TL;DR Summary

You (or your coach) want to implement a Conjugate template. Here’s a straightforward primer on the method without a bunch of big words. Read it, then ask your coach any questions you have. Warm up adequately, train as hard as you’re able, get in shape to become stronger, and enjoy yourself. Here’s the basic four-day template.

Max Effort Day

Each week, we’ll work up to a heavy single on a squat, bench, deadlift, or overhead press- once for the lower body and once for the upper body. The goal of this “max effort” (ME) day is to develop the skill of generating a high-quality and challenging strain that’s juuust right for the day, regardless of recovery status. This is not necessarily a personal record (PR), but it often will be. Depending on your training goals, you may also have a few percentage-based backoff sets following the heavy single, tailored to your objectives and training style.

A “max effort” heavy single is fairly close to failure: RPE 9-10 or 0- 1 RIR. For my coaching practice, I objectively define this range as at least 2.5 seconds from the start of the lifting effort to the lockout position, also known as the concentric or “positive” phase of the lift. However, if your goals or lifestyle require you to preserve some energy for other activities, you can reduce this strain to as low as RPE 7/3 RIR without losing too much utility in this method.

If training at high efforts isn’t your style, or if it creates a negative psychological or emotional experience around training, then I don’t believe that’s good training. In this case, we can adjust the max effort method. Some of my clients work up to a heavy single (RPE 7 or 8), while others aim for a “technical max,” lifting as heavy as they can with good technique before moving on to the next part of their training. At high and maximal efforts, it’s not unusual for some form issues to arise. This is part of the reason we do it. This allows the lifter to learn how to move safely and competently with less-than-ideal technique, especially when fatigued.

Consult your coach to determine the appropriate level of exertion for you. You have a coach, right?

“How do I warm up for a max effort training day?”

General Warm-Up

If you’re someone who needs to prepare your joints, wake up, or get moving after a long day of Zoom meetings and Excel spreadsheet wizardry, a light general warm-up is recommended. If you’re working on specific movement skills, focus on those to warm up. If not, spending a few minutes on a bike, treadmill, or hoofin’ it on the road is suitable. Calisthenic movements like lunges, push-ups, and similar exercises are good for a few light and easy sets here; save your energy for the actual workout. Controlled articular rotations (CARs) may be useful for getting dat joint juice (synovial fluid) flowing around and within your joints. Targeted breathwork may also be beneficial, depending on who you ask. The general warm-up aims to achieve a few distinct goals:

Goal 1: Increase the heart rate (pulse) to slightly above resting baseline.
Goal 2: Increase respiration (breathing) rate to slightly above resting baseline.
Goal 3: Prepare muscles, bones, and joints for exposure to training stresses.
Goal 4: Wake up. It’s generally difficult to train effectively when you’re sleepy or stiff.

As long as your general warm-up meets the above criteria without tiring you for the rest of your workout, you’re good.

Specific Warm-Up

I recommend that everyone has a specific warm-up for their max effort work. Spoiler: it’s the max effort lift itself. Gradually increase the load from the empty bar while progressively reducing the reps to the target rep range. I’ll explain:

• Begin with two to three sets of the empty bar for five to ten reps (2-3 x 5-10 @ 45 lbs).
• Work a few light sets of fewer reps.
• Then, aim for six to ten sets of one to two reps between 50% and 85% of the target lift.
• Finally, make small jumps once things are heavy until you have found your Goldilocks single for the day.

Your coach may provide a load range goal for the day. I do this for my Barbell Logic clients. If there is no load goal: you might be exhibiting Office-Space-tier-IDGAF energy (lmao, nice), your coach might have fallen asleep (wack), or you may be unfamiliar with the lift. If you’ve never done the lift before, take your time and progress through your warm-ups gradually: when doubles start to feel heavy, switch to singles and make small load jumps. Finish with a “good enough” single for the day to allow room for learning the lift and having a productive training session.

Keep rest minimal until you’re around RPE 8; I define this as a 2 to 2.5-second concentric/positive phase in my coaching practice. Your coach’s methods may differ. Then rest at least two minutes between maximum effort attempts, up to five minutes (or more) if you’re a competitive powerlifter in meet prep or if you prefer to train as though you are.

