Lifter Case Study: Thien

I haven’t done a lifter case study in a while, and with the recent success in @liftintin’s training, one is due. And really this case study encapsulates multiple athletes I coach, as I have seen an increasingly interesting trend in just how little workload some people need to do on squat and deadlift. As I have mentioned in other posts and videos, I define “injury prone” as someone who is an outlier from the normal workload most people of similar demographics respond to. The more “injury prone” you are, the more of an outlier you likely are. Which in sense means no one is actually injury prone per se, more so their individual response is enough of a deviance away from the norm that they many times they never venture enough to the left side of the bell curve to find their individual workload.

As of right now, I have 5 lifters, including Thien, that came to me deemed “injury prone” who are doing great on 5 or less sets of squats per week and 5 or less sets of deadlift per week. 4 of those being 83kg or lower weight class lifters where the norm indicates this workload is significantly less than the average lifter would respond to.

Thien in particular has had chronic knee pain for I believe almost 4-5 years now, and a little under 3 years with me. He never really did a crazy high workload though. He typically did 2 day a week frequency in squat and deadlift, with somewhere around 8-10 sets on squat and 5-7 sets on deadlift. Which in reality for a 69kg lifter is pretty low in the first place. Thien saw multiple PTs in regards to technique and movement to not much avail, and we experimented with many different setups of training to load management with small amounts of success, but no consistency. And what really helped us figure out what would work is the benefit of me just being able to coaching a wide variety of athletes. I started to see similar trends in other lifters such as @thekilopractor, @drewthompson21, @jumbojoel_, and @paytonpowerandperformance. As I saw success with one, I could see the crossover in application to others and start to individualize each approach. All 5 lifters have similarities in their programming in the sense of low workload, but how that is distributed and set up is completely different for each.

As a baseline, a general template I could lay out for all of these lifters is they responded great to ascending set work, with no more than 3 sets on any given day. Some of these lifters are only squatting or deadlifting once a week. Some do more comp specificity than others, some do less. Some respond to higher rep work and some to lower rep work. But the overriding similarity was the ascending set model with very low set count daily.

For Thien, as can be seen on the anti-reel slide (CLICK HERE), has a 2 day frequency for both lifts. For deadlift, we know he responded very well to high rep work. But he also detrained skill wise from singles and low rep work if we had too much of a prolonged absence from it. So on his primary deadlift day, he simply has a top single which he will put to notable RPEs by the end of the block, followed by a high rep back off set. On his secondary deadlift day, he actually has an ascending RPE model where he does a low rep set that is heavier in absolute load, but lower in RPE, before doing a higher exertion high rep set for his top set on the day. From this he was able to get the skill practice and intensity requirements from the low rep sets, but also able to fill the volume gaps by doing high rep work that could be the equivalent total reps of doing multiple sets of low to mid range rep work.

Squat though was his nemesis, but there was definitely a correlation between total workload in squat and deadlift. We had tried low workload on squat to no avail prior, but that was also during times of higher workload deadlifting. The key will all of these cases I am referring too is the total workload from squat and deadlift combined being low, as they do have notable transfer in fatigue for most lifters. For squat there were 3 main things we did that really brought this model together for Thien. First, as can be seen all work is ascending. I think the utility for the ascending set approach is simply the warmup and neurological affect on pain that prior sets can have. You will see many times a lifter complain that a top set has a small amount of pain, but then by their final back off set it has gone away. This might be contributed to the weight being lighter, but I would bet if you put them into an ascending set approach they would then see a similar affect where by the top set they are feeling near 100%. Second, we had to control the rate of descent. One thing we had learned prior is that if we self limited the eccentric to concentric reversal through tempos or pauses, Thien would typically be able to manage through small amounts of pain. But once we brought back normal competition squatting, within a couple weeks it would return. So simply put we left this as standard now that at all times he has a more controlled descent. And then lastly, seemingly accessory work through things like leg press, belt squat, or unilateral work wasn’t tolerable, but we needed to fill volume gaps in some way. The issue with regular squatting is Thien was sensitive to deviations in center of mass. So to be able to manage some higher rep work while making it very easy to maintain his center of massive and provide more stability, we did high rep back off sets of Hatfield squat proceeding his ascending set Safety Bar work.

All of this combined has equated to Thien being pain free for the first time in years for multiple blocks on end, and once again hitting PRs on his squat. It’s far reach from the norm of what most people would do, but when I look at my clientele as a whole, this is becoming a pretty frequent setup I am seeing. Much of this is just reiterating what I have said in many posts in the past, but just follow the data and know that it can be shocking sometimes how far someone can deviate from the norm of what you’d expect their response and workload to be.

