Westside for Raw Lifters

I've had it. I can't take it any more. I've sat back for months and kept my mouth shut while others have argued back and forth and over it. But no more. Today, I will throw my hat in the arena and break it down for all  those out there who aren't sure who or what to believe. No, I am not talking about politics, religion, or economics. I'm talking about the Westside system. More specifically, I'm talking about the Westside system for RAW lifters. Does it work? Can you see gains from it, or are you better off doing Kaz's bench program from 1978 in order to get ready for your next meet?

Now, before we go any deeper here, let us first address what the Westside system actually is:

1. The Maximum Effort Method: Lift heavy weights to get strong.
2. The Dynamic Effort Method: Lift sub-maximal weights explosively for low reps to get, well, explosive.
3. The Repetition Effort Method: Lift sub-maximal weights for high reps in order to build muscle.

For all of you out there who are busy doing Sheiko for the two-hundredth time, and burning an effigy of a monolift in your parent's basement, notice that nowhere in those three methods are there any exercises, technical cues, or for that matter, programming advice listed. Those are merely the three methods used by Louie (and many others) to build a strong, muscular, and explosive athlete. These three methods can be manipulated in an infinite amount of ways in order for anyone to achieve the results he or she desires.

So, now that we have gotten that out of the way, let me begin to address some of the individual criticisms I have heard.

The first, and perhaps the most idiotic, would be that the exercises supposedly used by advocates of the Westside system do not work for raw lifters. These exercises include: 3-board presses, 4-board presses, rocking box squats, anything done with accommodating resistance, and pretty much anything that is not virtually identical to the competition lifts. Let us first break down exactly what this means so that we can pick it apart appropriately. What these people are essentially saying is that because these exercises didn't work for them (or anyone they know), they will not work for anyone else. By that logic, we can assume that the best way to coach anyone is to provide all of humanity with the same program...because each individual clearly does not have individual goals, needs, sticking points, and even health problems. Please mull that over before we continue...

Done thinking about it? Good. Hopefully you have come to the conclusion that the above statement is totally retarded and that yes, individual lifters (and especially advanced lifters) will have their own weaknesses that must be addressed. Allow me to use myself as an example. As a man with a classic deadlifter's build, and the owner of a 600+ pound deadlift, I have a very muscular upper back. These upper back muscles allow me to move any weight off my chest very explosively, but because I have the arms of Yao Ming, I typically stall at lockout.

So how have I addressed this problem and continued to move my bench forward? You guessed it: Using 3- and 4-board presses as either max effort or supplementary exercises. Now, if you are weak off your chest, would these exercises be best for you? Of course not! Speaking from experience yet again, I can say that I miss off the floor when I deadlift. So, will using rack pulls from a high position or heavy amounts of accommodating resistance on my deadlift help me? No! I have been hammering away at my sticking points with deficit and block pulls from various heights.

Part of the challenge with programming and utilizing Louie's system is that you must figure out your own weak points. From there, you must pick the exercises that work best for you. A perfect example of this is a year-old video on YouTube of AJ Roberts talking about how he doesn't do reverse band deadlifts because they do not work for him. You need to pick the exercises that work for you and help you work past your sticking points.

The next point I have heard is that the technical cues often given by Louie regarding the powerlifts are not correct. Many will argue that his cues of getting a big arch and keeping the elbows tucked on the bench press are not effective for raw benchers. Others have said that raw squatters should use a more quad-dominant style of squatting, with a closer stance and a more upright torso. This is, of course, the complete opposite of the Westside-style squat in which the lifter sits back into the squat and primarily utilizes the posterior chain. At this point, you are probably expecting me to shred anyone who opposes the “Westside” style of squatting or benching (if there even really is one) to pieces. However, I will admit that these points are certainly valid.

Raw lifting, unlike equipped lifting, will require a greater degree of individuality in each person's technique, as the lifter will have no equipment guiding him into the groove where he is strongest. Don't believe me? Go and buy a slingshot or the metal catapault, or maybe just wrap a shitload of rubber bands between your upper arms to mimic those two pieces of equipment. Once your choice piece of equipment is on, try to lower the bar to your chest with your elbows flared. Keep trying. That's right—you can't do it. Your next assignment is to try on a pair of briefs and attempt to perform a close stance, Olympic-style squat. What? You can't get down into the hole? You had to force your butt back and your knees out to get down?