If you have backoff work scheduled, aim for fewer attempts between the “heavy but doable” and the “just right challenge” for the day. Closing up shop and moving onto what’s next prematurely is also acceptable when learning a new lift. This approach can leave some energy for that part of your program, which some consider more challenging than the ME work, and give your coach the chance to address any setup or movement deficiencies in your execution for next time without risking injury or fatigue-bombing yourself straight to the Afterlife.

*A sample max effort specific warm-up. The 6~10 x 2-1 @ 50~85% is marked in yellow.*
*Note the following:*
*• There is no load goal or load goal range. This lifter is “feeling it out.”*
• *A quick trim to very low reps early in the process combined with more aggressive load jumps.*
• *A reduction of reps from two to one after some time with less aggressive load jumps.*
• *Reduction to small jumps once “heavy but doable” (i.e. RPE 8) is achieved, progressing slowly, until RPE 9 (max effort) is found.*

A “Small Load Jump,” Defined

What constitutes a “small” load jump depends on the overall strength of the lifter. However, for the people I coach, who are mostly non-competitive, general population athletes, I use the following chart. Consult your coach to see if they have a different opinion.

*Consult your coach to see if they have a different opinion. They are allowed to. We can disagree and still be friends.*

Wenning Warm-Ups: A “Generally Specific” Warm-Up Method

Wenning Warm-ups (WWUs), a warm-up style developed by S&C coach and YouTuber Matt Wenning, is a brief preparatory conditioning circuit that is performed at the start of a workout. When done properly, it only takes a few minutes of training time. WWUs serve three purposes:

Goal 1: Address the uncomfortable truth that many intermediate barbell trainees hate to acknowledge: it is entirely possible to not be fit enough to continue getting stronger.
Goal 2: Prepare weaker muscle groups related to the day’s main lift for training.
Goal 3: Encourage and balance the effort and contribution from both the front and rear sides of the body during loaded movements.

All exercises are performed in four sets of 25 reps (4x25). Yes, that makes a total of 100 reps. Why 100 total reps? To directly quote Wenning, “Because I said so.” For some clients, this isn’t enough of a reason. I, the author, don’t particularly care how you (someone who probably isn’t my client) warms up. And if you are my client, and you only do 2x25 of everything, I won’t lose sleep over it. It’s your body and your training. WWUs call for 4x25, but you did 2x25. If WWUs don’t “work for you” (however you define that), then whose fault is it that they didn’t work: the MapQuest directions sitting unread in the passenger seat, or the guy who thinks he doesn’t need any directions to begin with?

Loads should be light enough to ensure you are nowhere near failure by rep 25 on set 4. You are warming up; this is not the actual workout. Going too heavy can lead to a rough training session for no clear reason other than your decision to be uncoachable.

The warm-up typically includes three to four exercises. The first two to three exercises should isolate relevant muscle groups. The final movement usually mirrors what you'll be doing for the day. Your coach should design this for you based on your needs. However, if you’re creating your own, let’s consider an example to deepen your understanding.

Sumo Deadlift: A Wenning Warm-Up Approach Written by Someone Who is (Emphatically) Not Matt Wenning

The sumo deadlift begins with a wide base of support in the feet, a narrower, approximately shoulder-width grip, and a wedging in of the hips and trunk toward the bar. This process requires strong hip external rotators and hamstrings, adductor length, iron grips, and powerful quads to lift the bar off the ground once the wedge combines the barbell and the lifter’s centers of mass into one cohesive object.

Overwhelmingly, I see people performing wide-stance conventional deadlifts and calling them sumo deadlifts. There is a lot of discourse among my peers and colleagues here, and I’m open to having my mind changed. That said, I believe the wide-stance conventional and sumo deadlift are completely different lifts. The hip external rotators and adductor length are often the bottleneck for a good sumo deadlift setup. A Wenning Warm-Up for this issue might include:

Seated Cable Hip ER: 4 x 25 @ 4RIR or less
Straight Leg Get-Up: 4 x 25 @ bodyweight
Seated Leg Extension: 4 x 25 @ 4RIR or less (or banded for my home gym homies)
Chair Sumo Deadlift: 4 x 25 @ 4RIR or less

*I literally just wrote this for one of my clients today on* *TurnKey.Coach*.

If a WWU approach is taken, I still recommend the ME-specific warm-up afterward. Avoid working a Wenning Warm-Up and then trying to pull 700 lbs directly. That’s a bad idea. Speaking of bad ideas…DO NOT MAKE A HABIT OF MISSING REPS TO SEEK PRs. You will have a bad time. The gym is not the place for being an annoying emotional headcase. BAD DECISIONS RUIN GOOD TRAINING.

