Max Effort Method Exercise Selection
If you’re interested in utilizing a Conjugate or Westside-Influenced Template but are lost as to what movements you should include in your training then you’re in the right place.
On the surface, this method seems pretty easy. You work up to a heavy 1 on any given exercise and move along to your assistance and accessory work. While this seems mindless for the most part, exercise selection is probably the biggest decision you’re going to have to make about your training.
If you have a higher training age (>3 years of consistent training with intent) you’re going to be rotating more movements more often. If you’re relatively new to training (<3 years of consistent training) then you’re going to want to spend some time with the basics so you can get everything out of them that you can.
In this article I’m going to lay out the rationale for rotating movements, how often it should be done, and what intensities you should be lifting at if your goal is strength. I’ll talk about which movements are going to be beneficial to your lifting specifically if you’re an athlete.
What is the Max Effort Method? It’s Bulgarian Method Lite
In its simplest terms, the maximal effort method is training to the heaviest 1 rep you can in any given lift on any given day. It was created/popularized by Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell as a way to implement something similar to the Bulgarian Method without the constant intensity beating you down. If you’re not positive as to what the Bulgarian Method is, it’s essentially working up to a new PR on three lifts during your session (all geared towards the snatch, clean, and sometimes the bench), often multiple times per day and often 7 days a week. Creating the Conjugate Method was a byproduct of seeing how beneficial the Bulgarian Method could be, but also understanding its limitations.
The Bulgarian Method was created by, you guessed it, the Bulgarians. It gave rise to some of the strongest people on the planet at the time it was popular. We saw the Bulgarians and the Russians dominate the world stage when it came to lifting, but what we didn’t see was the trail of broken bodies along the way. For every world champion, there were 50 lifters who didn’t make it because they were so broken down. There’s also some evidence to suggest that working at such intensities can be detrimental to your mental and emotional health. The constant intensity isn’t for everyone and Louie knew that.
Enter The Conjugate Method. The Conjugate Method is a combination of the dynamic effort method, the repeated effort method, and the maximal effort method. When these methods are combined we’re able to hit many “maximal effort” lifts throughout the week.
Maximal Effort - Self-explanatory, it’s already maximal.
Dynamic Effort - Lifting submaximal loads with maximal effort, in theory, creates a maximal muscle fiber recruitment every rep. This gives us more “maximal effort” reps.
Repeated Effort - As we continue to exert force in an effort to get to failure, our body will continue to recruit more and more muscle fibers until it no longer can recruit more. The last rep of a set to failure, in theory, will recruit every last possible muscle fiber at your disposal. This gives us another “maximal effort” rep.
I’m actually not a big fan of the dynamic effort method used as a modality to increase strength. I’ve written a four-part critique of the dynamic effort method which can be found here: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV. While I don’t believe it can be overly beneficial for absolute strength, I can understand the thought process and the merit behind it, and I do understand why coaches use it with their athletes. It’s also a GREAT tool for increasing speed and power. It’s also a way to increase the overall volume without really flirting with fatigue. This means we get quality reps every time we get under the bar.
The repeated effort method is also another incredibly valuable tool, even with athletes. I will say that early on in training, the repeated effort method has the biggest impact on strength for the majority of the athletes I work with. This is more than likely due to increases in work capacity along with giving the athlete more confidence, but I can confidently say that if you’re not including work to a mechanical or physiological failure, then you’re missing out.
The maximal effort method is arguably the best method for increasing relative and absolute strength. The SAID principle (specific adaptations to imposed demands) dictates that if we progressively overload with load, then we’ll adapt to that increase in load and get stronger. Lifting above 90% forces your CNS to recruit maximal muscle fibers, and exhausting these muscle fibers will force your body to adapt stronger.
There are some limitations to this progressive overload, if there weren’t then we could all be thousand-pound squatters and bench pressers. You can’t just continue to lift more and more weight, which is why programs that work tend to be periodized, or undulating. The Conjugate Method doesn’t really follow a standard periodization, but instead changes the load by rotating movements. We’re going to talk about that next.
