Overcome Bodybuilding Plateaus with Prilepin’s Table for Olympic Weightlifters
Powerlifting is the quickest way to build strength. Bodybuilding is the quickest way to build muscle mass. Whilst muscle mass and strength are linked, powerlifters are generally much stronger than bodybuilders. The reason for this is because bodybuilders generally train their muscles to a high intensity aiming for a skin bursting muscle pump, where increasing the actual weight used is more of a secondary objective to training intensity. The idea is to make a light weight feel as heavy as possible. Pretty much the opposite applies for powerlifting, where the idea is to use maximum power to lift the heaviest weight possible as fast as you can. In terms of training, typical bodybuilding and powerlifting routines are as follows:
- Bodybuilding Routine: 4-6 weight training sessions per week, rep range 10-12, time per set 40-60 seconds, 10-20 exercises per session, 1-3 sets per exercise. Routines generally involve isolation exercises, supersets, dropsets, super slow sets, pre-exhaustions, post-exhaustions, etc.
- Powerlifting Routine: 3-4 weight training sessions per week, rep range 1-5, time per set 5-15 seconds, 4-8 exercises per session, 5+ sets of compound exercises, 2-3 sets of assistance exercises. Routines are based around squats, deadlifts, presses and pulls, with 3-5 minutes rest between sets. A trainee powerlifter usually starts off 2 days per week doing something like:
5 x 5 Squats
5 x 5 Bench Press
2 x 5 Incline Dumbbell Press
2 x 5 Dumbbell Flies
Prilepin’s Table
Prilepin’s Table shows the optimum range of total sets and reps on a particular compound exercise like squats, relative to your 1 rep max for building power in minimum time. Watch this:
Applying Prilepin’s Table to the bench press over an 8 week cycle, you would start in the 65-70% of your 1RM range, aiming for maximum speed with control completing the relevant number of sets and reps. Build up to 90%+ of your 1RM by week 5 or 6. Continue aiming for maximum speed under control, but by now, your total reps will be about 7 over 4-7 work sets. The aim would be to smash through your plateau, so that you can return back to your bodybuilding routine, lifting heavier weights, thereby achieving a higher intensity and stimulating more muscle mass.
Assuming:
- your diet contains plenty of clean calories and is moderate to high carb and high protein – use protein supplements!;
- you sleep 8 hours every night; and
- you train with maximum effort
then you should gain a lot of strength over the 8 week cycle. Personally, I gained 37.5Kg on my bench 1RM and bigger numbers on the squat and deadlift.
You don’t get that same tight muscle tone with powerlifting and the higher carb diet results in fat gains, but as a bodybuilder, you should know how to shift the fat and retain the muscle shouldn’t you??! If not, read some of our other articles.
Regards,
Martin Procter
