Current Training Plan – Condensed Conjugate

I’ve always been very interested in the programming structure popularized by Louie Simmons and Westside Barbell. It’s often referred to as the Westside Method, or the Conjugate Method, or even concurrent training. Regardless of the name that you use, I’ve always seen it as a fairly ideal system for training GPP for athletes, and while it’s been primarily popularized by powerlifters, I actually do think it’s an ideal system for that.

I’m no authority on training, in general, but this is just my opinion.

That said, my goals right now are not powerlifting-centric. I’m trying to become better conditioned, and stronger, overall. I’ve had quite a few layoffs from training over the past couple of years, and it’s been a challenge (understatement of the year) to string together any number of training days to actually say I’ve been following any kind of plan.

What I settled on, is that I really want to train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu more frequently. I’d like to be getting at least 3 days of training on the mats per week. That meant that I had to sacrifice some weight lifting time, something that I hadn’t been willing to compromise on in the past.

Coming back to the Conjugate Method, I’ve tried to implement it into my programming in the past with a mixed bag of results, but I feel like I’ve never spent long enough with it to really properly vet it. The general structure of the program is organized around a 4 day macrocycle, with 2 days devoted to lower body training and 2 days to upper body training. Those 2 days are split between the Maximal Effort Method (ME) and the Dynamic Effort Method (DE). Basically, you’re devoting one day to lifting heavy and the other to lifting fast.

What didn’t work for me was the 7-day macrocycle. I never had 4 day training days available every week. I tried pushing this out to a 10-day macrocycle, so that I was lifting 3 days per calendar week, but I didn’t devote sufficient time to this, plus I started reading more about hybrid training and consolidation of stressors and figured that the 10-day split didn’t work with my other athletic endeavors.

This brought me to this Condensed Conjugate model, again, something I’ve tried in the past, but never really put enough time into to properly vet it. I recently watched a video by strength coach named Phil Daru, where he discusses his method of training his fighters which is exactly this, and he gave it the name.

Basically, I’m looking at lifting 2 days per week, this is what I can do guaranteed every week:

Day 1 – ME Lower and DE Upper

Day 2 – DE Lower and ME Upper

Because I don’t have accurate maxes for squat and bench press, I’m going based on feel and bar speed on the dynamic days. You can see my first 2 weeks, thus far, in my Training Log to get an idea of how I’ve been structuring these workouts with specifics, but here’s a general guide:

For the assistance work, I picked mostly body weight type work that would help for hypertrophy and metabolic stress. I went with upper body assistance work on Day 1 where I was doing DE Upper, and then lower body assistance on Day 2 where I was doing DE Lower.

Ideally, I’m going to stick with the assistance movements for 6 weeks, or 2 total macrocycles.

Dynamic working weights were chosen based on bar speed and feel for the first week. On week 2, I added 10lbs to the upper dynamice and added 20lbs to the lower dynamic. If bar speed stays decent on week 2, I’ll add another equal increment for week 3, and then decide how to progress from there for the next 3 week wave. Probably increase volume with the same weight so it’s more of a conditioning block.

Anyway, here’s the basic structure, let me know if you have any questions!