My point here is that the technical cues that are typically associated with Westside are geared towards equipped lifters. Louie has been quite frank in saying that the vast majority of the lifters he trains wear gear. So naturally he will provide the cues that best apply to his lifters. This does not mean, however, that the rest of the system does not work for you. Throwing out the Westside system based on the fact that your bench, squat, or deadlift look different than what Louie (or  anyone else who preaches the conjugate system) advocates is akin to throwing out an entire regular pizza just because one slice has pepperoni on it...It's insanity. Remember that as a raw lifter, you will not have something pulling you or the bar into a groove. It will be up to you to figure out what works best for your body type.

Now, one of the last things I have heard about the conjugate system is that the dynamic effort method, or speed work, is essentially bullshit. Some of my fellow lifters have said that they get nothing out of speed work. Many also claim that speed work is not effective unless there is some degree of accommodating resistance on the bar—since you are not truly accelerating the weight throughout the exercise's full range of motion if the weight does not increase as you get better leverage. In turn, since many raw lifters believe that accommodating resistance added to any barbell movement does not help them, they often end up throwing this out, too. However, this is a huge mistake. One of the worst things you can do while handling heavy weight is to get get lazy and slow down at any point. Teaching yourself to accelerate throughout the movement with the use of bands and chains will help you crush weights in the gym and on the platform. While the strength curve of each movement will be different for raw lifters than it is for equipped lifters (as I stated before), raw lifters with particularly long levers or high-end sticking points will greatly benefit from performing dynamic effort work with accommodating resistance.

On the topic of speed work, there is another camp that essentially disavows its use altogether, regardless of whether or not bands or chains are used. There are people out there who believe that speed work simply does not work for increasing the rate of force development at all. While the minutia of this argument could be debated forever, all I will say here is that one must train for how they want to perform. If you want to get strong, you need to train heavy. If you want to get big, you must perform muscle-building exercises for reps. And if you want to be fast...you must train fast! Are you seeing a connection here? Do sprinters run intervals slowly? Do high jumpers jump in slow motion? Can you squat, bench, or deadlift at 100% of your 1RM if you try to do it slowly? Of course not! The fact of the matter is that you must train for explosiveness if you wish to be explosive. In fact, even Joe Defranco, the man who is perhaps the expert on making football players (and athletes of all kinds) strong and explosive, uses dynamic effort box squat and bench press variations (in addition to jumps and throws) in order to make his athletes as fast as possible. At Gaglione Strength, we train a huge amount of wrestlers, and they perform many of these same exercises using many of the same methods. Are they only capable of performing in a multi-ply squat suit? No, they destroy their competition on the mat by being bigger, faster, and stronger than their opponents.

So, now that you have heard my argument regarding the benefits of the Westside system for raw lifters, it's time for you to see some proof. If you're like me (a real meat head), you need to know that the person you are listening to is Not an internet warrior who hides behind a keyboard. Instead, he actually gets under the bar and lives it. After all, I can argue all of the science and common sense I want to, but if I don't show your proof, I certainly cannot expect you to listen to me. Therefore, in order to put my feet to the fire, I will talk about myself. When I joined Gaglione Strength as an intern back in the fall of 2011, my best lifts were a 270-pound bench press (touch and go), a 350-pound squat, and a 500-pound deadlift. (At 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds). Prior to linking with John Gaglione, I had only utilized programs that followed a linear progression. However, immediately upon joining the team, John wrote me a Westside-style program, and I have been using the conjugate method ever since. Fast forward less than two years...and I have already seen dramatic improvement: a 335-pound bench press (paused), a 515-pound squat, and a 630-pound deadlift. I've also gained some muscle and am now tipping the scales at close to 245 pounds.

Deadlift PRs are abound for anyone who uses the Westside system effectively

Since I can already hear critics yelling things like, “beginner gains!” or “genetics!” I'll move on to some of the other members of our gym. At Gaglione Strength, we have a powerlifting team consisting almost entirely of raw lifters. Some of my training partners have seen even better results than I have in a much shorter period of time. After being stuck at a 440-pound bench press for years, one of my training partners crushed a 490-pound bench in a full meet after just 18 weeks of Westside-style training.

Another member of our crew had a PR squat of 500 pounds, and in the same time period he put literally 100 pounds on his squat—all while posting a qualifying total for Raw Unity in what was his very first meet. Yet another friend of mine put 25 pounds on his deadlift (going from 700 to 725 pounds) without even deadlifting. He managed this simply by the style of box squatting and accessory work we had him utilize—it strengthened his posterior chain and allowed him to push past his sticking point.