Anyone use the conjugate training method?

Pros: 1. you get very familiar with heavy weight. 2. According to some people, this gets you competition ready. 3. Another pro is you really focus hard on weaknesses. That is one of the primary objectives. Louie used to say, “you’re only as strong as your weakest link.” 4. Concurrent training is lots of fun. There is a lot of variety and everyday is different. So, if you get bored easily, this is a good way to train.

Comment: Westside and Conjugate are different. Westside is a gym owned by Louie Simmons. If you’re not training at Westside under Louie it’s not Westside.

I like the term ‘Concurrent Training’ over conjugate or Westside style.

Cons: 1. It is my belief that sub max training is far superior. We now have tons of science to back that up. 2. I’m not convinced that never squatting traditional squat is superior, as an example. 3. The Bulgarians and Russians have proved that practice makes perfect. Louie was a special kind of genius and was a masterful coach. Without him, his unconventional style is Impossible to duplicate. 4. There are people who say that concurrent training is only for suits and gear. Yes. I have read a lot of why Louie designed some of the training the way he did, and it was focused on the suits. If you think about squatting in a suit, at the bottom, you have a lot of support and help from the suit, so getting out of the hole was the easy part. The hard part was mid way up. Thus, bands and chains were born. The heaviest part of the lift with bands and chains is mid way to full stance in a squat. That’s where Louie focused to strengthen his athletes.

Andy Baker has a program he writes weekly and emails out. I think it’s around $27 per month. This will get you started.

Westside also has a weekly subscription that I think is around $10 per month.

Elite FTS has a 18-Week program Dave Tate designed for free on the Elite FTS site. Sorry, I don’t have the link for it. But, it’s out there. It’s very simple but will give you a solid starting point.

You can follow these for a while until you get the hang of it. But, true concurrent training is understanding your weaknesses and exploiting them. So, eventually, you’d have to go on your own once you had a good understanding of that.

For me, I feel like I would need good quality coaching, not a template. And I don’t think I would be able to wing it. I have had great success on sub max training, so I stick with that.

As an alternative, both Brian Alsruhe and Ben Pollack flirt with concurrent training. For instance, I’m doing a program now from Brian that is called Next Level Linear Progression. I don’t know why it’s called that because it’s not a linear program. But, it has 4 block that are 4 weeks. Each week, you work up to an intensity, yesterday, I worked up to an 8RM on squat, as an example. Each block increases in intensity, until the last block, you’re working up to 1RM’s. It’s similar to concurrent training, but has a lot of activity and short rest periods, so it’s not really concurrent. But, it’s challenging as hell. One downside is you have to watch his video and put together your own program based on his theory of how it works. So, it takes some time to figure it out. If anyone is interested, I created a spreadsheet and I can send it to you.

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ok

thanks for the input.

I do have a safety squat bar, bands, chains, a multi grip bench press bar (some call it a football bar), along with a trap bar and squat rack.

my weakness on the 3 powerlifts are still at the bottom of the squat bench press, and the initial pull off the floor for the deadlift

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others hit alot of the pros, cans are if you go strictly conjugate you may lose some quad size as you will be more post chain focused

can be hard on the body too if you are not rotating the lifts properly

also requires good bit of equipment to truely rotate

other con for young athletes, you are not setting records all the time and young athletes need lots of practice in the lifts to become neurologically proficient. thats why i beleive in linear progression to start then moving to 531 style weekly/monthly progression then to conjugate


FTR for athletics, i beleive conugate is the best way. Defranco has lots and lots of stuff on it. his ws4sb is prolly the best template for training athletes once the base has been established.


i have read all of the westside books and have done all of the seminars. I am not certified but about as close as you can get without taking the course


if you are a powerlifter i encourage you to read more on the methods.

as far as your weaknesses you have listed

paused squats, pin squats, box squats, reverse band or chain squats

same with bench

same with deads, add deficiet pulls too

wow thanks!!

since im starting to compete in bjj 2-3 times a year, and given the unpredictability in changes of position during a 5-6 minute match and changing in pacing, i figured the conjugate method would be the best way to improve my overall strength for it

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I’ve looked into it but it’s not for me. For one, I don’t want to buy a shite ton of bands and chains. Also, I’m going off memory, but I think Louie made his lifters do a couple years of roids and bodybuilding work before starting conjugate. I think that was just his gym though. There’s a west side for skinny bastards program that I’ve seen mentioned but I’m not sure what’s involved.

In short, expensive and you’ll see as good results from other programs. We are all PPSA fanboys around here, there’s a program that will give you the results you want

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i love ppsa but its much more about just enjoying simple strength training and strength training for looks than conjugate.

dont get me wrong, conjugate can be used for bodybuilding or anything but conjugate is the way to go for athletics.

much more velocity based, much better for working weaknesses and much better for the chaotic schedule of an athelte.

We don’t get conjugate visits at my gym