Reactive Training Systems

Sounds good trying to work a TDY up there, I'll bring my gear with...

Chet 

Thank you... I have been very blessed.

Sheiko:
I like it in general. My problem is that it isn't adaptive to the lifter. And also, for guys who lift in gear, when do you put gear on? What do you base the percents off of? Those are questions that don't have answers.

On the other hand, Sheiko programs are very well put together. If you can answer the above questions and find the right program for you, then I think it's a pretty good choice. Of course, I feel like RTS would be a better choice, but every proud parent thinks his kid is the best, so take it for what it's worth. There are plusses and minuses to both.

God bless you!

-- Edited by Mike Tuchscherer at 21:30, 2008-11-14

Right, but it's the jump that gets me. Take me as an example. If I'm squatting and I do a set at 70%, this should be based off my raw max, so I load 507. Then I go 80% based off my geared max (of which I'll be conservative) which is 722. This is a 200 pound weight change.  Do you need the lighter (less than 70%) sets using gear?  Why or why not?  Also, do you wear looser suits so you can squat to depth?  If so what do you base these percents on?  What about as a suit stretches during a cycle?  Not trying to be a jerk -- but these are practical questions that I realistically don't have an answer to using a Sheiko construct.

There are ways around these problems if you modify the programming, but I just feel that Sheiko as it's written is better suited for raw lifting. One of the ways around it is RTS, which has also worked well with those who have implemented it (especially under supervision).

-- Edited by Mike Tuchscherer at 17:08, 2008-11-23

Wednesday GPP
Did a circuit of a bunch of random movements (squats, lunges, olys, ab work, pull-ups, pushups, militaries, etc, etc)
Worked up to a HR of 179, then rested to HR of 151. 5% increase in recovery time (2 sets)
Stretching
TheraCane

Thursday BDB
Reverse Band Bench +90c- 70x3, 75x3, 80x2, 85x1x2, 80x2
405x4 @6.5
515x3 @9
455x3 @8
485x2x2 @8 (25m)

Sumo DL- 70x3, 75x3, 80x2x4
535x3 @8
565x3 @8
605x4 @9
605x2x2 @8 (29m)

BTN Press- x8, 24-30 NL
135x8 @8
155x8 @9
155x8 @9 (12m)

Total Training Time: 89min

Good training today. The protocols were off a bit because I needed to get set-points for these exercises, but they will return to normal next week. I was surprised at how well sumo deadlifting went. BTN Press was very light, but I had a big emphasis on keeping correct motor patterns.

Friday SBD
Reverse Band Squat +180cc- 70x3, 75x3, 80x2x4
485x3 @8
515x3 @8
565x4 @8.5
575x2x2 @8 (31m)

Bench (thumb from smooth)- 70x3, 75x3, 80x2x4
355x3 @8
385x3 @8
405x2x2 @8
405x2x2 @7.5 (24m)

Seated Zercher GMs- x8, 24-30NL
225x8x3 @9

Total Training Time: 99min

This was a pretty good workout as well. All the squats were plenty deep (they should be when its the easiest part), but Im just glad Im sticking to my commitment to meet focus. Lifting was strong overall. The seated Zercher GMs were pretty rough! Its a difficult movement for the back, which I am doing in order to improve my strength potential in my spinal erectors.

Well, I guess Im going to be the guy to refute Sheiko.  I understand that there are plenty of ways to do this.  Sheiko is one.  I dont feel his suggestions would work well for me.  Here is my experience take it or leave it.
 
In most Sheiko programs, his bench shirt advice will put you in a shirt in the last 3 weeks before a contest.  I did that for years and had a horrible time being efficient in my shirt on meet day.  Why?  Because benching in a Katana is absolutely NOT like benching raw.  Using this logic, if Im a raw lifter, why cant I do close grip benching the whole cycle and just use my competition grip the last 3 weeks?  Because there is a ton of movement efficiency that you would miss out on and it takes longer than 3 weeks to develop it.  This is the same logic that many chastise Westside for!  Put your gear on close to meet time, struggle to learn enough to get your opener, and chalk it up to a missgroove.  The better way (in my experience and others) is to have consistent practice in your equipment.
 
He also suggests taking your shirt percents from a raw max.  This works if youre a raw lifter, but what someone like me?  My raw max is in the low 500s (say 525), so 90% of that lift is ~475.  This is 75% of my shirted max if we go only off of best contest result (of which I am capable of much more).  So we expect to improve my shirt bench with 75% and under yeah right!  Also, at the IPF level, Russians have notably poor bench presses compared to Americans, Swedes, others.  Its anecdotal, so take it for what its worth.  Training with 475 is not going to produce a 650 bench, much less a 700 regardless of the equipment used.
 
