休息更多，下一次训练就一定更好吗？

Question 1

Has coaching Austin led you to reconsider a training belief you previously felt strongly about? If so, could you share the experience that prompted you to rethink it?

Answer

Definitely that you need to be more “rested” to perform. Austin’s squat often feels better after a quite intense session of squats just 48 hours before his heaviest session. I noticed this trend when he would always feel weak after taking a light day between his two main sessions, so I swapped the light session and the less intense of his two main sessions. I believe this is because of how his body is leveraged- that is to say his proportions allow him a greater advantage in the squat. Because of this he needs a more “trained” state through the week to succeed in his primary squat session.

Question 2

When a lifter performs below expectations for several sessions in a row, what helps you decide whether to keep observing or adjust the program? Could you illustrate this with an actual coaching decision?

Answer

Understanding the variables outside the gym. Often if a lifter is underperforming, it’s usually a matter of stresses outside the gym, not inside. It’s important to track & optimize external stress, nutrition & sleep first before making any major training changes. Only if a lifter can go a full 7 days having those all optimized for and still have bad training would I choose to make a change. It’s a little hard to illustrate specifically, but you get the idea.

Question 3

We often see different, sometimes seemingly contradictory, cues for the same lift. With lifters who differ in body proportions, training experience and established movement habits, how do you choose a cue that suits the individual? Could you give an example of how you judged that a cue genuinely helped, rather than simply making the lift look closer to a particular technical model?

Answer

I usually don’t choose to cue lifters at all. Cues lower force output because a lifter often thinks too much about the cue rather than just simply executing the lift. I think it is better to choose an accessory or secondary lift that trains the quality you’re looking for in the lifter. For example, tempo bench forces lifters to hold their leg drive longer, so I’ll implement it for someone struggling to maintain their leg drive. Once done repeatedly, the rest of the lift tends to self organize around that change.

Question 4

How has Austin’s squat, bench and deadlift frequency evolved since you began working together? Did he respond and recover well from higher frequency from the outset, adapt to it over time, or were other factors more important? What observations informed your view? For another lifter interested in trying higher frequency, would you start by spreading their existing weekly training volume across more days, or take a different approach?

Answer

It hasn’t changed much. We’ve always squatted 3x per week and deadlifted 2x per week, both of which are semi common. People seem to believe that Austin uses higher frequencies than this for some reason. He does not. Bench would be the only thing that’s changed, and that’s gone from 4x per week to 5x per week.

I’ve given Austin 3 squat sessions per week from the start for the reasons I’ve talked about previously- he’s shaped very well to perform the squat, so he needs more total work to get the squat to feel strong.

Deadlift being 2x per week is fairly standard these days as it just gives the lifter more practice.

Benching 5x a week was a change I made because Austin simply felt undertrained on 4x. 2 of those 4 sessions had too much time off between the sessions and he would almost detrain as a result. When those sessions weren’t productive so would the sessions that would follow them. So we added a 5th session to bridge the gap- training the quality that makes him feel the strongest on that non rest day. In Austin’s case, that means a rather intense session of an exercise that limits the weight he can use, in this case long pause bench & close grip Larsen press. He can train both of these to high proximity to failure while still recovering well because the actual loads he can use are so limited, Our micro cycle looks a bit like this:

Primary Bench Day 1 High Rep Bench Day 2 Bridge the Gap Session Day 3 Secondary Bench Day 4 High Rep Bench 2 Day 5

Bridging the gap is the only reason to ever add a session in vs pure rest.

If in your question you’re referring to doing ultra high frequency training (4+ squats, 3+ deads, 6 or 7 benches)- the answer is you shouldn’t. You will get hurt. Unless you are somehow a professional powerlifting athlete like Agata Sitko, the ONLY lifter in the world that has ever run a program like that successfully, don’t even begin to think about trying something like that. You cannot sustain it if powerlifting is only a hobby for you. You will make better gains by training normally.

I must kindly refuse to illustrate how you would create such a program, as I cannot in good conscience allow your readers to think it is a good idea. It is not.

Thank you. May all your weights be light & your lights be white.