Shahaf Levin
Level 5 Valued Member
I have been on the FMS/Easy Strength/Strong First for the last 14 month, keeping a log here since last October. I have done allot of bent presses in this time, swings, some crawling and some other lifts. My programing was super simple and was mostly Bent & Sinister and Justa's singles programs, the reminder of time was ES protocols for a week or two here and there.
Most SF programs utilize two modalities together. Grind and ballistic, which correlates to absolute strength and explosive strength. Most SF flagship programs use these to modalities concurrently - S&S uses TGU for grinds and swings for ballistics, RoP uses the military press for grind and a swing/snatch combination for ballistics, some switch modalities at fixed intervals - ROTK for example switch grinds and ballistics every two weeks.
I used concurrent modalities with Bent & Sinister for a long time (actually dropping the ballistics when the 2HA got heavy on the last week or two) and started switching modalities for the last 2 months. I did 4 weeks of hands & thighs lift (grind) - 2 weeks OHS - 2 weeks hands & thighs - 2 weeks OHS. I stopped after 4 days at the second 2 weeks period of OHS. I played plenty of beach volleyball at throughout this all time (up to 32 hours/week), and last week was 35 degrees C (95 deg F) and 60%+ humidity. I could just not recover well enough from both volleyball and swings at these conditions, so I stopped swinging. Anyway I got enough ballistic hip hinging on the sand. But that was a side note.
Something is missing
Even before stopping the swings (for now) I started mining my logs to find my "peaks" and how I got there. (since "peaks" are derived from goals, you can see mine here). What I mined from my log was: a. I really like bent pressing, and my body and mind reacts great to them. and b. I missed a modality. Body-management, or integrity-with-environment as Dan John calls it, is IMHO that missing modality. True, many people do loaded carries and crawling and so on (me included), but as far as I know too many of us teat at as supplemental work, correctives, drills, movement prep, spices and not as a main dish, not as a standalone modality. The time I had the best fit for my "subjective" goal of It is the first business of any human being to be a good animal" (Sig Klein) was when I mixed Justafied bent pressing with crawling. One day strength , one day crawling, repeat. One day grind, one day body management. Since I play beach volleyball all year long I have ballistics thrown in the mix 2 - 5 times a week without even calling it "training".
So, I want to mix all three modalities in my training and I looked for a way to do it.
Some guidelines
Programing all modalities in a concurrent manner calls for 3 different lifts (I'll call crawling and carries lifts for the sake of simplicity). For me 3 lifts a day is way to many and negates the first guideline. One more option is expanding on the crawl/bent press notion and go for integrity/grind/ballistic 3 day micro-cycle. This one is not in violation of the first guideline as 3-lifs-a-day but three concurrent lifts still sounds a bit much for me.
Being concurrent both options allow to follow guideline three (consistency and moderation) effortlessly, and introduce novelties by changing lifts, or as can easily done with KB, big a#@ weight increase.
Switching approach
Example for switching, adapted from ROTK, is doing a meso-cycle of 2 weeks of loaded carries, followed by 2 weeks of presses, followed by 2 weeks of C&J. Switching allow for introduction on novelties via modalities, but can be hard on consistency. You either switch modalities too often and cannot create consistent training with each one, or you lay off one for too long (remember we have three modalities now)
Conjugate sequence
Enter conjugate sequence. In conjugate sequence training (Verkhoshansky, Siff) one introduces the new mean of training (modality in our case) in a smooth fashion before terminating the use of the previous mean. This basically merges both the concurrent and switch approaches. Take the example above of 2-weeks block meso-cycle, but start each block 5 days before the previous one finishes. You get 14 days before you return to the same modality and not lay off of it for two long, and still can have 14 straight days of staying with each. you also have 4 days of uni-modal training in between. There are plenty of possible variations, which one is used should be derived from the situation.
While performing the training in such manner is simple, designing such program might not be. While there are not many moving parts for the trainee the coaches work might not be simple and might not follow the first guideline. However, I believe that a smart and experienced coach can handle such task without to much trouble.
My conjugate sequence experiment
Started last week my programing is
If you made it this far in this lengthy post, the one important thing I took from here is to treat body-management/integrity-with-environment/whatever-you-call-it as a distinct modality in training.