We also know from experience that raw and equipped lifts are not tied 1 for 1.  When one goes up, the other does not necessarily improve.  This is sometimes the case, but it is a direct result of TRAINING not an accident.
 
His implementation of squat suits is, IMO, better, but what about guys like me?  Im doing a raw meet, then a short time later, Im doing a geared meet.  I wouldnt have time to re-establish proficiency in the equipment (because, as stated, it takes more than a couple weeks to establish).
 
So I need to modify the programming, right?  Well, follow this logic with me.  What is Sheiko?  Is it the program as its written or after its modified?  What truly constitutes sheiko training?  If you consider post-modified programming = sheiko this is a slippery slope at which point my training, Westside, and HIT could all be considered extensively modified sheiko.  So Sheiko is the program as its written thats the only option.  Sheiko himself tells you not to do the programs like robots.  Modify it.  So Sheiko says to not do Sheiko programs.
He says to make them your own.  He says dont do Sheiko programs do YOUR program! (sound familiar?)  How do you do that?  Well, you can toil away for a long time with trial and error, meticulously record results, etc.  Or, you can do RTS (which is a system of principles rather than a program).  There is still some trial and error, recording results, etc, but using these principles allows you to adapt things more easily than before.  If you want to start with Sheiko, I dont care.  Thats fine.  But EVERYONE says to modify it.  RTS simply explains how youre supposed to do that.  Anybody else have any good ideas on teaching someone to train themselves?  If so, speak up, because they arent readily available.  Ive looked and looked and found nothing.  Thats why I wrote a book!  Because this information wasnt available before, it worked surprisingly well for everyone I coached, and I felt compelled to pay back the Powerlifting community for helping to educate me.
 
I apologize for getting frustrated.  It is incredibly bothersome to me that some people (nobody here, *of course*) will follow any program simply for the name thats on it and not for the programming thats in it.  If I was going to train as an exclusive raw lifter, I think you'd see my training look more like Sheiko, but thats because I know and understand (and agree with) the programming behind it.  Even so, I still wouldnt call it a modified Sheiko program because I would take the principles myself, know and understand them, and apply them to my particular issues.  It would just so happen that when I do that, I end up with a similar conclusion to Sheiko, but it would still be MY programming.
 
You know what, maybe "Sheiko" is right for 90% of lifters, but what if you arent one of the 90%?  What do you do then?  Or worse yet, what if you are just barely one of the 90%?  So you toil away for years making marginal progress thinking, maybe Im just not cut out for this sport.  You hesitate to make drastic changes because it's working.  IT IS NOT WORKING IF IT ISNT OPTIMAL!  How do you know if its optimal?  Good question, but thats the question you should be asking and searching to answer not just taking for granted that you're probably one to the 90% and listening to programming advice for the name that gave it out.

-- Edited by Mike Tuchscherer at 20:55, 2008-11-24

Scott,

I understand completely the need to listen to ones body. In fact, I wrote a book about it. And I didnt just say listen to your body. I gave specific, yet adaptable instructions on how to do that. My debate isnt on whether the foundational principles of Sheiko are sound Im convinced they are. My problem comes with people and their rote application of written programming. It sounds like you have learned to adapt programming to fit your needs, so I would say that you arent even doing Sheiko youre doing Scott, which is a much more powerful method of programming.

Let me ask you this can you bench more in a tight shirt than you can in a loose shirt? The answer is most likely yes (or there is something wrong). So, this fact would necessitate that you bench LESS in looser equipment, and still less raw. So, if the program calls for 80%... you say to use a looser shirt, yet base it off a contest maximum. That means youre training at greater than 80%. What percentage are you training at (relative to the lift youre actually performing a loose shirt bench)? There are ways to tell, but the ONLY ways Ive found to tell are 1) use a tendo unit (expensive), 2) keep current maxes in all lifts in all equipment combinations (impractical) or 3) use a customized Rep-RPE table. These all have limitations, but its better than being blind. And even at that, Im improving on these as we speak.

I disagree with you wholeheartedly that changing technique due to gear will cause you to spin your wheels. Who gets the most carryover out of equipment? Double ply lifters. Their raw lifts are vastly different technique-wise than their raw technique. Why? Because the equipment is very strong and competing equipped is NOT (I repeat NOT) purely about biomechanical efficiency, but rather an optimal combination of biomechanical AND technological efficiency. I dont like it that way, but this is the nature of competing with gear. To ignore the change in technique required by equipment is to ignore a fundamental test of the sport. It would be like trying to run the 100m without accelerating as fast as possible. And in truth, what is recommended (doing the majority of work raw) when competing equipped is like doing an assistance exercise the entire cycle, only to practice the contest movement the last few weeks before the meet.

