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Utilizing Prilepin’s Chart

My f irst experience with Prilepin’s chart was in the summer of 1993. I had entered my f irst powerlif t ingcompetit ion in the spring of that same year and had bombed out in the squat. I didn’t give up and didthe right thing by seeking out prof essional help, not psychiatric mind you (although I may have needed it). Isought out a powerlif t ing coach.

My search brought me to Mike’s Olympic Gym in Mechanicsville, Virginia. I had a job painting houses thatsummer and worked 10 hours a day. I lived an hour (one way) f rom Mike’s so I knew that if I were going to getany stronger, I’d have to go where the strong go. In Richmond, it was Mike’s. My training up to that point wasprogressive overload. I would do a set of eights one week, and depending on how I f elt, I would go up f ive to10 pounds f or the next week when I went to a set of seven. At the time (and I think to this day), Mike Cravenwould handwrite all of the programs f or his members. Mike is without a doubt the most passionate and intenseperson I know when it comes to strength training. He networked with individuals like John Gamble (f ormerstrength coach f or UVA who is now with the Miami Dolphins) and Fred Hatf ield (otherwise known as Dr. Squat).This was all well bef ore the internet so networking wasn’t nearly as easy.

He gave me my program, and there were percentages all over it. I was amazed. Af ter a f ew weeks, I got up thecourage to ask where he got his inf ormation. He showed me Managing the Training of Weightlifters by NikolaiPetrovich Laputin and Valetin Grigoryevich Oleshko and explained that the inf ormation was based onexperiments with thousands of lif ters in the f ormer Soviet Union. I trained at Mike’s f or a f ew years and thenlef t to try my hand at bodybuilding. Af ter seeing the error of my ways, I went back to powerlif t ing. I readPowerlifting USA and had seen Louie’s articles on training and was interested in his ideas. However, af terseeing his ad f or the reverse hyper and then an article about one of his own products, I was disenchanted andbelieved that he was simply trying to sell something.

Fast f orward to 1998, I was working as Virginia Commonwealth University’s f irst strength and conditioningcoach and had spent the last f ive years looking f or Prilepin’s chart. Then low and behold, I received a newedition of PLUSA. In it, Louie had an article t it led, “HIT …or Miss?” which discussed percentage training andbeside that, Prilepin’s chart. I knew once I saw the f amous chart in Louie’s article that he did know what he wastalking about and wasn’t f ull of it. This revolutionized my training as well as the way I trained VCU’s athletes.

There have been articles written in the past about Prilepin’s chart. However, it has been over 10 years sincethis inf ormation was reviewed. I’ve been asked several questions about the chart and how it can be used withbeginners.

What is it?

Prilepin’s chart gives set percentages of one’s max to be used in training. Here’s what it looks like:

PRILEPIN’S CHART

Basically, the Russians would take a percentage of your contest max. Let’s say 70 percent. They assigned repsand sets to this percentage and would then have a lif ter perf orm the classic lif ts at this percentage. Theylooked at what happens to the speed of the bar, the lif ter ’s f orm, and the lif ter ’s next contest max. From this

research, they decided what sets and rep schemes would work with a given percentage. For instance, if theyhad a lif ter perf orm 70 percent of his contest max, they f ound that if the lif ter did 3–6 reps per set, he wouldget a posit ive training result (i.e. he had good f orm, his bar speed was good, and his max went up).

They also f ound that if the lif ter only did two reps per set it wasn’t enough. Either there wasn’t enough of astimulus (there wasn’t enough weight on the bar) or the bar would move too f ast (kind of like trying to throw aping pong ball as hard as you can). Because of this, the lif ter ’s f orm would break down. They also f ound that ifthe lif ter did more than six reps per set, the lif ter ’s f orm would break down f rom f atigue, which would in turntrain bad habits, and the bar would move too slow (if you train slow you become slow). The Russian’s f oundthat a lif ter could do anywhere f rom 2–8 sets depending on how many reps per set the lif ter did. In otherwords, a lif ter could do:8 sets of 3 (24)or2 sets of 6 (12)or4 sets of 3 (12)or5 sets of 3 (15)The combinations are nearly endless. Why the broad range? Well, the Russians realized that everyone reactsdif f erently to a training program. So, if I react better to higher reps, I would do six reps per set. But if you reactbetter to low reps, you would do three reps per set. Prilepin also knew that in training there will be good daysand bad days. If you were scheduled to do six sets of three but you’re killing it, you can keep it going and do upto (but not beyond) eight sets. The same holds true if things aren’t going your way. For example, you had arough night of sleep or the kids kept you up. Whatever the case may be, if you’re grinding it out, only do f oursets.Considerations