Why Some Accessory Movements Get Deemed As “Magic”

Let me first start off by saying there is no magic accessory exercise. Programming and accessory trends shift constantly and in reality most of what becomes popular is not new, more so things just cycle back into the limelight. 3 specific recent examples being belt squat, weighted dips, and 45 degree hyperextensions. Some might say these became popular just due to some influential people pushing them, but I think there is more to it than that. In my opinion, they become increasingly popular because there tends to be a large scope of successful application. A particular lifter or coach highlights a certain movement, people try it, a large scope of those lifters see success over what they’ve done prior, and then they highlight that success and it continues to spread. So in my typical fashion, I want to know the “why” behind the success of these 3 movements, because once we understand the “why” we get an even better sense of the application scenarios that they will work best in. 

1.) Belt squat: Outside of the small portion of outliers that are just built to squat, a notable issue with squatting within powerlifting context is being able to get adequate quad volume. Especially as we shift towards the spectrum of people who are very disadvantaged leveraged wise to squat, we find increasingly that low back fatigue tends to outpace quad fatigue. And this is specific to powerlifting to an extent, because we need to add the totality of workload accumulated by the low back from squatting, deadlifting, and even benching. So to gain that additional workload on the quads we can perform movements such as leg press, bulgarian split squats, belt squat and more. But why has belt squat worked so well for so many people over movements such as leg press or bulgarian split squats?

-Leg press has 2 main limiting factors in comparison to belt squat. First, barring that you have access to a cybex variable leg press, your body type can drastically change the range of motion and execution that is possible, even with adjustments to foot placement. An example being your thighs hit your stomach prior to gaining an adequate range of motion. Second, based on the type of leg press and foot placement, sometimes the leg press doesn’t even do a great job of targeting the quads and ends up almost being a better glute and adductor exercise due to relative degrees of hip extension being a factor with the movement.

-A bulgarian split squat is highly technical. It takes a learning curve to do correctly, and a learning curve to be able to do correctly with high loads. While they can be a great exercise, many lifters tend to do better working with more “mindless” accessory movements after the intense focus of competition squatting prior. So if you want high levels of exertion, reduce the barriers to that by choosing movements that have little to no learning curve and are easy to execute.

-A belt squat has a very low learning curve and can fairly easily be pushed to high RPEs quickly by athletes. It also does a great job of selective muscular stress, in that most people after performing belt squats will find their quads were the limiting factor, with very little adductor, glute or hamstring soreness due to the fact that there is no real element of hip extension with the movement. And with coming back around to competition squatting, if we are trying to fill the volume gaps of quad specific work that has a high translation to actual squatting, belt squat seems to do that really well for a large scope of athletes. 

2.) 45 Degree Hyperextension: With sumo deadlift, especially for more advantaged sumo pullers, there is a lack of hinge in comparison to the conventional deadlift. And with conventional deadlift, many times the low back can only tolerate so much workload. So for both, there may be gaps in gaining adequate hinge volume that targets the glutes and hamstrings appropriately. As mentioned with squat, the low back takes a beating in powerlifting, so finding accessory based movements that can mimic that hinge pattern while reducing lower back stress can be of great help. Some examples of common hinge based accessory movements would include barbell or dumbbell RDLs, conventional deadlift work for sumo pullers, good mornings, or 45 degree hyperextensions. But why has 45 degree hyperextensions become a go-to in comparison to these other options?

-Simply put, barbell RDLs have a high fatigue cost. Adding them into any program and loading them appropriately is going to be notably more fatiguing than performing even a close counterpart in dumbbell RDLs. But then with dumbbell RDLs, there is a differing strength curve versus 45 degree hyperextensions. Dumbbell RDLs are easier the closer you are to lockout, and if we are looking at what we lack within powerlifting, it is more so lockout based strength curve movements for the glutes and hamstrings. Both the squat and deadlift strength curves place the greatest stress on the lengthened position of the glutes and hamstrings, not the shortened position. So with dumbbell RDLs, we are double dipping into the same stress we see through most of the other powerlifting movements. 

-Conventional work for sumo pullers comes back to the same issue as barbell RDLs, in that they have a high fatigue cost. Likely to perform heavy conventional deadlifts additional to what you already do, you are going to have to pull workload from elsewhere to account for the recovery demands.

-Good mornings are a very technical movement and for those who have done them, know that there is not only a high learning curve, but greater demands on the low back. If the goal is to find a movement with low fatigue costs for the low back, good mornings are not going to be a great option in this specific scenario.