Rotating Movements - We Adapt By Refusing to Adapt
A continuous progressive overload won’t work forever, so how do we continuously progress and continue to get stronger over time? We rotate movements.
When it comes to sport, we want to adapt to sport movement skill so we can perform it over and over again flawlessly. But, in the gym, it’s kind of a different story. Does anyone here remember P90X? It was all the rage back in the early twenty-teens, even VP hopeful Paul Ryan got on the train for a bit. The reason it was such a successful program (outside of solid marketing) is that it rotated exercises, intensities, and volumes so often. I talked about the SAID Principle earlier, so we want to adapt to the stressors we put ourselves through, right?
Well, sort of. Fitness is a weird thing. We want to adapt to the work we put ourselves through so we can get stronger, bigger, etc. But, once we adapt to the work, it stops having the same effect on us physiologically. Here’s an example:
You’re completely out of shape and have let yourself go, so you decide you’re going to start running to get back into some kind of shape that isn’t overly round. One mile per day is where you decided to start. You begrudgingly start running on day one and after that mile, you feel like you’re going to keel over and die. It took you 20 minutes to get through the mile, and your Apple Watch says that your heart rate was over 180 bpm the entire time and you burned over 300 calories from start to finish. After a few weeks, what took you 20 minutes to do initially is now only taking you 12 minutes. Your Apple Watch is showing a constant heart rate of 140-150 bpm, and now you’re only burning 200 calories. What happened?
You adapted! This is great and exactly what your body is supposed to do, but you’re not where you want to be just yet. Your weight loss has stalled, or worse you’ve started regaining some of that weight back. Now that you’ve adapted, it’s going to take more work to continue to move the needle. Now you can accomplish this in a few different ways. You can increase your distance, you can add a weighted vest, you can try to run it in less time, or you can change the modality altogether. But what if you’re already running as hard and as fast as you can, and you don’t have the time to run further, nor do you have the desire to put on a weighted vest which could hurt your joints (which finally feel better because you’ve lost some weight)? You change the exercise modality. Maybe you swim, maybe you bike, maybe you skate or even hop on the elliptical. Now you can move the same distance with the same intensity and continue to make strides in your fitness.
The above example hopefully drives home how rotating exercises can work for you. It allows us to vary the loads on our bodies, while continuously putting forth the same effort. We adapt, then move on to another movement so we can continuously adapt without stagnatting or backtracking.
For example, you can probably bench press more than you can incline bench press. Let’s say you bench press 200lbs, you more than likely don’t incline bench press more than 170lbs give or take. But that 170lb incline bench press takes the same amount of effort as that 200lb bench press. The load is different, and the muscles recruited are slightly different (emphasis-wise), but the effort stays the same. This means that strength is developed all the same as using heavier loads on different movements.
Furthermore, if you’re like 70% of gym rats you come into the gym, do a set on the bench with the bar, then put on 135 for a set, followed by 185 for a set, then 225 for however many reps you can do. Your body has now adapted to this work because the loads and movement never change. Some days maybe you hit 5 reps, maybe some days only 3. Then you hop over to the incline dumbbells and do the same loads and reps, then do some flyes and skull crushers. Every training session is roughly the same, and the weights don’t seem to be going up anymore. You’re not even getting leaner or bigger either. You’ve adapted.
What would happen if you changed the main movement along with your accessory movements? What would happen if you changed the volume which would allow you to change the load? You’d put a stop to that adaptation and force NEW adaptation. This is how we get bigger, faster, and stronger over time.
While we want to adapt as that’s the entire purpose of training, we don’t want to live in that adaptation if we’re trying to get stronger. We have to make changes. This is why, in addition to varying intensities and volumes, we have to vary the movements or rotate them. When rotating exercises initially, we want to spend enough time with them to adapt, and then move on. Early on, 3-4 weeks is enough, but as you get stronger rotating every week will help lead to continuous gains in strength.
Which Max Effort Movements Should I Use?
The ones that will benefit you the most of course, ya dummy!
