Hi Drs,
Over the past years I have with great interest followed the evolution of your theories about programming. Given the countless hours of podcasts you kindly put out there since your separation from “the darker ages”, I would be lying if I remember or understood anything. But as far as I understand, I was wondering if what is usually referred to as the Conjugate Method wouldn’t be something that matches pretty well with your main principles.
- The Conjugate method is based on autoregulation in the sense that you work up to what is a heavy single (or double or triple) for that day and the back-off work is based on a certain percentage of that.
- Constantly rotating your exercises for Max Effort day as well as the assistance work in and out of the program helps the trainee get exposure to a wide spectrum of physical demands which should be in line with your recommendation against hyper specialization like in SS.
- During Dynamic Effort Days you get a lot of volume in the main lifts in the 60 to 75% range about in the appropriate RPE range.
- The program also incorporates GPP work in terms of arms, shoulders, posterior chain etc.
So I was wondering why you don’t offer any Conjugate Templates? Or maybe you do but just use another nomenclature as strictly speaking the Conjugate method is just a piece of the programming for which it is used synonymously?
Thanks in advance!
Conjugate programming/method as popularized by Westside (not to be confused with conjugate periodization) does not align with our main principles.
It does not use any type of auto-regulation, e.g. RPE or RIR, but rather heavily relies on percentage work. It also is built upon linear periodization, e.g. adding weight to the bar weekly while you go through a wave. None of the loading, nor other aspects of training load are autoregulaed.
The rotation of exercises does not match our view of varying exercises for priority lifts, e.g. S/B/D in a powerlifting program. We don’t think that’s a good idea for the type of person whom this program may be appropriate for.
We do not advocate for lots of volume in the 60-75% range and no RPE range is specified in conjugate training.
I personally think Conjugate Training as implemented and popularized by Westside is most similar to DUP, but Conjugate folks won’t agree to that. They also frequently say you’re not really doing conjugate if it’s not working and/or if you’re not in Columbus at Westside. It also does not seem to work very well given the lack of success in strength sports.
We didn’t make a “conjugate” template principally because conjugate training is not well-defined. Conjugate periodization is block, whereas concurrent is more similar to “Conjugate Programming”. We use concurrent programming all the time, but the nuts and bolts of what you’re describing, and the ideas behind that style of training, are not really in line with our views on programming. Can they be modified and tweaked? Sure, but why start there? In other words, what unique advantages does Conjugate Programming have over traditional concurrent, actual conjugate (e.g. block), programming models.
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