Most SF programs utilize two modalities together. Grind and ballistic, which correlates to absolute strength and explosive strength. Most SF flagship programs use these to modalities concurrently - S&S uses TGU for grinds and swings for ballistics, RoP uses the military press for grind and a swing/snatch combination for ballistics, some switch modalities at fixed intervals - ROTK for example switch grinds and ballistics every two weeks.
I used concurrent modalities with Bent & Sinister for a long time (actually dropping the ballistics when the 2HA got heavy on the last week or two) and started switching modalities for the last 2 months. I did 4 weeks of hands & thighs lift (grind) - 2 weeks OHS - 2 weeks hands & thighs - 2 weeks OHS. I stopped after 4 days at the second 2 weeks period of OHS. I played plenty of beach volleyball at throughout this all time (up to 32 hours/week), and last week was 35 degrees C (95 deg F) and 60%+ humidity. I could just not recover well enough from both volleyball and swings at these conditions, so I stopped swinging. Anyway I got enough ballistic hip hinging on the sand. But that was a side note.
Something is missing
Even before stopping the swings (for now) I started mining my logs to find my "peaks" and how I got there. (since "peaks" are derived from goals, you can see mine here). What I mined from my log was: a. I really like bent pressing, and my body and mind reacts great to them. and b. I missed a modality. Body-management, or integrity-with-environment as Dan John calls it, is IMHO that missing modality. True, many people do loaded carries and crawling and so on (me included), but as far as I know too many of us teat at as supplemental work, correctives, drills, movement prep, spices and not as a main dish, not as a standalone modality. The time I had the best fit for my "subjective" goal of It is the first business of any human being to be a good animal" (Sig Klein) was when I mixed Justafied bent pressing with crawling. One day strength , one day crawling, repeat. One day grind, one day body management. Since I play beach volleyball all year long I have ballistics thrown in the mix 2 - 5 times a week without even calling it "training".
So, I want to mix all three modalities in my training and I looked for a way to do it.
Some guidelines
- KISS - keep it simple, stupid - the least amount of "moving parts" - the plan/log should be easy to follow and look boring.
- Introducing novelties improves responsiveness of the body to training
- Consistency and moderation are key
- Modalities feed on another
- I am (mind, body, CNS) very fond of high frequency training
Programing all modalities in a concurrent manner calls for 3 different lifts (I'll call crawling and carries lifts for the sake of simplicity). For me 3 lifts a day is way to many and negates the first guideline. One more option is expanding on the crawl/bent press notion and go for integrity/grind/ballistic 3 day micro-cycle. This one is not in violation of the first guideline as 3-lifs-a-day but three concurrent lifts still sounds a bit much for me.
Being concurrent both options allow to follow guideline three (consistency and moderation) effortlessly, and introduce novelties by changing lifts, or as can easily done with KB, big a#@ weight increase.
Switching approach
Example for switching, adapted from ROTK, is doing a meso-cycle of 2 weeks of loaded carries, followed by 2 weeks of presses, followed by 2 weeks of C&J. Switching allow for introduction on novelties via modalities, but can be hard on consistency. You either switch modalities too often and cannot create consistent training with each one, or you lay off one for too long (remember we have three modalities now)
Conjugate sequence
Enter conjugate sequence. In conjugate sequence training (Verkhoshansky, Siff) one introduces the new mean of training (modality in our case) in a smooth fashion before terminating the use of the previous mean. This basically merges both the concurrent and switch approaches. Take the example above of 2-weeks block meso-cycle, but start each block 5 days before the previous one finishes. You get 14 days before you return to the same modality and not lay off of it for two long, and still can have 14 straight days of staying with each. you also have 4 days of uni-modal training in between. There are plenty of possible variations, which one is used should be derived from the situation.
While performing the training in such manner is simple, designing such program might not be. While there are not many moving parts for the trainee the coaches work might not be simple and might not follow the first guideline. However, I believe that a smart and experienced coach can handle such task without to much trouble.
My conjugate sequence experiment
Started last week my programing is
- 2 weeks of leopard crawling - collecting time by feel, loaded carries if I can't get to the beach
- 2 weeks of daily bent press following Justa's daily singles
- 2 weeks of ballistics (will decide on content according to the amount of beach volleyball I'll play)
- Each block will start 4-5 days before the end of the previous one
If you made it this far in this lengthy post, the one important thing I took from here is to treat body-management/integrity-with-environment/whatever-you-call-it as a distinct modality in training.