Now, that’s said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it’s absolutely true. If you’re failing on your lockouts on your bench press, then you should include tricep-heavy exercises like pin, board, and floor presses. If you’re struggling off the floor on your deadlift, maybe we should include some deficit work. If you’re garbage in the hole when you’re squatting, maybe it’s time to do some low (below parallel) box squats to increase that rate of force development. There’s no real way to answer this question unless you know what you’re looking to improve on.
Here at The Lyons Den Sports Performance, we tend to use a little bit of everything in our groups because most of our athletes have relatively low training ages. We use the hex bar deadlift, the bench press, and the box squat as our main movements so we use variations of those exercises. Here’s a list of the various exercises we rotate through for each movement.
Max Effort Box Squat
Power Bar Box Squat (standard box squat)
Camber Bar Box Squat
Safety Bar Box Squat
Low Box (below parallel) Box Squat
High Box (above parallel) Box Squat
Long Pause (5 seconds) Box Squat
Band-Assisted Box Squat
Max Effort Hex Bar Deadlift
Traditional Hex Bar Deadlift
Deficit Hex Bar Deadlift
Hex Bar Deadlift off Blocks/Pins (2 inches off ground)
Hex Bar Rack Pulls
Band-Assisted Hex Bar Deadlift
Rack Pulls w/Power Bar
Camber Bar Deadlift (this is an interesting one and it doesn’t get pulled out all that often)
Max Effort Bench Press
Traditional Bench Press (Power Bar)
Fat Bar Bench Press
Floor Press
Pin Press
Board Press
Incline Bench Press
Close Grip Bench Press
Camber Bar Bench Press
Dumbbell Bench Press
This is a relatively short list, the possibilities are legitimately almost endless. There are about a million ways to vary these three movements, although not every variation will be beneficial to you personally. What you have to do is decide where your weak points are and how can you maximize the energy spent on these movements that will benefit your lifts. Your imagination and knowledge is the limiting factor in how many different exercises you’ll be rotating through. You could actually go 52 weeks straight for the year and never hit the same movement twice.
Here’s a list of weaknesses and movements that can help with said weaknesses.
Bench Press
Lockout Struggles
If you’re struggling to lock out heavier weights, chances are you’re either too slow off of your chest, or your triceps need some work. This calls for Overloading the movement where you struggle the most. This can be accomplished in many ways, I’ve listed some of these movements below.
Board press
1-5 boards depending on where the struggle begins. The boards allow for an increased rate of force development (RFD) in and around the area you struggle to lock out the movement.
Pin Press (above lockout)
Similar to the board press, however, this movement is going to begin at the bottom as opposed to the top (like with the board presses). This really helps to increase rate of force development where you struggle the most.
Floor Press
Another partial range of motion movement that will allow you to create greater rate of force development at roughly 90 degrees. This movement will help with both the lockout and RFD where you struggle.
Reverse Band Bench Press
This movement is a full range of motion bench press, however, the reverse bands allow you to overload the top end of the movement. As you press the bar the bands will unload (get shorter) making the bar “weigh more”. This overloads the lockout portion of the movement.
Sling Shot Bench Press
Similar to the reverse band bench press, the Sling Shot unloads the movement in the lower portion of the lift and overloads the lockout portion of the bench press. It functions similarly to a bench press shirt.
Weakness Off Chest
If you’re weak off of your chest in the bench press, chances are you need to create more RFD at the chest. You can accomplish this in a few different ways. For one, you can train in a greater than full range of motion, and secondly, you can do isometrics at the chest. Isometrics have a 15-degree arc of strength improvements, meaning you’ll gain strength 15 degrees above and 15 degrees below the point where the isometrics are performed.
Paused Bench Press (at chest)
One way to increase RFD is to take the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) out of the equation. When you lower the bar your tendons stretch and store energy, much like a rubber band would. This SSC lasts upwards of 9-10 seconds and this energy dissipates as heat the longer you pause. If you want to take full advantage of the SSC, you need to use it fairly quickly (change over time from eccentric to concentric should be about 0.2 seconds if you’re trying to take full advantage of the SSC). The longer you pause, the more of this built-up energy dissipates as heat. Studies show this SSC lasts as long as 9-10 seconds, however, you can get great gains in RFD by pausing for as little as 2 seconds.