So Sheiko is precise about volume and intensity so is my programming. We track it and we even go a step further and analyze it during the cycle to make determinations on how we are responding to the training so we can try to optimize it. When its written weeks in advance, it isnt as responsive. And the idea of a preparatory cycle of high volume that generates high stress, followed by a competition cycle of lower volume and higher stress to supercompensate thats not a trademark Sheiko move. Its called Concentrated Loading (and believe it or not it is absolutely NOT optimal for all athletes). To the best of my knowledge, it was developed by Dr Yuri Verkoshanski in the former Soviet Union. Many, many coaches have used it (and believe it or not improved upon it) for many different sports. Its a foundational periodization method and you dont have to do sheiko to get the benefits of this methodology.

It may be possible to develop a lift with 70-80% weights wait a second, lets pause. Have you read my training log? It's obvious that I train in this range all the time (thus believing in it's efficacy), however I do a couple of important things you did not mention. 1) I couple that with intelligent programming in other intensity ranges as well so I can reap the benefits from many facets of training and 2) I train at 70-80% OF THE LIFT I AM TRYING TO TRAIN. You said yourself that training in the 90%+ range is important. Well, if I did a written Sheiko program and based the whole thing off my raw bench max, Id never go above 80%. Im a freakin MSIC lifter! I need some heavier loads! Its preposterous to say I could develop a 650-700 pound bench while never training above 500.

Sheiko can be about adaptation thats fine. I said I like Sheiko as a base-program, but EVERYONE says to modify it according to your needs. So, if someone came up to you and said, How do I modify this? What would you tell them? If you have a good answer, let me know, because I searched high and low and never found anything better than try it and see if it works for you (which is a CRAPPY response). So, I came up with something that works (and works well). I wrote a book about it! Im not against Sheiko any more than Im against Westside or any other style of programming. I just believe (and believe firmly) that they must be adapted to fit the needs of the lifter and the best way Ive found of doing that is RTS.

Scott, dont feel like Im being rude. As I said before, I get frustrated when people dogmatically compare a written base program with a set of programming principles (which may or may not even be your intention). I'm sorry if it comes off harsh, but I think it illustrates my thoughts well.

-- Edited by Mike Tuchscherer at 12:02, 2008-11-26

This is my first post on this forum but I just have to say that this is the first time ever that I've read something about this very subject that is... absolutely correct. I know I'm using "correct" in a different way here but you've really caught every aspect.

I've trained the Sheiko CMS 4-week P-cycle a lot of times. My last total was 780kg in the 125kg class (just for reference). What I've done is that I've iteratively used my previous cycle as a reference point for my next with regards to choice of squat and bench exercise(s). I also put about 7-10% higher input numbers in it to start with in order to get better working weights. For shirt training I generally do the suggested 6x3 @ 80% on monday using my competition shirt to a 9cm board and then do singles starting at 9cm, then 4.5cm and then chest for the friday bench session. I consider wednesday a recovery benchsession. All second-time bouts of benchpress I tend to do with feet up and a slow decent in order to increase time under tension.

Squats tend to be either first olympic/highbar+narrow stance squats and then paused competition style squats (if I'm far away from competition) or I just keep two different maxes. With 80% I use semi-tight wraps, with 85% I wrap almost competition tight. Then I just tough it out.

What I mean by all this is that I've been through the cycles so many times so I know what results I can expect across the board and try to address my immediate weak points (issues with style) by recording on film and relying on one (or two) very good lifter that I trust and long term weak points by for instance opting for highbar narrow stance squats for more, well, muscle mass. Plus, that style is still very close to my equipped competition squat.

I am not sure I'm making as much sense as I want to. I'll try to be more precise. You assess each set and give it an RPE rating and, I gather, you have goals for each workout, for each week (in some sort of undulation/pattern), block and so on. I know that as I gather/collect fatigue over the sessions within a week but more importantly across weeks in a block, the same "feats" are going to be harder and harder up until a magical point where they suddenly and magically just become lighter. I still don't know what's causing that effect which is the main reason why I continue using the same overall template with regards to session templates (SBS, BSB, etc) and volume wave pattern.

This ties in a little bit with what SWaits says about using one and the same max and one and the same intensity (as far as it's value goes [80%]) but still switching up the equipment as the weight increases. I just don't get caught up in that being 80% intensity or not. That number is just a means to an end. A way to produce the load on the bar for that particular set.


Keep up the good work on this forum. It's very very appreciated. To me, this is about the only source online that has actual and useful information. The other place is a swedish forum called kolozzeum that actually houses most of the swedish powerlifting elite among others.