Ed Coan squat workout.

[Sergeant]

In PLUSA Ed Coan gave a workout which is just simply squatting 2 times a week with some leg extensions and leg curls thrown in. Has anyone tried this workout with good results? Did he leave something out? I'm I correct to assume during these weeks no deadlifts or max effort excersizes are done? It just seems to good to be true.

 

[brianmincher]

That is because it is too good to be true. What you are reading in PLUSA in that article is progressive overload training. It is the traditional way to powerlift. You basically just do the squat, bench and deadlift, with a few accessory exercises, and progressively (hence the name) go up in weight and down in reps till you get to the meet. After the meet, you start all over, hopefully at a little bit higher number than you started the previous cycle.

It works for some people, well, strike that, it works for everyone up to a point. If you are a stud, like Ed Coan, it may work for years and years. But even some elite lifters, like Dave Tate, for example could not continue to gain on progressive overload. Dave tore both pecs, messed up his back, and has a myriad of other problems now, that he will swear are from years of progressive overload, before he learned about conjugate training.

Progressive overload is simpler, and if you had a thousand people to train looking for just a few champions, it would be the method to use, because a few people out of that bunch are going to shine no matter what, but for those mortals among us, in my humble opinion, the conjugate method of training is far superior. I know for sure it is superior in my case. I trained for years alternating between a bodybuilding routine, to HIT, to static contraction training, to pyramids, all in an effort to get stronger, and all with very little progress. In the 8 months since I took up Westside training, I have made far and away the biggest gains in my life in both muscle size as well as strength.

B

 

[bigokie]

Progressive crap

I used to use a workout very similar to this. Where I squatted twice a week, once maxing for reps of 5 and the other day using 70% for the same reps. It all worked good until one day using 455 I felt a terrible pain in my back. It ended up being a herniated disk and they suck! Progressive overloading will work to a point, this point will be different for everyone. After this point you will get hurt. Ed Coan is a freak and has yet to reach his max on this. I believe he will as will (almost) everyone else.