Your strength and fitness programming in 2024

This is his most recent pure bodybuilding programme?

I bought that, as I thought it was good value if you bought it in pre-sale, and got all the splits.

Haven't run it, however. I just can't commit to such a high frequency split. Even 4 days is pushing it for me at the moment.

Well, I did the first day of WS4SB 3.5 on Saturday, but I can see the first week's programming, so I'll briefly outline the similarities/differences between this and WS4SB 3.

• There is one exercise prescription, it's not a template like WS4SB 3 where you'd select your exercises. It's assumed you can and will sub exercises if you need to, but they prescribe just one exercise in the programming. So, for example, the max effort upper body compound lift is a floor press. This is likely because the previous 12 weeks have been barbell flat benching. Probably giving the shoulders a break.
• It's still laid out ME upper, DE lower, Repetition upper, ME lower
• Reverse workout ordering is used, which is very common in DeFranco's programming now. Again, theoretically with the goal of being more joint friendly. To take the example of the ME upper day, DeFranco programmes an active mobility warm up (Rotator cuff, chest, shoulders tricep focus) and then he has a row and rear delt superset before the max effort floor presses. So you've got a big back pump before you approach the heavy pressing. The heavy pressing is up to 6RM for the day.
• There's otherwise a lot of the same accessories as earlier WS4SB... You have your two sets of max effort DB bench, 15-20 rep range, after the floor pressing, there's shrugs, curls etc.
• The dynamic lower day looks like it used to, as does the repetition day, for the most part, although again you've got back and rear delts before the high volume pressing on repetition day.
• ME lower day is also reverse ordered, and you'll do unilateral work and posterior chain work before doing your deadlifts as main ME lower movement.
• What's totally "new", aside from the reverse ordering, is that there's dynamic jumping work on ME lower day after the warm-up, as well as on the DE lower day. On DE lower day there's also some Achilles/foot strengthening small agility jump work before the main dynamic box jumps.

All in all, it's very like earlier WS4SB but the main change is the reverse ordering.

That may or may not feel better on your joints. It does affect the quality of your ME work, but again here DeFranco says if you persist with it and your work capacity improves it's no bad thing.

He has probably also decided that DE lower remains important even for non athletes and older folks. In the past he ditched that for the "washed up meathead" template, if you weren't an athlete anymore, but now he says that we lose power generation so quickly as we age, that he thinks everyone should be doing some power training in their programming, in the warm-ups if not on a dedicated day.

Not sure one way or the other, but all I'll say is my jumping has come on leaps and bounds the past year, excuse the pun. When I started it again, I realised "wow, I really haven't jumped higher than waist height in about ten years". It did make me have to re-learn that ability to commit.

I agree with Mellor's post in general, but - kind of playing devil's advocate here - there are times when even with perfect form, something might aggravate you if the damage is already done.

For better or worse, if you have a low back or SI joint issue, it might be that something like pulling off the ground, conventional deadlift, is going to feel worse than a modification like pulling it off blocks, or doing a rack pull, trap bar deadlift with handles up, or maybe even pulling sumo. The combination of pulling from a higher position, and potentially a more upright back position certainly feels better on my SI joint.

I rotate conventional pulls off the ground in and out of my training these days. I just did 12 weeks of them, but now I can feel it's time for a break. I don't think, even with perfect form, it's something I need to keep in my training year round.

I have also been doing blocks of things like paused deadlifts and eccentric focus deadlifts. They both need very good form to do safely/well, but they do also allow you to use less weight on the bar, and I find that more forgiving.

I think the evidence is relatively clear that if you were healthy, you'd be better off not using training intensifiers like this, straight sets would be better overall. But basically I could do several weeks deadlifting this way, and progressively overload, and the weight on the bar will be modest and I feel less beaten up. If I just did straight reps and pushed the weight for the duration, then as you say, it feels like there comes a certain number where I will have symptoms flare up in following days.

I still follow DeFranco's stuff, and basically the Limber 11 is still fine, but I think he'd say that there's a point where might want to consider individualising it, and varying it up a bit, if you've been repeating the same movements for a very long time. He has some current material on his IG that you could look at.

I'm not the biggest mobility guy in the world, but I do find it beneficial to do rear delt stuff in my warm-ups, and shoulder mobility stuff like wall slides or light behind the neck presses.

Block 2 for WS4SB 3.5 is the same layout as Block 1, but the exercise selection changed.

So the max effort movement has gone from floor press to bench press, and for the accessory work everything is still laid out the same in terms of body part, but the exercise changed. Different single leg variations, different curl variations and so on.