-A 45 degree hyper is not only a low learning curve movement, it also does a fantastic job of helping to target the glutes and hamstrings within a hinge based movement towards the shortened range of motion. In comparison to all the other hinge based work we do within powerlifting, it has a different targeted strength curve while having a very low fatigue cost. For sumo pullers where they need added hinge work, 45 degree hyperextensions can help to add targeted volume to the glutes and hamstring while not placing much strain on the low back. And for conventional pullers who may be inducing too much low back fatigue and not enough glute and hamstring workload, they can be able to add 45 degree hyperextensions to be more targeted in gaining that needed volume without the additional low back fatigue. 

3.) Weighted Dips: Bench press is arguably the movement within the big 3 that gains the biggest advantage from additional hypertrophy, especially for lifters who do not have a huge arch. Unlike with squat or deadlift, many times with upper body accessory work the movements are less targeted to fill some specific muscles workload gap, and more so just to get bigger overall. The common accessory options we see are incline or flat dumbbell press, machine based presses, pushups, or weighted dips. But why have weighted dips caught on and seen so much success?

-Incline or dumbbell bench press has 3 main limiting factors. First, barring you have access to specialized dumbbells, the ability to incremental load is difficult, especially for lifters who may not have the capabilities to work far past the 70-80lb. dumbbells. Second, the heavier you go the harder it is to get a full range of motion due to the size of the dumbbells. And third, there is a high demand on unilateral stability to hold the dumbbells, which is why we commonly cannot dumbbell press as much as we barbell press.

-I love machine chest press much for the same reason I love belt squats, they have a very low learning curve, can be “mindless” in their execution, and can be very easy to push quickly to higher RPEs for most lifters. There is 1 main issue with machine chest press variations though in comparison to weighted dips, and that is no one cares how much you can machine chest press. Now some might argue that is a silly reason for people to do weighted dips over a machine chest press. But when adherence and effort is a major issue with many lifters and their accessory work, finding movements that have high internal value based on loading and increased motivation to put forth effort are big factors in what is “optimal”.

-There are 2 main issues with push ups. First being that bodyweight push ups for the majority of powerlifters are going to be way too easy. Second, it is very difficult to do weighted push ups. If someone ever came out with a decent way to do weight pushups I would be all for them. I think they could possibly be my go-to accessory movement if that was the case, but for now that is not the case, so therefore I, and most coaches, rarely have people do weighted push ups. 

-Simply put, lifters tend to have higher motivation to progress weighted dips due to 1.) they subjectively look cool (no one is posting machine pressing on their stories), 2.) you can do very incremental loading on them, and 3.) you can load them pretty heavy. Within that too, when done with a slight forward lean they have a decently close relation to the decline pressing motion most benchers have that are elevating the ribcage and creating some form of an arch. It is very difficult to perform a decline dumbbell bench press in a similar manner, so the ease of setup for weighted dips tends to be a good alternative in that regard. And lastly, weighted dips do a really good job of targeting all aspects of pressing musculature in the pecs, anterior deltoids, and triceps. If just general hypertrophy of the pressing musculature is the goal, weighted dips do a really good job of killing 3 birds with 1 stone. 

 

Exercise Selection: Top Sets DO NOT Have To Be The Same As Back Downs

Ascending Sets, Squat Frequency, and Programming For Over Shooters – CLICK HERE

In honor of the upcoming Corrupted Summit, Marcellus Williams, Brad Couillard, and myself decided to team up for an Integrated Craft Systems collab. In my latest YouTube video, Marcellus, Brad, and I cover a wide range of topics from questions you all submitted. We cover the vast topic of how to program ascending sets and in what scenarios we find ourselves utilizing them. We cover what we see as the average competition lift frequency. And in more detail talk about how we think a 3rd squat day is overrated for most, and how to program a 3rd squat day if it is appropriate for an individual lifter. For the chronic over shooters, we detail programming and psychological techniques we use to help confront those issues, keep lifters in the pocket, and individualize training to best suit each lifters “reward system”. And lastly Brad, Marcellus, and I break down some of the more unexpected lessons we have learned in coaching, that as younger coaches we had prior misconceptions about. And if 1 video isn’t enough, Marcellus has the entire other half of the Q&A on his channel, so make sure to check both videos out and sign up for the Corrupted Summit while you can, as registration closes August 27th! Click the link in my bio to view the video and to find the registration link as well!

How To Plan Weekly Top Set Progression – CLICK HERE