Pin Press (off chest)
Same thought process as the paused bench except you’re able to completely relax at the bottom without having to waste energy “holding” your position.
Fat Grip Bench Press (not fat bar)
Fat grips are often used to mimic the effects of a fat bar, however, they’re incredibly different. The biggest bonus of including fat grips is that it increases the range of motion by about an inch. Because your hands are on the grip and not the bar, there’s about an inch of space between your hands and the bar. By touching the bar to your chest you’re adding about an inch of range of motion to the bench press. This can help you be more explosive off of your chest.
Deep DB Bench Press
This is another greater than a full range of motion exercise. Since you’re holding dumbbells, your hands can drop below your chest because the bar isn’t there to limit the depth. This is another exercise that can help you become more powerful off of your chest.
Chest Height Press Into Pins
This is an isometric full-effort movement. The pins won’t allow you to press past a certain spot, but you can put 100% effort into the press. This is safer than loading up 105% of your max and trying to press off of your chest, you’re just using the bar. We talked about that 15-degree arc of strength gains we get from isometrics, and this exercise will give you 100% benefit because you’re able to utilize every ounce of energy you have pressing into the pins.
Squat
Weakness in the Hole
Below Parallel Box Squat
Similar to the greater than full range of motion bench press exercises, this will allow you to create RFD below parallel. The increased rate of force development allows you to be explosive coming out of the hole. As an added bonus you’ll be a lot weaker in this movement which will decrease the overall load, but you’ll still be exerting 100% effort.
Parallel Box Squat
The box (and slight pause) allows for an increased RFD right in the hole where you need it most. This RFD will make the transition from eccentric to concentric “easier” for you.
Below Parallel Paused Squat
The pause takes away the benefits of the SSC, and getting stronger below parallel allows you to develop speed at parallel (in the hole). This extra speed will help you move more weight at parallel. Same with the bench, you can get great benefits with as little as a 2-second hold.
Lack of Control Through Movement
Camber Bar Box Squat
I think the camber bar is the most underutilized piece of equipment when it comes to strength development. This bar “swings” and you travel through the range of motion, forcing you to create stability throughout your body. This increased stability will give you much more control when you switch back to a power bar.
Safety Bar Box Squat
The safety squat bar is another great tool. You get the benefits of the front squat, while not having to front rack the bar. It also allows you to sit much further back allowing you more hip activation while still forcing you to work harder to maintain an upright position. This exercise is great when you’re struggling to lead with your chest coming out of the hole. It can help give you more control throughout the squat when you switch back to a power bar.
Deadlift
Weakness off the Floor
Deficit Deadlift
This is greater than a full range of motion exercise for the deadlift. The bar will start lower than the floor because you’ll be standing on something. You don’t need a huge deficit either to get the benefits of this movement, you can pull from a half an inch deficit and see great benefits in both speed off the floor and rate of force development.
Weakness with Lockout
Rack/Block Pulls
This exercise shortens the range of motion as you’ll be pulling from anywhere between the top of your shins and mid-quad. I’m not a huge fan of these as I haven’t really seen a lot of benefit to them, but in theory, at least, focusing on the range of motion where you’re struggling will help.
Below Pin Pulls
Works the same as the bench press version. You’ll pull into the pins unable to move the bar, allowing for 100% effort isometrics. I’ve seen these have drastic benefits both off of the floor as well as with the lockout.
As you can see there are a variety of movements to choose from. Each movement has its benefits and limitations, and you have to decide which movements are right for your rotation based on your own needs.
How Long Should I Use an Exercise?
When you’re rotating through various exercises, it’s important to get everything you can out of them. If you’re someone who has been training for a long time, you won’t need nearly as much time. If you have a lower training age then you’ll more than likely need to spend more time with each movement to get the most out of them.
If you’ve been training for a while, think back to when you first started training. You got those newbie gains and it seemed like every single week the weights would go up. You just show up to the gym, put the work in and you’d see the rewards fairly quickly. The reason for those early gains were mostly because of central nervous system adaptations. Your body (and brain) was learning these movements and becoming more efficient at them. Your rate coding got better, and your body learned to recruit more muscle fibers to accomplish this new task.
