I discovered the template for this program in an article called  written by Glenn Pendlay. It’s a great program for anybody who’s been lifting weights for some time and has already gotten pretty strong. The road to decent technique on the competition lifts is long and paved with light weights. This means that if you don’t pay more attention to pressing and especially the posterior chain than you’ll find in a full blown weightlifting program, you’ll end up weaker than when you started out, once you progress to using significant weights on the competition lifts. Glenn Pendlay writes that he also uses this program for his experienced lifters if they need a bit of time off from full-time lifting and it can also serve as a program for anybody wanting to do a bit of recreational weightlifting as a part of a general strength program. The Pendlay template sums up to this: This is a 4 day a week program, and the premise is very simple, as is usually the case with good programming. Two days aweek you practice the snatch and clean and jerk, and 2 days a week you squat and press. I’ve gone ahead and expanded this to a complete program you can print out and take with you to the gym. Weightlifting practice Days 1 and 3 are dedicated to practicing weightlifting followed by strengthening the posterior chain, the lats and some vanity work for the arms. You start out doing snatches since this is how it’s done in competitions plus because they aren’t as taxing as cleans and thus have less detrimental effect on the following lifts. Work your way up to a heavy single (1RM) on the competition lift of the day and up to a heavy triple (3RM) on the power version of the other. Consider it a max when the weight gets too heavy for you to make the lift using your best technique. For your skill to improve you need a certain amount of quality reps so I suggest you work your way up in small increments to get enough work done. Aim to get at least 5 singles at 80% of your 1RM for the competitionlifts and 5 triples for the power versions at 80% of the 3RM. Don’t get hung up trying to perfect your lifting technique in any single session. You’ll fail and end up spending way too much time on this part of the program. Get the weightlifting done in less than an hour including warm-up and take mental or physical notes on what you have to work on next time rather than stubbornly trying to fix it here and now. Getting good is going to take time so you might as well learn to embrace the process. Squat- and pressing strength On days 2 and 4 you’ll be working on increasing pressing- and squat strength and a bit of beach work has also managed to find it’s way in there. Big and strong arms never hurt anyone. The push press and squat both have great carry over to weightlifting so emphasis will be on keeping the numbers on these lifts going up. You’ll notice you’ll be pressing twice as much as you’re squatting but weightlifting and posterior chain work both involve the legs quite a lot andthe total volume evens out over the week. Curls are why Klokov is on “Dancing with the stars” and Akkayev isn’t On day 2 you’ll work your way up to a 5 rep max (5RM) on both push presses and squats. This weight in this set is used to determine the weight on the 5 work sets of 5 reps on day 4. Your 5RM should increase every time but don’t lose any sleep if it doesn’t for a week or two. If it gets real stubborn and won’t go up for three weeks I suggest you switch to doing push presses from behind the neck and/or front squats. Switch it back when the lifts stall again (It’s not a question of if but when). Accessory lifts Apart from the pullups you’ll be doing 5 sets in the accessory lifts which include warm up as well as work sets. Increase the weight after sets 1 and 2 and keep the weight constant on sets 3-5 in all movements unless the deadlift. Here you should ramp the weight on all sets and go for one heavy set of 5. For the work sets you should use challenging weights but never failor grind out reps. Try to steadily increase the weights over time all across the board. In the pullup you will do a total of 50 reps (adjust this to 40, 30 or 20 if pullups are really difficult for you for whatever reason) in as few sets as possible. Add weight if you can do more than 15 reps in the first set. I there are any of the lifts you don’t have the equipment for or just hate doing, feel free to replace them with something similar, it won’t make much difference anyway I just picked out the ones I like the best myself. Reverse hypers can be replaced by regular hyperextensions, glute-ham raises by leg curls, pullups by chinups etc. If you’re a masochist you should try replacing the hypers or glute-ham raises with the HTFU.dk patented . Curls and rows can be whatever variation you like but you might want to consider doing or Pendlay rows. Notes on lifts Snatches, C&J, pulls and push presses: Preferably you’ll have someone teaching you these, as a beginner you’ll ore or less needto be adjusted on every single repetition. If you don’t have access to a trainer, attend workshops etc. to learn how it’s done and rely on videotaping yourself and posting the videos to facebook or forums frequented by competent people. I highly recommend both   and . Presses, bench presses, deadlifts, squats, laterals and curls: Shouldn’t require any introduction. Snatch grip Romanian deadlifts Pendlay rows: Cuban press Reverse hypers: Glute-ham raise As I write in the introduction this program can work for transitioning in to weighlifting, as a program for anyone looking to incorporate weightlifting in to their lifting routine for whatever reason or for accomplished weightlifter in need of some time off from competitive lifting. If you’re planning to use the program as it was intended and make the transition to be a “real weightlifter” I suggest you keep doing the it until you’re snatching and cleaning above 50% and 65% of your squat 1RM after which point you can start looking forpure weightlifting programs. Feel free to comment if anything needs further explanation or if you have suggestion for tweaks etc.

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commentscomments Tommy says: Great article! How would you set it up if you only have time to go to the gym 2-3 days/week??? Have a nice day! /Tommy says: A 2-day template could look like this: D1: Snatch Snatch pull Squat Push press D2: Clean and jerk Clean pull Front squat Deadlift And a 3-day template like this: D1: Snatch Snatch pull Squat Push press D2: Clean Jerk Clean pull Press D3: Snatch Clean and jerk Front squat Rows Victor says: Hvilke % og reps skal der køres i dit 3-day template? Når du skriver “Clean” “Jerk”, mener du så at man først laver alle sine cleans, og derefter laver jerks fra blokke? …og hvornår skal jeg lave curls?!?!?!11 says: Curls laves selvfølgelig hver dag! 😉� Mht. procenter, så er det efter min mening bedre at lave vægtløftningen på gefühl og således ikke gå tungere, end man kan udføre løftene med god teknik. Volumen er alt efter form og her kan man igen lave en vurdering på løftenes kvalitet og stoppe når denne daler. Det er ikke nemt og/ellerappropriate to put some preset ratios, sets and reps of the kind. In the exercises I recommend 5 × 5 or 5 × 3 and to increase the weight from week to week (slowly). And so, first cleans and then jerks from blocks or squat rack. It is to concentrate on one thing at a time. Tommy says: Pretty bad not telling people som comments on your blog att you delete sina posts, isn't it? Tommy says: Forget att last comment..I'm blind. says: I did not delete anything, just had not gotten around two approving your post yet Tommy says: Big thanks! Would you imødekomme benchpress instead of the pressed for a more "super complete" template? Leave a Reply