How to Create a Powerlifting/Powerbuilding Program
This blog is a continuation from our first half of the video posted on YouTube here:
If you are just seeing this video for the first time ensure to watch the first half over on youtube!
Why should you listen to me?
I have been coaching and creating powerlifting and powerbuilding programs since 2014. Almost a decade into coaching and well over a decade of training and continual education from the best mentors and resources in the lifting zeitgeist. I have coached several lifters to USAPL nationals and IPF worlds (drug tested) and have had multiple record holding lifters (untested and tested divisions). However more importantly programming was a special love of mine when I first was learning how to lift. I became obsessed with creating programs and collecting the best modalities of periodization, programming, exercise theory and everything else that went into designing the best possible program! Around 2016 I found a couple inspirations for my programming style, Eric Bodhorn (TSA) and Mike Zuordos (some bald guy who kinda knows some stuff) jk he is a genius exercise scientist who also lifts which is a rarity in the field. Both of them influenced me to try a DUP style program. I quickly learned to love this form of periodization which stands for daily undulating periodization. It is simply a fancy way of saying that your training microcycle (training split) is broken up into multiple adaptations you aim to train within a singular week of training. Instead of basic periodization models which use linear progressions through hypertrophy phases, work capacity/preparatory phases, strength phases and peaking phases DUP keeps some work of each in year around! After trying a submax style (meaning less focus on heavy lifts but more focus on volume and technique) at the advice of Eric Bodhorn I fell in love with this style of programming! Over the years I found things to work better than what I originally learned from these two however that isn’t to say my style is the best. There are many ways to create successful programs. I simply have found what works for myself and my athletes. If this style resonates give it a try!
Thoughts I ran out of time for in the video
It is worth noting I covered nearly everything I wanted to cover except three greater points.
- The strength days can usually range from sets of 1-5 reps on the primary lifts but rarely do I go lighter than that. Sometimes I may program something like heavy singles with back down 10s lol but this is during preparatory phases and high volume accumulation. Generally strength days should fall in the 1-5ish rep range but there are no rules to this. As long as you get some high intensity exposure you are good to go and can be more flexible on backdowns.
- Our avatar deals with bench pausing issues and I totally forgot to mention I would coach this but in a really simple way. So instead of fancy long pause work which can actually benefit too, I would simply make my lifter get audible press commands from training partners every heavy bench day. If he trained at home in the gym I would have him use a metronome to time pauses on the chest.
- You can use variations on the heavy day. Something I get asked alot is about exercise variants of the big 3. Pause squats, pause deadlifts, close grip bench etc. It is COMPLETELY ok to use variants on a primary day and I do this semi often. If a lifter struggles with depth and comfort in the hole of a squat heavy pause squats with a 2 sec pause (actual 2 sec) are one of the best remedies and preps the body far better than trying to force a comp squat deeper when they have bad mobility or improper patterns ingrained. Exercise variants are tools! Always progress exercise specificity linear (except in advanced athletes sometimes) where as you get closer to peaking you use more specific movement! So for instance if you start a cycle on a secondary day using close grip larsen, block 2 can be larsen and block 3 can be comp bench! This allows specificity to progress as you near a test day or meet!
If you guys are interested in more videos like this PLEASE let me know. COMMENT! On youtube. I won’t know if you guys liked this unless you say something! I’ll catch you guys in the next video!