After a while (probably a month or so), those gains stopped. You had become adapted to that movement and hopefully, you decided to start varying the loads, and volumes to continue to get stronger and bigger. If you didn’t do this, you probably noticed a slight drop in your strength with this movement.
Now, if you had changed your main movement, for example going from the bench press to an incline bench press, you would have probably felt a little bit weaker. This is another new movement that you haven’t adapted to yet, so the load on the bar is a lot less than your traditional bench press. However, if you stayed with this movement for another month, you would have noticed a steady increase in your strength with this movement. It would have been much like your early days on the bench press.
If you have less than a year of training, it’s best to stick with each movement for at least 4-6 weeks. This will give you time to adapt to the movement and increase your strength.
If you’ve been training for 2-3 years, you can probably rotate through these exercises every 2-3 weeks. This gives you enough time to get something out of the exercise, without spending too much time adapting to the movement where you’re not getting a ton out of it.
If you have a higher training age, then you can rotate exercises every 1-2 weeks. This variety in your exercise selection will allow for varied movement, varied loads, and progressive adaptation.
Intensities and Volumes for Max Effort Work
When you’re using the max effort method, it’s important to understand the differences between having a high training age, and a low training age as the intensities and volume will be different.
In the previous section I mentioned timetables for staying with certain movements based on your training age. With a low training age you’re going to be able to stick with movements longer, and as you become a seasoned veteran of the iron you’ll need much more variety. Below, I’ll lay out intensity progressions for each scenario.
Low Training Age (<1 year)
A low training age is honestly someone who’s been training less than 4-5 years, but for the purpose of this article we’ll define it as someone with less than a year of training under their belts.
When you’re relatively new to lifting, you don’t need nearly the variety as far as exercises go. You’re still creating base levels of strength and work capacity and you’ll see those newbie gains for a while.
You’re going to want to stay with variations of your main movement (Louie called them special exercises) for 4-6 weeks. You’ll need practice, and honestly you’ll need the work to help increase your work capacity.
Here’s a way to set up a progressive overload that will increase your strength. It’s not true “max effort” work because it won’t all be above 90%, but you won’t need such high intensities just yet.
Week 1
Intensity - 75%
Volume - 5 sets of 5 reps
Week 2
Intensity - 80%
Volume - 5 sets of 4 reps
Week 3
Intensity - 85%
Volume - 5 sets of 3 reps
Week 4
Intensity - 90%
Volume - 5 sets of 2 reps
Week 5
Intensity - 95%
Volume - 5 sets of 1 rep
Week 6
Intensity - 100+%
Volume - test a new 1 rep max
Learning the movement properly is incredibly important. Most of the data suggests that somewhere between 70 and 80% our form is best, so getting the bulk of your early volume in this space is a good idea. You’ll be getting 45 reps at or above 75% in the first two weeks so make sure these aren’t “throw away” reps that you glide through. Work the movement and make sure you do it right.
One thing of note, by the time you get to 85/90/95% chances are the max you tested will no longer be your max because of the training effects of the first few weeks, coupled with your new found work capacity. There will be temptation to want to retest, but stay the course. Feel free to add 5lbs or so to your scheduled load, but that’s it!
After these 6 weeks, you’ll start a new movement. My advice for the first year is to stay with 3-4 different exercises and work through them for six weeks at a time. You’ll end up hitting each movement for two different waves throughout the year. This will be plenty of variety in the first year of your training journey.
Moderate Training Age (1-3 years)
For the purposes of this article, a moderate training age will be defined as having 1-3 years of training under your belt. During this time it won ‘t be nearly as necessary to stay with movements as long as you did in your first year, and you’ll have a solid base of both work capacity and base level strength.
With a higher training age you’ll want to rotate through exercises every 2-3 weeks. This means that you’ll be spending more time at higher percentages, and your volume will drop pretty dramatically. Every movement cycle you went through in your first year of training yielded about 75 reps, now you’ll be getting between 15-30. You’re going to need to be dialed in every single rep (although you should ALWAYS be dialed in).
