week 3 / Day 1:
- Back Squat – work up to 90% x 2+
- Speed Deadlift – 75% x 3 x 6-7 sets
Week 3 / Day 2:
- Speed Back Squat or Box Squat 8 x 3 or 12 x 2 @ 80%
- Power Clean 15 x 1 (30 sec btw reps)
Week 4 / Day 1:
- Power Clean – work up, in singles, to a miss. Go down 10% and work back up to a miss. Done.
- Deadlift – work up to 90% x 2+
- Front Squat 5 x 3 (5 sets of 3)
Week 4 / Day 2:
- Speed Back Squat or Box Squat 5 x 5 x 70%
- Power Snatch 15 x 1 (30 sec btw reps)
Week 5 / Day 1:
- Back Squat – work up to 95% x 1+
- Speed Deadlifts – 80% x 3 x 5-6 sets
Week 5 / Day 2:
- Speed Back Squat or Box Squat 6 x 4 or 8 x 3 @ 75%
- Power Cleans 15 x 1 (30 sec btw reps)
Week 6 / Day 1:
- Power Clean: work up, in singles, to a miss. Go down 10% and work back up to a miss. Done.
- Deadlift – work up to 95% x 1+
- Front Squat 5 x 3
Week 6 / Day 2
- Speed Back Squat or Box Squat 8 x 3 or 12 x 2 @ 80%
- Power Snatch 15 x 1 (30 sec btw reps)
Tips…..
At the end of 6 weeks you can test for new 1RMs…..OR……if you want to avoid testing you can probably safely “assume” a small increase in 1-rep max and just go back through the cycle and bump all your poundages up 5-10 lbs as you see fit. This works too. Although if your assumption is off, it can screw you up pretty good for next cycle. Aim conservatively.
Rest time for speed work on the Squats and Deadlifts is 1-2 minutes. Move the bar with good speed, but do not get out of control in the name of speed. Maintain good mechanics FIRST and then aim to put a little more juice into the bar on each rep as you can.
Lower Body Assistance?
I typically add in maybe 2 assistance exercises on both sessions for a little added volume or simply to satisfy the needs of a client who wants to do things like ab work, single leg work, glute ham raises, etc. So if that’s you’re thing you can add it in, if you are a minimalist, leave it out. I’m not really into the debate on how much this stuff helps or doesn’t help particularly for athletes training for sport. This is a very difficult thing to measure or split test. I’m of a mind that if you keep the volume and frequency of this stuff fairly moderate, then at worst you are just wasting time. But I think that it does help, albeit marginally. Look at it like this, getting stronger on glute ham raises is probably a good thing. There is no downside to being stronger on an exercise. And if you can do that in 10 minutes per week knocking out, say 3 sets of an exercise…..even if it is wasted time and energy, it is a small amount of both.
To start with I usually add in 2 hamstring exercises per week – 1 knee flexion (glute ham raise or leg curl) and 1 hip extension (RDL, SLDL, 45 degree back extension, etc) – one exercise on each day.
I’ll give my usual disclaimer / caveat here at the end that sets and reps and even exercise selection are of course subject to change and individualization to a degree. Adding or subtracting a set here or there is fine. Increasing or decreasing intensity +/- 5% here and there is fine. Sub out front squats for 5×3 with high bar squats for 3×5 – fine. Try not to get lost in the tiny minutia and miss the broader structure of the program. I have used this almost exact program with several people and it’s been kicking ass so don’t rewrite the thing so much that it becomes a different program entirely.
If your squatting and pulling is stuck in a rut, this might be something for you to try.
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