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Frozenkilt's Pressing Program; From the old board
Topic Started: Jun 17 2005, 02:10 PM (5,228 Views)
Frozenkilt
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Ok, I figured that, whether or not anyone was asking, I'm going to type the skeleton of this thing out because it's been so terribly effective for me.

I'd first like to thank Bob Lipinski who gave me the basics for this in his articles and also Ascetic Lifter and Shang Chou in their logs on the Power and Bulk board. Also I'd like to thank Mike for helping me hammer out the percentages for this beast.

It's an 8 week cycle, broken into 2 4 week mini-cycles.

Ok, now I applied this stuff to the bench (yeah, yeah I know), but I firmly believe (actually, I know) this would help the overhead stuff too. Mostly because the focus is less on bench than it is on triceps.

The Basics
Monday:
2 Board Press

Tuesday:
Mil press

Wednesday:
DB Bench

Friday:
Speed Bench
Narrow Grip 3 Board Press

Now, at the first look, it looks like a ton of pressing, but you have to consider that most people will do a pressing day and end up with 3-5 exercises in one day. This is very survivable.

The Breakdown
2-Board Press:
Wk1: 85%x3x6
Wk2: 90%x3x5
Wk3: 95%x2x5
Wk4: 100%x2x4

Db Bench:
Wk1: 3 sets of 10
Wk2: 3 sets of 12 (same weight as above)
Wk3: 3 sets of 10 (increase weight)
Wk4: 3 sets of 12 (same as Wk 3)

Speed Bench:
Wk1: 55%x3x8
Wk2: 60%x3x7 (+ a couple of heavy singles)
Wk3: 65%x3x6
Wk4: 70%x3x5 (+ a couple of heavy singles)

Narrow Grip 3-board Press
3 sets of 5 reps at about 90-95% of what you did the 2-board press with on Monday.
1 back off set from around 8-12 reps

Mil Press
- I have a totally seperate 6 week program for presses that seems to be fitting in fine. If anyone wants details on that, just let me know.

The second cycle
Nothing new on the second cycle. I just went back down to week 1 and added 5kg to my last month's weights, keeping the reps and sets exactly the same.

The Notes and Details
Now, anyone familiar with the ever-popular WSB method of conjugate training will notice some pretty serious differences right away:

1. I'm not cycling a ME day exercise. Also, I'm not maxing it out.

2. My speed work actually goes as high as 70%.

The reasons for this are simple, in truth. For one, Louie and the boys came up with their stuff from the Siff/Vershanski(sp) stuff for olympic lifting. I took it back that way. Although capable of pressing more with 2-board press than 100% of my bench, I'm basing the numbers off my bench.

This means I don't spend too much time above 90% of that capability. Hence, I don't have to cycle exercises every 3 weeks. But, it's still heavy enough to push up my bench and the ROM for me from 2-board to full is maybe a 10-15% knock off.

My speed work goes up because I honestly don't feel that trying to overspeed 55-60% of your max is necessarily the best way. WSB always claims that range to be the best for developing power, but if you were to look up the actual curve, it's closer to 70-75% anyway. Plus, mentally speaking, if I get used to trying to accelerate a heavier weight, I find it prepares me to speed up an 80% plus attempt.

Now, the heavy singles every second week I find help to keep the purpose of driving up the bench. Plus, it's fun.

The narrow grip 3-board presses are the heavy tricep work. Stick with sets of 5 or 4 and try to slowly move this up. Plus, add an extra set at the end of 3-4 sets to increase the volume.

The high rep DB work is purely for hypertrophy. Make it a heavy enough weight to be challenging by the end of the 3rd set, but you want to basically complete the reps. Again, no science here. Just slowly push up the weight when you can while maintaining the volume.

One of the key things to this program is also a lot of heavy back work and external rotation stuff. The shoulders HAVE to be kept stretched and healthy for this kind of work. Prehab after pressing days is a must.

This is working, guys. I mean that seriously. If lockout is an issue, it won't be after a month.