With a bit of time to digest the way this has panned out, my thoughts:-

PROS

The reverse ordering is probably not a bad idea for anyone whose shoulders gives them issues when benching. I like it less on the lower body days, I'd rather pull deadlifts first rather than after several sets of unilateral exercises that I've tried to push weight selection on.

CONS

I feel like DeFranco - in all of the recent programs - has probably strayed too far into the realm of choosing highly unstable movements and corrective exercises at the expense of remembering that a program must also contain stable, easy to progressively overload, "meat and potato" movements.

I'm conscious this is a slightly unfair criticism because a lot of people end up doing DeFranco programming because they have jacked up shoulders, or whatever, and he's very good at bringing people back to normal function.

With regard to what's between the 12 week programs… Nothing, really. There have been maybe 2 occasions where there was a "transition program" but where there's been something like that, it's rarely a deload, in fact they're usually higher volume.

The 12 week programs taper to a testing week of some kind, but generally they're pretty auto regulated in terms of what you're doing. You'll execute a "heaviest set for the day" any given workout, on a main lift, but that's not the same as having a target you must hit.

Some of the 12 week programs are more taxing than others, there are some that were very very corrective-heavy, a lot of unstable movements where not much big weight would be moved.

I did do quad biased trap bar deadlifts in some previous programming, and they have their advocates.

Sometimes I was doing them one day, and on another day I was doing a glute hamstring biased trap bar deadlift, where I was pulling from low handles.

If you are actively trying to bias the quads, if you experiment with pulling high versus low, it becomes pretty clear why you'd pick one over the other.

If your goal for that movement is quad development you don't want to pull from the low handles and have your glutes, hips, low back, erectors, lats etc do a bunch of work before you even get to the quads.

The fact that pulling from lower handles is more challenging, for most people, is irrelevant, as is the fact that there's not much carry over from quad biased trap bar deadlifts to pulling conventionally / hingeing…. At least, it's irrelevant if it's in your programming because it's there as a quad biased exercise.

If I was programming a glute or hamstring dominant movement with the trap bar, by the way, I'd potentially programme a stiff legged trap bar deadlift rather than a really conventional pull, and yes, I'd pull from the low handles.

If I was just looking for a trap bar deadlift that hit "a bit of everything", then I'd pull conventional from low handles.

In saying the above, do I do quad biased trap bar deadlifts still? No.

However fried your quads feel - and you can fry them, with sufficient overload and the appropriate tempo - it doesn't feel like a very efficient use of your time to do what is effectively a partial range quad dominant squat. I have opted for a high bar squat / heels elevated high bar squat / front squat for some time now, if I need a quad dominant compound movement. I don't believe these any better solely from a quad development point of view, to be honest, but I think the juice is worth the squeeze in terms of carryover to general health and fitness, I think a high bar squat to rock bottom is something I'd like maintain into old age.

It goes without saying, also, that most people who are pulling from high handles are not aware why they're doing it, they just know it's easier.

To bring in another movement… You can do a quad dominant leg press that, even if you're going deep, is also potentially a more limited range of motion. Some people will say it's like a partial squat. But you can do the quad dominant leg press after doing a bunch of other work, including compound movements, and whatever fatigue has been built up in my back, glutes, hamstrings, you're supported on the leg press so it can still have its choice as a high stability quad dominant movement you can put in later in a workout without much problem. So if I'm doing a quad focused workout, I might do my high bar squats or front squats, and I might then move onto higher stability options like a quad dominant leg press and/or leg curl.

I actually think that when we squat very deep, at the very bottom portion of the movement it's the adductors doing the most work, quads little to nothing, glutes a bit, and then glutes more as we approach parallel, and then it's hopefully the quads if cueing knees forward, torso upright and trying to maximise torque at the knee.

I do squat deep, as I said, but bearing in mind the above, deeper doesn't mean specifically more quads I don't think. More overall hypertrophy I would be more easily convinced of but that's slightly different.

@Mellor - Re splitting the thread. Yeah, I can see it as a possibility, but I'm not the mod for this forum (I'm just Martial Arts) and I wouldn't interfere here. At this stage on boards my personal view of modding is the less the better, there's such limited traffic if at all possible, people should just be let speak, unless there's some kind of grievous abuse or something. I don't know that pruning this thread would lead to more conversation on the new thread.

Safety bar squats are amazing for people who struggle with BBs, for whatever reason, as well.

In fact they're amazing for anyone TBH. I cycle between them and HB.

Must admit I've more or less stopped all LB, after years of it.

The only thing is a lot of gyms seem to have cheap SSBs that have handles perpendicular to the bar, and sleeves dropped but in line with the shaft. I may be explaining that badly but in the proper SSB from EliteFTS, Rogue and Blk Box, there is some funky arrangement of their relationship to each other that improves the ergonomics.