Building Skyscraper Bases

"Building a base not raising the ceiling. " Jim Wendler

Every single time I write out a program for a client I asked the very most important question. What is our deadline?

Why is this even ranked the highest priority? I can take the answer of my client and determine what their needs are in pre/intra/post/off season goals.

Depending on where a client is I'll change methods and strategies to help improve their chance of a successful season.

Successful Season

Let's talk about a successful season. If I have an opportunity to work with a person early season or off season, we're focused on building a base. We want to build a base that holds skyscrapers during earthquakes. How do we go from making a client rock steady and their opponents shaking in their boots?

General physical preparedness or G.P.P..

G.P.P

There are so many approaches to g.p.p, but my favorite is individualized blocks with pre/rehab strategies in mind.

If the client just got into the off season we can watch films or get feedback into areas they were strong and areas they need improvement. This sets the foundation for our individualized block. For example if a client felt they were slow off the line 3rd quarter in we may have to work explosive repeats, and dynamic energy control to get body energy expenditures.

When we focus on where the energy is going and how it's being spent g.p.p becomes something we see in high resolution. We can highlight muscles that need to be brought up, form that needs to be trained fresh or under fatigue, work to rest ratios, and cognitive experience.

Building a Base

Building a base can be just as challenging and more mentally and physically for clients especially when it spot lights inconsistencies and reveals truth about inadequacy.

To make a base phase feel adequate, we can have strategies that benchmark player to player, individualized weaknesses, standards in their performance, proper stimulus, and evaluation tools. I use these tools myself in my own programming. I made a video with me benching, I evaluated my technique and watched for mini maxes or sticking points when my bench broke down.

I realized that I got tired after some heavy efforts and recovered very slowly. I came to the conclusion I needed a hypertrophy block with a lot of volume and shorter rest. The shorter rest helped me recover faster, while greasing the groove for bench.I had already set myself up for a great bench in the past, but it got put on the back burner for a while. When I programmed it back in I had an idea of what methods I would use and strategies to structure the system.

Structure the System

I put a system together that included useing rep clusters (more on these in another article). I used wide grip (wide is always more difficult than narrow just because we're further away from center of mass) and hypertrophy blocks sets of 3-5 with 6-12 reps. I ended this cycle with 1 rep of 335lbs on a wide grip bench press. I had so many highlights in this phase and it all came down to consistency and having a system.

Conclusion

Build a base that supports skyscrapers and develop a system that allows you to continually get your reps in and see progress in the long run.

Keep getting your reps in amrap as many reps as possible.

-coach Austin StructuredStrengthSystems-

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