The Speed-Power-Strength Program

 

A Modified Westside Program for Natural and Raw Powerlifters

     Recently, my youngest son Garret wanted to start back powerlifting.  He had spent the last year or so doing more “bodybuilding” type training, so I came up with a program that was essentially a “hybrid” Westside method in order to improve his speed and his low-rep strength, both of which can be “compromised” from doing standard hypertrophy workouts for a lengthy period.  After coming up with the program’s outline, and discussing it with him, I decided that it would probably make a good article.  Hence, the article you’re now reading.

     This program combines the speed day or dynamic effort method, most commonly associated with Westside, with a more standard strength method found (typically) in Russian and other east European programs.  I will explain the training days first, then give you an outline of the program.  After that, I will give some pointers such as how to design your workout split, when to change exercises, and other such stuff.

The Speed Workouts

     Two sessions in this program will be devoted to speed work—one day for your bench and another day for training your squat and deadlift together—and two workouts will be ramp-style heavy sessions.

     The speed workouts first.

     This form of lifting became popular as a mode of training within Westside Barbell’s system of training.  For Westside, this form of training was of utmost importance due to the fact that the Westside lifter also trained with a “max effort” session each week where you maxed out on a triple, double, or single (typically a single) for an all-out effort.  Westside reasoned that although heavy triples, doubles, or singles make you incredibly strong, they can also make you slow.  You needed a method to counteract this.  Enter the dynamic effort method, where you perform 10 sets of 3 reps (on the bench press) or 10-12 sets of 2 reps of the squat (and occasionally the deadlift, but Westside tended to shy away from training the deadlift in this manner) using only 50-70% of your one-rep max for speed.

     By the late ‘90s to early ‘00s, the dynamic effort method of training had moved from being something strictly used by Westside to a mode of training used by other powerlifters, either as an occasional “stand-alone” method of training, or as a method that was used in conjunction with other methods.  You began to see hybrid methods of training, for instance, that utilized one day-per-week of “typical” strength and power methods and another day of dynamic effort training.  The program here takes this approach.  My “Power Volume Training,” which appears in my book Ultimate Strength, is another example of one of these hybrid methods, as it employs heavy-light-medium training along with speed work.

The Ramp Workouts

     Instead of “max effort” days a la Westside, this program will utilize a form of progressively heavier sets often called ramps.  You can do ramps with a variety of reps, but this workout will use ramps of 5s, followed by ramps of 3s, then followed by ramps of singles on the squat and bench press, and ramps of 3s then singles on the deadlift.

     For the bench presses and squats, start your sets of 5 with nothing but the Olympic bar and slowly add weight with each set, always doing 5 reps.  Stop once a set of 5 gets really tough.  Take your "sweet" time in getting up to the 5-rep max.  You may end up doing 10 to 15 sets—the more the better. Do NOT simply do 2 or 3 sets before reaching your 5-rep "max".  It's called "ramps" for a reason.  Once the 5s are heavy, then start doing sets of 3 following the same format.  And, yep, once the triples are finished, add more weight and continue doing singles in the same manner.  Stop when you reach a near max effort.  

     For the deadlifts, start with sets of 3 instead of 5s.  For the most part, when powerlifting, keep your deadlift reps at 3 or under.  Also, since you are doing your deadlifts after your squats, there is no need to start with just the empty Olympic bar.  135 will probably be a good starting weight for most readers, even if you’re already quite strong.

     Lastly, the board presses are essentially just a way to continue the bench ramps by decreasing the range of motion (although they do have other benefits), so you can just start doing the single ramps with the same weight as your last set of regular benches.

Program Outline

Workout One - Speed Bench Day

Speed bench presses: 8-10 sets of 3 reps with 70% of one-rep max (60% if using bands and chains)

Triceps exercise: 3 to 4 sets of 10-12 reps.

Lat exercise: 3 to 4 sets of 10-12 reps.  

Front delt exercise: 3 to 4 sets of 10-12 reps.  

Workout Two - Speed Squat and Deadlift Day

Speed squats: 10 sets of 2 reps with 70% of one-rep max (60% if using bands and chains)

Speed deadlifts: 6 to 8 sets of 1 rep using 50-60% of one rep max

“Quick lift” exercise: 3 to 4 sets of 3-5 reps

Ab exercise: 2-3 sets of 5-8 reps

Loaded carry exercise: 1-2 sets for time or distance

Workout Three - Heavy Bench Day

Bench presses: Ramps of 5s, 3s, and singles

2 or 3-board bench presses: Ramps of singles

Workout Four - Heavy Squat and Deadlift Day

Squats: Ramps of 5s, 3s, and singles

Deadlifts: Ramps of 3s and singles

Details, Tips, and Pointers

     Make sure that your speed work is done with perfect form.  This isn’t a program for someone just starting out, for instance, who doesn’t know how to bench press, squat, or deadlift properly.  (And if that’s you, then please just find a basic strength program to start with.  There are plenty of those on my blog.)  But even though the form must be perfect, the reps must be fast.  Both the negative and eccentric portion of the lift must move as fast as possible.

