If you're wondering what the blog before this is, it's an affiliate link to the the social media managing software I use. I prefer to be a coach over a marketer so it makes sense to use one to free up my time to actually coach...
It's also why you might see posts repeating, but again, I'd rather spend my time writing new programs than new posts. Individualised actually means individualised when I say it but it does mean I have to find ways to be more efficient.
I just thought to mention that because I'm sure it looks odd or as if I've been hacked on the timeline.
Anyway, we're into November and Team Savage have been doing what they do best, lifting, hitting PBs, making progress and winning!
Lets start.
Sam has had a great month finishing off his training cycle and hitting what can only be described as many PBs! Sam basically hit PBs across all the main movements taking 145kg and 150kg in the Squat for a 10kg increase. 90kg and 92.5kg in the Bench Press for a 5kg increase and 180kg and 185kg in the Deadlift for another 10kg increase. Sam also hit a new volume PB on Front Squat of 75kg which I believe has been feeding the leg strength gains and his Back Squat despite not maxing it out.
A simple 5s 2 week rotation
With Sams focus not being on the Front Squat, but rather using it to feed the Back Squat, i've approached it a little differently. For a good while now we've been running a 2 week cycle of week 1, 1x5 where we look to add load to the previous 5RM and then do some back offs at around 10% lower, maybe two sets or so. And in week two we look to hit 5x5 at minus 10% of the 5RM the week before. To say it's worked would be an understatement as we still have plenty of room in the Front Squat to grow and Sams Back Squat has skyrocketed!
Full disclosure, I would usually run this type of progression in 1 week cycles, but splitting it up into a two week cycle to fit into Sams weekly undulating style of 1 week heavy,1 week volume made perfect sense.
Another modification you can make is flipping the back offs after the heavy 5 from 2 sets of 5 to 5 sets of two if velocity is something you're looking to bias.
Want to join our team of one to one clients? Click the link below to book a consultation.
I'd like to welcome Chris who joined us in a hybrid capacity mixing online coaching with sporadic one to one sessions. Chris' big goal is to lift the Dinnie Stones next year, a goal i'm looking forward to joining him on the journey for and helping him achieve!
James has had a cracking month... I'll leave you with a list of his PBs!
Deadlift - 215kg x5
BTN Jerk From Blocks - 150kg x3
Deadlift - 220kg x5
Block Jerk - 115kg x5
Front Squat - 155kg x5
Deadlift - 225kg x3
Good Morning - 180kg x1
Block Jerk - 117.5kg x3
Front Squat - 160kg x3
Axle Push Press - 120kg x3
Deadlift - 230kg x3
Block Jerk - 120kg x3
Front Squat - 165kg x3
As you can see, there aren't many 1RMs in this list, so there's still some gains to take in the next few weeks before we turn our sights to UKNS U90s.
Good Morning
Our biggest break through with James was using the Good Morning to create Deadlift volume rather than the Deadlift itself and in a percentage based fashion. How did we use a percentage?
Theoretically if you subscribe to the idea of ratios, your 6RM Good Morning should be approximately 65% of your max Deadlift... I've seen people say 66%, but come on... Just make it easy with 65% and stop trying to look more intelligent than you are by trying to major in the minors.
Anyway, from there you can put 65% x6 in a 1RM calculator and a 1RM comes out at around 77% of your Deadlift. Personally i'd round down to 75% to give space from individual variance and then it's off we go. Just plug that max into your program for good mornings and run something percentage based as your progression.
The magic isn't in the % work though, it's in the fact most people would undershoot the weight they need to make real tangible progress on a movement like Good Mornings and the percentage gives them a solid number with no questions around it.
As you can see, James hit a 1RM of 180kg on the movement which is huge and far beyond what he would have done had I ran with an RPE or RIR progression, and thats whats going to really drive up his posterior chain strength and his Deadlift potential.
And if you work off 60% x6, this also works great on Bent Over Rows too.
Big Jo is out of his Metcon phase and we're gearing up to get some UKNS Prep in. After winning Juniors this year, Jo has already booked his place at worlds in 2025, but I like to push my guys so suggested he competes in the Opens qualifiers to get a feel for the weights. It's a big step up as the qualifier weights in opens are very comparable to the finals weights in the juniors so while it's not a world away, it'll be good to see where Jo compares to what will be his peers going forward. Jo is 6ft 5in and 140kg so he'll never be a weight category athlete. Oh and he hit a new 1RM in Sandbag over 48in yoke of 140kg.
