Barbell Barbell programing for Pavel's 2-week alternate Strength Plan

[TheBorg]

In "Easy Strength" Pavel recommends a 2-week program switch routine where you spend multiple months (I plan on at least a year) switching programs every two weeks i.e. PTP 2 weeks/ROP 2 weeks. I plan on doing Simple and Sinister/Easys Strength(ish) barbell program. I need both of these to fit in a 20 minute window 4-5X per week. My question is about how I should program the barbell side.

My current weekly plan looks like:
Mon.
S&S, 40 min. gun work
Tue.
S&S, Intervals (hills with body armor/rucksack, tabatas with ruck, etc.)
Wed.
S&S, 40 min. gun work
Thur.
S&S, 1-2 hour endurance work out, usually with a ruck or body armor
Fri.
S&S 40 min. gun work
Sat.
Gun work...sometimes
crossfit with buddies if not doing something else
Sometimes live fire with stress shoot

"gun work" means dry fire, weapons manipulation, etc.
Every 3rd week I back off the conditioning stuff and do low/no impact stuff like rower and elyptical at an easy pace.
At least every 8-12 weeks I take a rest week and don't do anything.
If I can't do anything on Saturday, I replace a skill session with a circuit workout.

Basic Info:
- relevant demographics: 39 y/o male, 6'1" 215LB.

- injury history: Nothing serious, the usual knee pain and plantar fascitis if I don't train smart, strained a rotator cuff a month ago, still keeping an eye on that, strained a peck three months ago (benching 225 after not benching for 6 months ish), recovered by doing pushups instead of bench for six weeks, then switching to dumbell bench.

- movement history: have you had a Functional Movement Screen? No. Do you move well or do you feel your muscles and joints are in less than good working order? Yes with above exceptions.

- sports/competition history: 10 years active duty, 10 years National Guard, almost all combat arms, mostly SOF. Currently focusing on the Tactical Games (basically a combat focused competitive stress shoot) and field based long range rifle competitions. Trying to shoot PRS (precision rifle series) when I get an chance, occasional non-sanctioned multi-gun.

Thanks, and I hope this provided the info you need while remaining somewhat concise.

 

[Anna C]

Hi Borg, don't know if I'll have an answer for you, but a few questions come to mind:

- what type of barbell equipment do you have available? Rack and bench? A good all-purpose bar and set of weights?
- what's your experience with barbell lifts and programs? You mentioned benching 225 so obviously not a beginner. All options/lifts open?
- what's your goal? Get stronger? Put on lean mass Y/N?
- what weight are you currently using for your S&S sessions?

I need both of these to fit in a 20 minute window 4-5X per week

That's a pretty tight restriction... Personally I might tend to go with "one lift a day" type scenario, in that case. That way you can get some warm-up in for a few work sets. Squat on Mondays, Bench on Tuesdays, Deadlift on Wednesdays, Press on Thursdays, Power Clean on Fridays... Something like that.

 

[TheBorg]

Anna, thanks for the reply.

I have a bench, rack, and lifting platform, and olympic weight set.

I can safely do any of the compound lifts, and have done them all at one time or another, I am better at some than others. I am coming off of a twice per week 5X5 program of pushups/dumbell bench, Squat, power style C&J, and bent over row; periodized in 3 week blocks, 1 weekk 75% 1RM, 1 week 85%, 1 week 90-95% (3X5), rinse and repeat. I was getting strong, but I weighed 225 and was slow and a little fat, even though I was running, often up hill and with weight. Work also compressed my training time after that.

So I switched to the schedule in the last post, but with a daily 5X5 alternating between power style C&J and power style snatch-to-overhead-squat, intending to alternate on a two week basis between these two and bench/squat, and was pouring through "Easy strength" trying to figure out what to do about sets and reps. I also switched to intermittent fasting with 150-200 grams of protein (ish) per day. I dropped to 215.

Then I shot the tactical games. I performed well on the strength events and a 1.5 mile run with weapons and body armor, but struggled with work capacity over two days of stress shooting. I could have done better with more lower body power endurance, and more of the same on the top side wouldn't have hurt either.

A couple years ago I crushed a ruck half-marathon in the mountains while using Pavel's ROP programming, doing the recommended exercises (clean and press) with a barbell instead of KBs, and adding a front squat to every rep. I was passing guys while running up hill with a ruck and averaged about a 13.5 minute mile with a ruck on a course with a couple thousand feet of elevation change. Based on that success a few years back, I want to put Pavel's power endurance programming back in my training, hence going to S&S. I tested myself this week with a 24kg bell, and knocked out 100 swings in 5:08 without working too hard, resting naturally, and not looking at the clock until afterwards. I did 10 getups in 6-something, same rules, so I figure 70LB is about where I need to be with S&S.

For the barbell phase I'm thinking 1 exercise per day, but I don't know what to do about sets/weights/reps. I'd like to combine one explosive exercise (like C&J) with a slow grind (like deadlift/squat/bench). I also really like front squats and the power snatch-to-overhead-squat.

 

[Anna C]

For the barbell phase I'm thinking 1 exercise per day, but I don't know what to do about sets/weights/reps. I'd like to combine one explosive exercise (like C&J) with a slow grind (like deadlift/squat/bench). I also really like front squats and the power snatch-to-overhead-squat.

Thanks for the reply and details. I like your selections: C&J, one slow grind, front squats, power-snatch-to-overhead-squat -- all great! Not an easy puzzle to solve.... I'll think about it and chime back in if I have more thoughts. Meantime maybe you'll get some other inputs.

