Starting with this, I’m not a competitive powerlifter, but I work out like one. I’ve competed as a strongman and am not ruling out doing a powerlifting meet one day. Westside is a great powerlifting program which can be adapted to anything strength related. I ran a version of it when I trained for strongman and right now am running a more “generic” version which I’m enjoying. Let me walk you through it and then we can talk about how you make this program work for you.

I’ll be doing a blog on each of the 4 days in the program over-viewing what I do and how. I start my week on Saturday with an ME Lower day, so that’s where we’ll start.

An example ME Lower Day is below:

Obviously I start with a max effort exercise. This should be one of a squat, deadlift or good morning. Personally, I don’t feel like I get a ton of carry over from good mornings so I hardly do them. Typically I do 2 squat movements to every 1 deadlift movement and just rotate it. So it would go squat, squat, deadlift, squat, squat, deadlift etc… Feel free to have fun with these. Bands, chains, weird bars and all that fun stuff can be on the menu. Rotating and trying new lifts is the best part about conjugate. The big difference in my ME day vs Westside is I’ll take 5% or so jumps working up to my 1RM where they will take 5-10lb jumps and get in more singles.

The reason I take larger jumps and therefore less singles is that I do back off work with my ME exercise and treat it as an assistance exercise too, so I get plenty of reps in. To do this I subtract a certain amount of weight from the bar. In 3 week blocks this is 25%, 20% and then 15%. Once I pull that weight off I hit an AMRAP, it should be understood that since you’re leaving the bands or chains on (if you used them) that your only pulling of that percentage of straight weight, not total weight, so if you pull off 25% but only get 6 reps don’t panic.

Let’s say I did 6 reps for this exercise, I would double that number (12) then try and get that total over 3 more sets. So my total work would be top single, 6RM on back off, then 3×4. If you feel like getting more work you can always strip the bands/chains after this and hit another AMRAP.

Next is my second assistance exercise, as it says in my chart I want this to resemble a squat or deadlift but not be a standard one. A good example would be a straight leg deadlift standing on a box, this would be a good assistance exercise as it directly helps your deadlift, specifically if your weak point is in your posterior chain. I would always keep these exercises targeted towards your weak points. I wouldn’t use block pulls if you were weak off the floor, or front squats if you were quad dominate. The easiest way to identify the exercises you should be doing is that they’re going to be the variations you suck at. Sorry, this is how it has to be… Struggle unilaterally, do heavy split squats. Weak off the floor, do deficit pulls. Make it easy on yourself by making it hard.

Once I’ve picked a variation I start with a weight I think I can do 8-10 reps with and hit AMRAP, I then take the number I hit, triple it and try and hit that total in 4 sets. So if I got 10 on set 1, back off would be something like 8, 8, 7, 7. The next week I’ll up the weight and repeat until I’ve done it for 3 weeks, then I’ll pick a new exercise.

After the assistance I move into accessories, you can do these in any order and I prefer to have one of each of the following 3 items:

• An Ab exercise
• Something that directly targets weakpoints, mobility can also be a weakpoint
• A burnout that usually builds my glutes/posterior

I do 5 sets of each of these with the exception of my burnout exercise. For my burnout I set a rep target (usually 100 reps) and if I can’t do it in 5 sets I’m done. I keep doing the same exercise/weight until I can get the 100 reps in 5 sets then I move on to a new movement or higher weight. For the weakpoint section I made the note about mobility, I’m 39 years old turning 40 with a desk job, if I don’t actively do things to make sure I move correctly, I don’t. If you’re middle aged and sit a lot, I’d suggest taking a similar approach to mine. For these exercises I choose things like banded clamshells to open my hips, touch downs from a box, single leg RDLs and X band walks. All targeted on hip mobility and glute activation.

For Abs Westside suggests standing abs and I do them too, but honestly, pick any variation you want here. If you are doing abs and doing compound lifts your core should build to where it needs to be to hit your lifts. If its lagging, I’d actually add in some beltless variations rather than take the route of adding more ab work. Remember that your core is more than just abs, the other glute work and heavy weights used should help you build it.

Some suggestions I’ll make if you want to run conjugate:

• If you’re a raw lifter my back off sets on the ME exercise works, if you’re a geared lifter I would not do this and would pick another assistance exercise
• Limited equipment isn’t a problem. Narrow stance, medium stance, wide stance, high bar, low bar give you 6 variations. For deadlifts anything you stand on creates a deficit hence another variation, be creative
• Weak points, weak points, weak points. Assistance and accessories should always be attacking these
• It helps to have a structure on ME days, but you can change these out at your leisure. If you have a friend that just maxed out a 4″ block pull and you want to match him, screw it, throw it in there. Don’t feel the need to be rigid with planning
• On the same subject, you can use these to auto regulate if you’re feeling worn down. You recover better from squats to a box, shorter ranges of motion and lifts with a higher % of accomodating resistance. If you’re feeling worn a squat with 40% band tension to a box is more recoverable that straight weight no box
• You can super set accessory work, I wouldn’t do it with the main movement or assistance, I’d rather have full concentration for these movements

Next in the series will be my ME Upper day, you’ll notice some themes that carry over, but I attack accessory work a little bit different. I should have that out at some point in the next few days.