Westside Barbell

Q. Leading up to a meet, how do you know how much weight to lift and for how many reps and sets each time you go to the gym? Does Louie Simmons calculate this for you before each workout, or do you just go by what you feel that day?

A. We follow the conjugate system, so every week we max once for lower body and once for upper and do speed work for each also. Because we max weekly, we always know where our strength levels are and never have to guess as to whether we are stronger or not. After all, the weights don’t lie.

The only difference in the final 21 days of training is that we run what is known as a Circa Max phase for the squat. During this phase, we use a combination of bands (about 44 percent of max squat) and straight weight. The first week, we work up to a max against the bands. The second week, we work up to about 80 percent of the previous week’s max for a double, and the third week, we deload. For example, when I squatted 1140 pounds in 2011 going into the contest, I did 690 pounds straight weight with 440 pounds in band tension. As you can see, the top weight is 1130 pounds, so that’s just under what I did at the meet. Amazingly, this formula works over and over for both males and females.