 

[william bad butt]

So, ignoring the barbell, here is what you have so far (based on Dan John's fundamental human movements):

-Hinge --> S&S swings, ROP swings/snatches, ROP cleans. All ballistic
-Pulls--> Same as "hinge"
-Press --> ROP presses (C&P), TGU (S&S), all grinds
-Squats --> ........ nothing
-Ground Work --> TGUs. Gun work. Rucking and conditioning.

You are lacking in squats and absolute strength training. I would do squats and floor presses. For the squats, do low bar, parallel (not too deep), where your lower leg (below the knee) is perpendicular to the floor. Focus on driving your hips back. Consider squatting to a box or bench (but dont lose tension, touch and go). This does not require much volume and will be better for your troubled knees. For the floor press, aim for a wider grip (pinky finger on power ring for example) and tense your whole body and anti-shrug (try to put your shoulders back and into your back pockets). This is a good lift to spare your chest and shoulder issues. For both lifts, aim for about 10 lifts per day (2x5, 5x2, 3x3, 6x1). Slowly walk the weight up over many many months. Maybe squat Tues and Thurs and floor press mon, wed, fri.

I know this doesnt exactly fit your requirement of including a ballistic lift. If you really wanted it, swap out the floor press with a Clean and Push Press. Only 1 clean, then followed by numerous push presses to hit your reps. So if you were doing 5 reps, 1 clean followed by 5 push presses. Again, I prefer the floor press. Yiu have all your bases covered except pure absolute strength training. 2 weeks on flowed by 2 weeks off, might work nice you.

Just some ideas.

 

[TheBorg]

William, I think given my goals you are right, a squat or dead is essential. The whole point of having a barbell phase along with the S&S stuff is to maintain some absolute strength development. I think I may have a solution: Power to the People..dead lift and bench press cycled 2 weeks/2 weeks with S&S, exactly as recommended in Easy Strength. The PTP programming is daily and somewhat time compressed, just like S&S, which makes it a good fit (I had not realized this until I started looking into it a couple days ago.). Much as I love the ballistic lifts, I think I may give those a break for the rest of this year.

 

[william bad butt]

William, I think given my goals you are right, a squat or dead is essential. The whole point of having a barbell phase along with the S&S stuff is to maintain some absolute strength development. I think I may have a solution: Power to the People..dead lift and bench press cycled 2 weeks/2 weeks with S&S, exactly as recommended in Easy Strength. The PTP programming is daily and somewhat time compressed, just like S&S, which makes it a good fit (I had not realized this until I started looking into it a couple days ago.). Much as I love the ballistic lifts, I think I may give those a break for the rest of this year.

I like it. I only mentioned the low bar squat because you are already doing a lot of hinges. If you go with the deadlift, add some light goblet squats hear and there in order to work the movement pattern. Even if it is just a 2 min warmup.

I wouldnt worry about the lack of barbell ballistics. You are getting plenty of kbell ballistics to train speed and power.

Good luck!

Eric

 

[LoneRider]

I'd say the three powerlifts would be about right.

 

[John K]

In "Easy Strength" Pavel recommends a 2-week program switch routine where you spend multiple months (I plan on at least a year) switching programs every two weeks i.e. PTP 2 weeks/ROP 2 weeks. I plan on doing Simple and Sinister/Easys Strength(ish) barbell program. I need both of these to fit in a 20 minute window 4-5X per week. My question is about how I should program the barbell side.

For the barbell phase I'm thinking 1 exercise per day, but I don't know what to do about sets/weights/reps. I'd like to combine one explosive exercise (like C&J) with a slow grind (like deadlift/squat/bench). I also really like front squats and the power snatch-to-overhead-squat.

Much as I love the ballistic lifts, I think I may give those a break for the rest of this year.

20 min, 4-5 sessions. Based on your posts I'm not sure if you want to do barbell ballistics or not. My thought would be this:

If you need the workout in 20 minutes I would just do one lift a day, OTM, and do either 10x3, 10-12x2, or 15x1. Start out at 10x3 and pick weight somewhere in the 75-80% range. 15x1 I would use 90-93%. Your mileage may vary, start low and add weight. When you get all reps for all sets, add weight. For 15x1 don't ever miss a rep, but you can still start low (88%) and add weight until hitting the 15th single is hard.

I would do a squat, a pull, and a press. Depending on how you feel, I would do two pressing variation (e.g. press, jerk, bench, incline bench) and two deadlifting variations (e.g. 4" block pull, RDL, SLDL, deficit deadlift, floor deadlift) and one squat (front or back, most likely front).

So an example week: Monday 4" block pull10x3, Tuesday incline bench 10x3, Wednesday Front squat 10x2, Thursday jerk 15x1, Friday deficit stiff-leg 10x3. I've never tried exactly what I described (I'm not limited to 20 min per day x4-5 times per week), but I have done variations of it.

You could easily also "sub" in cleans or snatches (or derivatives) if you wanted to have ballistic days. Hang Power Snatch on Monday, Clean on Wednesday, SLDL on Friday. Tuesday Incline Bench and Thursday Jerk.

Here I emphasize pulling over squatting because *I* love pulling and love pulling twice a week.

If you feel like you need more squatting, it is easy to emphasize that in the complex (1 clean + 3 front squat), but if barbell training generally makes you feel slow I would be very cautious about how much squatting you're doing; I can get a lot stronger overhead squatting without slowing down, but back squat really slows me down (personally). It might be all in my head tho.

Alternating two week blocks I didn't like when I tried it. If it works for you it works for you.