The JigSaw Method
So you want to know about the JigSaw Method?
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You want to know why you see so many of my athletes doing this movement and that movement?
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You want to see how I think?
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LIke it's this cult phenomenon?
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You really want to get into the head of madman?
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What if I told you there was nothing mad about it, would you still want to read?
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What if I told you its based of very simple concepts that in turn make an athlete better, would you still be interested?
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Well then, let's get started with it.
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"Simplicity breeds complexity"
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But James what kind of JigSaw shit is that? Read it again, then I will explain.
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I have learned as a coach the simpler you can make things, the easier it is to address things with athletes. With that comes the complexity to break a lifter down and build the foundation. There is analyzing biomechanics of lifters, workload capacities, backgrounds of various programs or coaching styles, injuries, drug usage or not, a lifters mentality, and the list goes on.
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It’s not simple to coach and be good at it, it takes time and effort to make something so complex be so simple.
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"So what is the program like then?"
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Before we get there let’s get into the background first.
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I come from a background in sports, I played basketball all the way through college. It’s so funny to me that in every other sport a coach will preach 100% every time you step on a field or court, but in the sport of powerlifting its "GIVE ME 100%.... of you know like 80-85%" of true training stimulus. Which is usually even more dumbed down because you always like to go off technical maxes as coaches, meaning give me your 100% but I'm going to reduce it by 5 to 10%. I'm not knocking these styles of linear progression programming, they work. They really do.
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I, as a lifter, came from a submaximal background in Sheiko, so I know all about that average of 67-72% sweet spot for training blocks and the research that backs it. I made fantastic progress but I also realized that I definitely had different effort levels to each day of training. Some days I cruised through the day and would leave the gym feeling like did I really even do anything and did I even enjoy being there. I didn’t.
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So I started to look at different principles in programming: block periodization, the Bulgarian method, 5-3-1, starting strength, the Texas Method, Cube Method. You name it and I have probably read and researched the method. Well during this time, I stumbled across what would be a main staple in my programs now, the conjugate method. Now there is two popular methods, the really famous one being the Westside method with Louie Simmons and then there is the less known one called the RCSS, the Russian Conjugate Sequence System, which is developed by Professor Yuri Verkhoshansky.
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I actually stumbled across this method researching and reading about my own style of training (velocity based training, thank you based OpenBarbell tendo unit) from Brandon Senn and an eliteFTS article.
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I digress, looking over these two programs, I realized two things that really defined the programs: effort and weakness addressing. The programs define effort in different styles: one being max/dynamic effort and the other being effort based off lifter qualifications (something very commonly used by the Russians). One is based off wave periodization and micro cycles and the other block periodization. One address weaknesses through variations and accessory volume to improve a lifter, the other believes in volume in specificity to improve a lifter. Reading more and more, I kept falling in love with the principles.
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As a former athlete, it made all the sense to me because I have literally been doing that for years, to get to a higher level in my sport. When I was younger I couldn’t dribble, shoot, or pass with my left hand.
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I didn’t say “okay you know what let me keep dribbling all the time with my right hand and maybe my left will start to develop”.
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I specifically had to drill my left hand with multiple variations to improve it to a level that was on par with my right hand. Key words: “drill my weaknesses and variations”.
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It was then that I started realizing that the two things that are going to help me improve as a lifter is to look at weaknesses and then drill them in with different workouts to turn those into strengths. Address my effort by making every day, a day where I walked out with the proper training stimulus both mentally and physically as a lifter.
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"Alright James, shut up and tell me, what the program is like then!!!"
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Okay, stop yelling.
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The first thing I address is effort with my athletes, not to give me a max effort 100% rep every day, which they damn near can’t do anyways due to the weekly protocol I put on the lifter. Now a lifter will hit PRs and this is not uncommon in any programming, even Sheiko has a test out day for its lifters to reassess true maxes and then use those to guide the last two blocks of training.
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I also tell every athlete that the training stimulus I want, is one where we have no form breakdown in the strain of the lift and that if they do that it is a failed set due to two things: one a super grinded rep is something that is very hard to translate to the platform and two that it puts them in a bigger risk of injuries, the last thing any coach wants.