Dynamic Effort Day

The other two days of the week are dedicated to dynamic effort (DE) training. The objectives of DE day include achieving significant submaximal volume with proper technique while fostering a mental shift toward a more aggressive approach to lifting weights. The primary goal of DE day is speed. You should aim to lift the weight as quickly as possible. This does not mean dive-bombing your squat, rushing your deadlift setup, or bouncing your bench press off of your lungs. We are here to lift weights fast, not lower them in an uncontrolled manner. If that’s you, tighten up.

In my opinion, dynamic effort days are where we truly make progress (citation needed, lol). You typically celebrate a huge personal record as the reward for your training. Well, you can do that almost every week now. Congratulations. Shift your mindset to consider your dynamic effort day as the most crucial training day. From my experience, dynamic effort and accessory training play a significant role in increasing your maximum efforts over time, not necessarily the other way around (again, citation needed).

For dynamic effort, the weights are light, the sets are short (usually three reps or fewer, although not always), and the rest interval is very brief (15-90 seconds). DE days are also your chance to get a significant amount of light and technical repetitions. Focused and precise practice leads to perfection. Ensure your technique is refined and executed well every time. This is extremely important.

Dynamic effort training can technically be performed with just barbells and plates (straight weight). This technique is referred to as density sets. However, I generally observe a more pronounced effect and less joint fatigue when accommodating resistance is used.

Accommodating Resistance

What is accommodating resistance? Essentially, it's bands and chains. Generally, I prefer using around 20% to 40% accommodating resistance, with the rest being straight weight. Check your programming for what your coach wants you to do.

Using and Setting Up Bands

To get started, I suggest using bands. They’re light, portable, and affordable. If you’d like to use bands, I recommend having one pair of each of the following:

Mini bands: ~40” long, ½” wide, and about 4.5mm thick.
“Monster” Mini bands: ~40” long, ½” wide, 6.0 to 6.5mm thick.
Light bands: ~40” long, 1⅛” wide, and about 4.5mm thick.
Here’s a pack that includes all of them for 75 USD at the time of writing, a more advanced pack (115 USD), or the OG pack for the very strong (160 USD).

If you’re a numbers person and prefer knowing exactly how much tension your bands are providing, you’ll also require a tension scale to measure it, like a handheld luggage scale. Having a power rack bolted to the floor or platform with four band pegs is the ideal situation for using bands. Using the rack as an anchor is not recommended unless it is bolted down, unless you enjoy having your rack lifted off the ground or falling with heavy weights attached to your body.

Getting bands ready to go doesn’t take much time, despite the constantly echoed complaints that beginners using this method make repeatedly. Bands should be placed on the sleeve of the bar where you load your plates, not on the shaft where the knurling is. This way, your plates can secure your bands in place and prevent them from shifting. It can also protect the knurling and your J-hooks from damaging your band.

One of my coaches, a great friend and the CEO of Barbell Logic, Matt Reynolds, created this video demonstrating various ways to set up bands. A different Matt, Matt Wenning, also has an excellent video on YouTube about band setup. He demonstrates how to set up bands for lifters who aren’t as strong and how to do it when you don’t have band pegs or a safe power rack. To measure your band tension, estimate where your lockout occurs by noting the approximate height you lock out at, either on the rack (for squat, bench, or overhead press) or on your body (for deadlift, clean, or row). Then set your bands up and pull the band using the tension scale to the height of your lockout. This will provide you with the lockout weight of one band. Double that value, and you’ll have your total band tension, as demonstrated in this classic video of Chris Duffin.

Using and Setting Up Chains

If you use chains, you probably enjoy the sound of metal rattling and think it’s cool. (It is cool.) Attach a leader chain to the sleeve of your barbell and connect your chains that way, as Matt Wenning demonstrates in the video below.

Ensure that at least a handful of links touch the ground in your lockout position so your chains don’t swing around excessively. One time, I walked out a squat with free-swinging chains. I messed up the walkout (badly) and the chains swung and hit me directly in the hoo-hoo-dilly. Pretty sure I farted too. So I cried and immediately found a new gym. I did not re-rack my weights. Don’t be like me.

*This moment is burned onto my soul. I re-live it at night when my brain decides to replay every cringe thing I’ve ever done. An evil I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.*