Jonny is in the same position as Jo where he's just finished his Metcon phase, which will lay the foundations for higher volumes ahead, and is now turning his gaze to UKNS U105. Jonny isn't in as privileged position as Jo and he'll have to earn his spot at Britains and hopefully worlds going forwards. The highlight of Jonnys Metcon phase was his 140kg Axle Blast Press.
Metcon
I use the word metcon, but I could just as easily use the term GPP. The idea of this phase is to increase lifting specific fitness to enhance recovery times and allowing the lifter to handle more volume going forward into the next phase, which is usually an accumulation phase.
The problem with a metcon phase I've found is the weights are so low that often strength drops off quite harshly, so to combat this I employed the age old tactic of maxing something out each session, with the stipulation being it has to be novel. A blast press, sandbag over yoke, sandbag to shoulder or some sort of oddly loaded (shouldering style) Squat are all prime candidates as they're all easy to recover from due to the limiting nature of the movement we're using itself.
I've found coming out of the Metcon phase, my athletes are much stronger when employing this tactic rather than straight up Metcon style training. Obviously how you employ it will vary from person to person but put it first in the session and in terms of structure you could go with a conjugate style approach where you max out one movement thats strength or force based one day and max out one thats stability based (Like a windmill or javelin press) the next.
Marie took a nice PB in the Squat of 101kg and has taken advantage of the more flexible week she has in terms of programming.
Flexible Programming
First thing I'll say is that this can look many ways for many people and this is just what I'm doing for Marie, anyway... Marie has a busy work day. She manages people, makes important life changing decisions and deals with a lot of stress, that meant often, If she had a stressful day, that wold leak into her training. The problem is, we didn't know which day would be particularly stressful from week to week or when it would leak into the session. It was causing less than optimal training and we needed a solution... The solution? A 'floating' day.
Marie trains 4 times a week, that means not every session would be heavy so one of them was a technical session where we start at a low percentage on a movement she needs to work on and build through the sets depending on how it feels. That just so happens to also be an ideal tactic when training isn't going so well, so we changed the name, instead of it being a technical session we changed it to a floating session that could be moved around allowing Marie to still get in good quality work any day of the week when stress hits and would usually effect her training.
Obviously the rest of the structure had to be shuffled to accommodate and the main facet to that was moving her heavy day to a Monday rather than a Friday, this allows her to continually push it back and gives her the most chances to do it on a day when she feels good. Here's Maries current training week:
Monday - Heavy Competition Weightlifting
Tuesday - Snatch & Jerk Focus
Thursday - Clean Focus
Friday - Floating
The floating can be moved anywhere in the week and the heavy session can be pulled back if necessary, giving Marie full flexibility to take advantage of the days when work stress is low.
Olivia taken to strong woman like a duck to water and won Strong on the Tyne in the Womens Novice category. This was her first competition and a nice one to do before UKNS prep!
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Online wor Liam finished his training cycle with a PB squat of 182.5kg. It's important to note that this was in sleeves...
Sleeves or sleeveless
While the research generally says sleeves add about 5kg to a lift, thats not the whole story and the type of sleeve matters. Most research is done on neoprene, but double ply, triple ply and the new stiffer style sleeves like A7s Rigor Mortis all exist and have different properties and levels of assistance. On top of that, there's the psychological aspect of having that extra material around the knee providing support and all this can compound into higher levels of performance with sleeves than without, which is why it's not only important to differentiate Sleeves or Sleeveless, but also what type of sleeves you wore for your max if you don't want to run into a road block down the line.
Scott hit a nice Front Squat PB of 100kg and is in prep to compete at Paisleys strongest in December.
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Savage Strength School
Elbie, Ella, Megatron, Penny, Jacob, Miles & Teddy have all been making great progress with their various movement patterns in Savage Strength School. We've especially had a focus on Pull Ups and Press Ups this month and that will continue into the next.
Our Kids sessions runs two nights per week out of Stag Fitness Strength Centre and it's focus is to introduce kids to lifting in a safe, supportive and educative environment.
Want to join Savage Strength School?
Click the link below to book a session.
https://savagestrengthconsultation.as.me/SavageStrengthSchool
In our Olympic Weightlifting Club Jack K is prepping for Altrincham WLCs competition on the 3rd November. Obviously in the competition a PB Snatch an C&J is the goal and it's certainly a possibility as Jacks general strength levels are at all time highs taking PBs in the Squat of 145kg & 150kg x5 and 155kg x3, Front Squat of 130kg x3 and Bent Over Row of 150kg x6. In more specific strength, Jacks taken PBs in the Clean of 105kg x5 and Block Jerk of 115kg x3 and 118kg x2. In honesty, Jacks struggling with his Snatch which is a metal game for him but his Clean and Jerk is looking great!