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Now I want to address this, my program is not based off MAX EFFORT in the sense of giving me 100% or a new PR every time we lift… that would be beyond irresponsible of me as a coach to program or force my lifters to do such things.
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So I tell my athletes to follow the protocol and give me a training stimulus that is going to follow the guidelines I have outlined as a coach and if that leads to PRs then so be it. What coach doesn’t want their lifters to PR or get stronger?
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“So James if that is the case, why does it seem like your lifters PR all the time”
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Well that takes us into the next point, addressing weaknesses, which I see as a coach. As a coach I will look at all sorts of things: biomechanics, strengths/weaknesses during the lift, cues used, mobility issues, workload capacity, and etc. Sometimes things are bigger than others.
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Sometimes it’s changing a lifters cues up to not think as much. Sometimes it’s drilling in a lagging body part like upper back work, stability work, triceps and so on. Sometimes it’s helping a lifter overcome an injury with prehab and rehab work. Sometimes it’s taking a lifter and looking at their biomechanical lines, making a slight change to make them more efficient during a lift. Sometimes it’s just making them change their diet and do the little things like mobility. Sometimes it’s just getting a lifter comfortable with the uncomfortable.
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Simple enough right?
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No, seems complex… but it’s not.
It’s just making a lifter more efficient. Simple.
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So yes, when I see a weakness I address it through various things specified for that lifter, I can’t copy and paste my program, and if that was the case I would have a ton of lifters doing stuff that would only work for that one lifter. I spend my weekends reviewing videos of lifts from my lifters to give feedback and to address things that need to be in a lifters next block.
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“Well then how do you go about addressing such things to improve them?”
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Well every lifter has what I call a main effort movement, meaning I want their main effort and focus to be there, this is controlled by different protocols that are outlined in the different phases we are in with the lifter. So this could be specificity, this could be a ton of volume work with parameters, or it could be a variation to help strengthen a lifter in a different movement. Usually these are in the 5 to 3 (80-85%) - 3 to 1 (86-90%) – 2 to 1 (91-100%) rep model due to these being the higher loads of training and something we still want to make a linear progression on, just not in the traditional sense of linear progression.
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So once we achieve the proper training stimulus. Then we move on to one or two back off movements to build up workload capacity and one movement to build a certain range of motion that might be lacking.
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These can be auto-regulated or controlled through percentages, autoregulation is usually the go to one because it gives the freedom to my lifters to just have fun and enjoy training.
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Yes, I could give a lifter a controlled back off like 70% of their max over 3 sets of 5 and bam we sit around a 70% workload percentage or I could say auto-regulate up to a top set of 5 over 3 sets and they might start at 70%, but that 2nd set might be 75%, and that last set might be 77% of their max. Now we have an average of 74% vs an average of 70%, which athlete got the better training stimulus for the day and likely didn’t coast through their reps and sets? I’ll let you decide on that one.
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From there I will program accessories for body parts that will help strengthen things they are already good with or help develop lagging parts and turn them into strengths for the lifter, this could be more triceps work to upper back development to core/stability work.
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Like I said I can’t copy and paste my program, I have to develop it for each one individually.
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Sounds complex right but its super simple.
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Make the lifter more efficient at lifting things.
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“OMG YOU’RE LIFTERS HAVE NO VOLUME OR FATIGUE MANAGEMENT!!!”
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Good lord the yelling again…
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Absolutely false, my program works in 4 week blocks, every 4th week is a deload. I have noticed that after about a month of the same training stimulus lifters tend to stop getting good returns on their lifts and we start pushing into fatigue zones that are more likely to push into injury over getting a good training return.
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So usually at that point it’s time to rest and recover aka DELOAD WEEK. Yes I do even vary my deloads up too for athletes, depending where we are and how they respond to the deloads recovery. It could be an intensity deload, a volume deload, or my favorite “don’t touch the bar and be a bodybuilder for a week” deload, but my athletes come back ready to work again with a new block to address things that come up and continue to improve overall.
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