     For the triceps exercises, you can choose from a number of movements, but stay away from anything that stretches the chest too much.  You want it to really focus on your triceps.  So forego close-grip benches and dips, but feel free to do skull crushers, JM presses, overhead triceps extensions (dumbbell or barbell), triceps pushdowns, or any similar movements.

     For the lat exercise, stay away from anything that will work your lower back directly or indirectly, as you will need to save your lower back for the two days of squatting and pulling.  So choose some form of chin or pulldown movement.

     On the exercise for front delts, choose (primarily) between a variety of front raises.  You can do barbell or dumbbell front raises, plate raises, or lying front raises.  For the lying raises—a lift I’m fond of for competitive bench pressers—assume a position on the bench the exact same as your form for a max-effort bench: shoulders squeezed into the bench, scapula squeezed together, and an arched lower back.  Maintain that position as you lower the bar down to your upper thigh/groin/stomach area (depending on arm length), then raise it back to the starting position.  You can occasionally do a standing pressing movement, such as military presses, if you want.

     The quick lifts on the speed squat and deadlift day can be power cleans, power snatches, or high pulls.  You can do them with either barbells, dumbbells, or even kettlebells (if you have a pair heavy enough).

     For the ab exercise, choose something that allows you to train heavy.  I prefer ab wheel rollouts, dragon flags, or weighted sit-ups on an incline bench.

     And for the loaded carries, you can do almost anything of your choosing.  You can do farmer walks, stone carries, sandbag carries, keg carries, wheelbarrow walks, sled drags, or tire flips.  (If you want more info on both loaded carries and quick lifts, then check out my recent essay “Game Changers.”)

     On all of the assistance movements, utilize a weight where you can stop a few reps shy of failure.  As you progress in the program, you can forget that advice and start pushing it more.  But don’t do that when starting out.

     Don’t discount the minimalistic approach of the ramp workouts and be tempted to add another exercise or two.  Even though you’re only doing two exercises each day, those exercises will be for plenty of volume if performed correctly.  In fact, the volume on ramp workouts are almost a “sneaky” way to add more muscle and strength.  You don’t feel as if you’re doing enough since you’re not doing that many top-end sets, but you should never dismiss all those lower intensity sets.  The workload really does pile up—strength, power, and (often) muscle mass are the results.

     When training the three powerlifts on any of the training days, you may want to stick to the same form—at least at first.  Start off by using the grip—close, medium, wide, or somewhere in between two of those—that you’re strongest with on the bench press.  Same goes for the squat and deadlift stance.  After a few weeks, however, I would advise changing up your grips and stances.  On the speed days, start using different grips and stances throughout all the sets.  And on the ramp days, stick with the same grip or stance at one workout, but change that from workout-to-workout.  Some days, you may go for a near max on close grip benches; other days, it might be with a medium or wide grip.  On squats, try different stances and different bar placements.  And on deadlifts, try different grips, and try alternating between conventional and sumo.

     As you get stronger and stronger, then you may want to also replace exercises on some of the ramp days.  If you do this, just remember the saying: same but different.  You can replace squats with box squats or bottom-position squats.  You can replace deadlifts with deficit deadlifts or rack pulls.  And you can replace bench presses with bottom-position or incline benches.  Same… but different.

Workout Split Ideas

     Don’t think that the workouts have to be done in the exact order that they’re listed, though that might be the best way to approach it at first.  Here are some different ideas for training splits.  All of which are effective, so don’t get too caught up in trying to find the “perfect” split.  The main thing is to find a split that you’ll stick with, and one that works best for your body type.

The Two-One, One-Off, Two-On, Two-Off Split

     If you primarily like to train during the week and take the weekends off, then the most popular days to do this split would be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.  But you don’t have to train on those days.  You can start the first day of your training day on any day that you like.  I always liked to train on the weekends, for instance, so I would usually set this up to be Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

The Two-On, One-Off, One-On, One-Off, One-On, One-Off Split

     That might look slightly confusing until you actually see it on paper.  This, for example, is the “classic” Westside manner of doing the split.  If you followed the split exactly as Westside does it, it would look like this:

Sunday: speed bench day

Monday: heavy squat and deadlift day

Wednesday: heavy bench day

Friday: speed squat and deadlift day

     Louie Simmons, the founder of Westside, always insisted on taking two days off after the speed days, and three days off after the max effort day, which is the reason you don’t have the speed bench day followed immediately by the speed squat and deadlift day.  While I think this is probably the best way to set it up, I have known lifters that liked to reverse that order, so don’t feel as if you have to remain completely beholden to it.

The Three-Days-Per-Week Split

     Some powerlifters have modified the Westside split to give them more rest time in between workouts.  This approach will work well if you know that you’re a “low volume lifter” that responds to less total work throughout the week.

     If you wanted to try this split, and lifted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, your training plan would look like this:

Monday: Workout One

Wednesday: Workout Two

Friday: Workout Three

2nd Monday: Workout Four

2nd Wednesday: Workout One

     And so on and so forth.  Also, as long as you don’t mind training on different days each week, you can just take a day off when you feel as if you need it, but, for the most part, don’t skip workouts.

Final Thoughts

     I think I’ve covered most of the bases in this program, but if anyone has a question about something I didn’t cover, then please email me or leave them in the comments section below.  Give this program a try and your strength will skyrocket.  Speed, power, and strength are yours for the taking.