Here’s a set up for your training waves with these exercises.
Week 1 (optional)
Intensity - 85%
Volume - 5 sets of 3 reps
Week 2
Intensity - 90%
Volume - 5 sets of 2 reps
Week 3
Intensity - 95%
Volume - 5 sets of 1 reps
As you can see, these 2-3 weeks don’t yield much volume. However, the intensity will be much higher from the start. You’ll be working above 90% (true max effort intensities) for two thirds of the year. This one week below 90% will help to ensure we don’t really teeter on the overtraining end of the spectrum.
After this three week wave, you’ll start a new movement. Now that these waves are shorter, you’ll be able to throw more exercises into the mix throughout the year. There will be 17 different waves of 3 weeks throughout the year and you’ll want to rotate through maybe 7-8 different movements throughout the year.
Stick with this scheme for 1-2 years and you’ll be really happy with the results. As long as your diet and sleep are in check, you should see a relatively steady progression to your strength in these exercises.
Higher Training Age (>3 years)
Now you’ve been training for 3 years putting in the work, you can start to work with movements for 1-2 weeks and stay above 90% pretty much all of the time.
This is when you’ll actually be able to work a true Max Effort Method template, working up to a new 1 rep max every week. You’ve hopefully created a really solid level of strength, and maintained your work capacity so you’re ready to rock.
In your second and third years of training, you added in more special exercises/movements and now you’ll be able to add in as many as you’d like. If you did it right, you’d be able to go an entire year without hitting the same exercise twice. My advice would be to pick 10-20 exercises and rotate through them.
The way you rotate through these movements matters, as the variety of your movement selection will be the basis of your training.
I like to go through 4 week waves of ascending loads before backing down to a lighter loaded exercise week 5. This lighter load serves as somewhat of a “deload”, and the ascending loads serve as a progressive overload over the weeks. This will Here’s an example of how you can set yours up:
Special Exercises Rotation
Week 1 - Incline Bench Press - 250lb 1RM
Week 2 - Bench Press - 300lb 1RM
Week 3 - Fat Bar Bench Press - 305lb 1RM
Week 4 - Floor Press - 315lb 1RM
Week 5 - 3 Board Press - 330lb 1RM
Week 6 - Incline Bench Press
In this 5 week wave of special exercises I start with my lightest movement week 1, and work my way through to the heaviest movement in week 5. On week 6, I go back to the lightest movement. This does two things:
Works as a deload allowing for lighter loads while using the same effort (which is 100%+).
Working through heavier movements allows me to handle heavier loads preparing me to lift heavier loads in my weakest movement on week 6. This can also benefit your actual bench max, as you will have handled heavier loads in the weeks going up to the bench. It takes away the “oh shit” factor of hitting a new 1RM.
There are other ways to organize your max effort training, however I’ve found this to work the best for myself. You can also pick as many movements as you want to rotate through, and go through them randomly. The world is you oyster when it comes to programming!
Now you may be wondering how to set up your training from a sets and reps perspective. You know you’ll be working up to a new 1RM, but how do you get there?
You want to organize this in a way that is going to yield the best results, and below is the way that I’ve found works the best.
Warm up with the bar
If your 50% is below 135, do a set at 135 as you don’t want to be making 200lb jumps. Use plates and quarters until you get to your 50%
55% - 5 reps
65% - 5 reps
75% - 4-5 reps
85% - 2-3 reps
95% - 1 rep
100%+ - 1 reps
If step is successful and felt “easy”, do another 1RM above what you’ve just hit. An do it again and again until you fail or barely grind out the rep.
If everything is dialed in, you should have success with the last step and early in your training you should make it to step 9 more often than not.
Wrapping It All Up
If you’ve become stuck in a rut with your max effort training, it’s a good idea to start rotating through movements. This exercise rotation will ensure you continue to progress without living in the adaptations you’re creating allowing you to continue getting stronger.
If your bench press isn’t budging, I’ve created a program for the bench press outlining how you can get a bigger bench press without ever even bench pressing so check that out!