Now I'm about 6 weeks into this, so 2 full weeks to go and maybe 3 until I do a true max test. But what evidence do I have that it's working? On my heavy singles after speed work today, I went up to 127.5 kg(~280#). Or about 5# more than my lifetime best. Yep, it's PR, but I didn't get greedy or truly get even close to maxing out. Won't happen for another 3 weeks, like I said. But I'm already faster and stronger.

Questions or comments?

The Overhead Portion
Week 1:
60%x6, 70%x5, 80%x2x2, 85%x2

Week 2:
65%x5, 75%x5, 85%x4x2, 90%x2

Week 3:
70%x6, 80%x3x2, 85%x2x2, 90%x2, 95%x2

Week 4:
65%x6, 75%x5, 85%x2x2, 90%x2

Week 5:
70%x6, 80%x3, 90%x2, 95%x2

Week 6:
75%x5, 85%x3, 95%x2, 100%x1, 105%x1

Obviously only the work sets. High on intensity, relatively low on volume. Seemed to work well in conjunction with bench and dumbell work for volume.

- Sean
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Jamie
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When are you doing this again?
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Frozenkilt
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Don't know. Was kicking around maybe hitting it in the fall for 6 weeks or so. I really should get a 3 plate bench sometime in my life.

- Sean
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MaxPower
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Follower of Branigann's Law
I probably missed this somewhere but how much weight did this add to your pressing?
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Frozenkilt
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All told? 12.5kg or 10%. Over, I think, 15 or 18 weeks. So it's not a monstrous gain in a short time, but progress was made. Got about 10% on my OH press too.

- Sean
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k2karakoram
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"My speed work goes up because I honestly don't feel that trying to overspeed 55-60% of your max is necessarily the best way. WSB always claims that range to be the best for developing power, but if you were to look up the actual curve, it's closer to 70-75% anyway. Plus, mentally speaking, if I get used to trying to accelerate a heavier weight, I find it prepares me to speed up an 80% plus attempt."

Sean

As I understand it I thought WSB only recommended 50-60% (or 55-60%) if you used a shirt. If you lift raw then its in the 60-70% range.
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GrantB
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If anyone is interested in Sean's program, I put together an accompanying Excel spreadsheet that performs all the calculations.

It's available for download in the Resources section on my site, or via the following link:

http://ontariostrongman.ca/Resources/train...ing-program.xls
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Frozenkilt
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Hey Grant, if you check this out you'll also notice that I have the full 6 week OH press program on the original post as well. I never rounded out the last 2 weeks because I went 12 weeks with the program, so I just went back to back on the pressing.

Also Grant, the 2 board press weight was originally based off full bench numbers not it's own max. Don't know why I didn't notice that yesterday.

- Sean
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GrantB
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D'OH!

OK, changed. Ignore my last email.
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sqeezemasterflash
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Now you're boring us
I might have to give this a shot, as my press needs serious work. Has anyone switched this around to be geared more towards overhead and less towards benching?
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Frozenkilt
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Matt Wanat (bigmatt) has had a pretty fair amount of success with it for overheads. Yammer at him via his log or PM.

- Sean
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d320kg
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I'm thinking about trying this too.
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Frozenkilt
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As a note, my overhead went up about 10kg too on this.

- Sean
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Robert Forbes

Could someone post up the overhead press routine?
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Frozenkilt
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Frozenkilt
Jun 17 2005, 03:10 PM
The Overhead Portion
Week 1:
60%x6, 70%x5, 80%x2x2, 85%x2

Week 2:
65%x5, 75%x5, 85%x4x2, 90%x2

Week 3:
70%x6, 80%x3x2, 85%x2x2, 90%x2, 95%x2

Week 4:
65%x6, 75%x5, 85%x2x2, 90%x2

Week 5:
70%x6, 80%x3, 90%x2, 95%x2

Week 6:
75%x5, 85%x3, 95%x2, 100%x1, 105%x1

Obviously only the work sets. High on intensity, relatively low on volume. Seemed to work well in conjunction with bench and dumbell work for volume.

- Sean

Uh...it's in the main message.

- Sean
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