Our Weightlifting Club runs multiple nights per week out of Stag Fitness Strength Centre and it's focus is to introduce people to the sport of Olympic Weightlifting while giving them the opportunity to compete if they wish to do that.
Want to join our Weightlifting Club?
Click the link below to book a session. https://savagestrengthconsultation.as.me/SavageStrengthWeightliftingClub
In our Strongman Club Cori has had a great month taking second place at Strong on the Tyne in the Mens Beginners catgory while also hitting a PB Deadlift of 190kg x1. Just like the sleeves, it's important to note that this was on a Deadlift bar so it's likely we need to reduce the max we work off when using a stiff bar.
Stiff Bar or Deadlift Bar
It's important to differentiate the max you work of for your Deadlift based on the different bars available. A Deadlift bar is going to make it easier off the ground so will often lead to a bigger max than on a stiff bar.
A stiff bar, while stiff, will have a little more bend than an axle and coupled with the fact the axle effectively makes the pull a half inch to an inch deficit and a half inch to an inch further away means that your stiff bar max should be higher than on the axle.
While using the wrong max for the bar will likely be fine in early stages of a training cycle, it can lead to issues of plateauing as you get deeper into a program.
If I had to pick one bar to use to deadlift for the rest of my life, it would be the axle. If your Axle Deadlift goes up, it's likely your deadlifts on other bars will follow.
George C too 4th place at Strong on the Tyne in the Mens Novice category jointly winning the log even and outright winning the Shield.
Our Strongman Club runs multiple nights a week out of Stag Fitness Strength Centre and has a history of taking people from the level of complete beginner to British Finalist.
Want to Join our Strongman Club?
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Our Online Weightlifting Team runs in tandem with out Weightlifting Club and as such Karen has been getting all the gains just like Jack has, hitting PBs in the Squat, Front Squat, & Push Press putting her strength, just like Jacks, at all time highs while also hitting Rep PBs in the Clean. Here's a list:
Clean 58kg x5
Squat 75kg x4
Front squat 60g x5
Push press 46kg x5
Clean - 59kg x3
Clean - 61kg x2
Back Squat - 76kg x3
Push Press - 50kg x3
Front Squat - 65kg x3
Push Press - 51kg x3
Karen's in a great place to capitalise on her strength now and I hope that at some point she decides to compete!
Our Online Weightlifting Team follows the British Weightlifting competition calendar with a focus on the bigger national competitions and the regional ones in the North East of England and is perfect for those competing in that area and for those looking for guidance and a periodised and focussed program.
Want to Join our Online Weightlifting Team?
Click the link below to book for a free trial.
https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/weightlifting-online-team
In our Online Strongman Team Stephen rounded off a strong performance for the team at Strong on the Tyne taking the win in the Mens Novice category. That signals the next step in Stephens progression and a step up into Inters! Long term we want to get him into opens and then competing at UKNS in the Masters category!
Multi Year Goal
While the finer details of a long term don't matter and often become apparent as you go through your journey, it is important to have an overarching multi year plan just like Stephen.
It will not only serve as motivation, but will help navigate what you need to do in that current moment. It will help you decide what competitions to do, what you need to work on when you have no competitions coming up and how you need to work on it.
Without it, your training will have no overarching purpose and you're essentially meandering from session to session and training cycle to training cycle with very little direction except what is in front of you.
If i'm in Newcastle and wanting to get to London the first thing I need to know is the general direction and that I need to go south... After that I can plan the roads I take, otherwise i'm just guessing which direction I need to go.
So before you plan the roads you take, know which direction you need to move in.
General Direction = Long Term
Specific Route = Short Term
Our Online Strongman Team follows the UK Natural Competition Calendar with room to stop off and compete through a few other competitions too. It’s perfect for those competing on the circuit and for beginners who don’t plan to compete yet but want a coaches guidance and a periodised plan.
Want to Join our Online Strongman Team?
Click the link below to book for a free trial.
https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/strongman-online-team
Callum Is making great gains in our Get Big Get Strong Team and is currently heading into a phase of 5s where he is in a great position to smash through his old 5RMs!
Watch this space!
Our Get Big Get Strong Online Team was created for those who class themselves as the average gym goer. For those that want to get stronger in the big barbell movements, who want world class coaching with a world class program, but who have no aspirations to compete in a strength sport and want a life outside of the gym.
Want to Join our Get Big Get Strong Online Team?
Click the link below to book for a free trial.
https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/get-big-get-strong-online-team
Thats everyone covered I think, as usual, I hope you found value in what i write about and that hopefully it either leads to further exploration and to implementation of something that could benefit your own training.
Until next time
Adam