These experiments were done on Olympic weightlif ters. Why is that important? Because that’s all they did.They didn’t run. They didn’t play f ootball. They didn’t throw baseballs. They lif ted. So you need to account f orthis in your program design. In other words, you’re probably better of f going toward the low end of the totalrep range rather than the high end. However, you can look at where you are in your season as well. If ourathletes are in-season, we’ll go even lower than the prescribed number of total reps. For out of season, webring it back up toward the higher end of the range.

These percentages are based of f of a contest max. The lif ters were lif t ing as if (and sometimes it was true)their lif e depended on it. So the Bulgarians actually use two separate sets of maxes—their contest max andtheir training max. The training max is something done in the gym. I’m sure you’ve heard of this—you have yourcontest max and your gym max. Your contest max should be higher than you gym max. If it isn’t, you could beconservative, your gym lif t may be questionable, or your training may be f lawed.

You also should take into account that when the power lif ts (squat, bench, and deadlif t f or those of you whoSTILL don’t know) are done f or a max move, they are done much slower than with the Olympic lif ts. This can bemore taxing on the CNS.

Why are the percentages in the Westside template so dif ferent from Prilepin’s chart?

Olympic lif ters don’t wear supportive gear. Ever seen someone in a snatch shirt? Although it would be f unny, Idon’t think it would be ef f ective. So what you say? You must lower your training weights when not wearing yourgear. Let’s look at this practical situation.Your best raw squat = 400 lbs70% of 400 lbs = 280

Let’s say you get 100 lbs out of your squat suit and your knee wraps (which is def initely possible even in theUSAPL), which moves your contest max to 500 lbs.500 lbs X 70% = 350

That’s 70 more pounds that you don’t have f rom the gear. So you move the percent down.500 lbs X 56% = 280Many of the programs that the Westside lif ters use incorporate band and chains. When accounting f or this,Louie Simmons and Dave Tate count only the band tension at the bottom. So let’s say you get 50 lbs of bandtension at the bottom. Now we need to drop our training weight down to about 230 lbs.

500 lbs X 47% = 235 = our f irst week of dynamic box squats500 lbs X 47% = 235 + 50 pounds of band tension at the bottom = 285285 = about 70% of your non-equipped max

If you ever go to one of the EliteFTS seminars or have the opportunity to talk with Louie or any of the staf ff rom EliteFTS, they will explain all of this to you. But it can get conf using.

So how do you use this with athletes?

So that I don’t lose the reader, I’ll only discuss the use of Prilepin’s chart with beginners in regards to thesquat. First a couple of def init ions:

Beginner: someone who hasn’t lif ted f or one f ull year at VCUIntermediate: someone who has had at least one f ull year of training with us at VCU or is advancing quickly(training age, maturity, previous collegiate lif t ing experience)

We f ollow the basic Westside template with our intermediate athletes, and we have a lower and upper maxef f ort day and a lower and upper dynamic day (f or more inf ormation on this, read Dave Tate’s Periodization

Bible parts I and II).

Beginner athletes will f ollow progressive overload f or three weeks. The coach will handwrite the weights basedon how the athlete did that week with a given weight. If their technique looks good, we go up. If they havedif f iculty with the weight or the technique, they stay at that weight until the technique is mastered. We then testusing anywhere f rom a three to a f ive rep max (I know it ’s not a true max, but it give the coaches and theathlete something to go by).

We start of f on a box because we f eel it ’s easier to teach technique and break it down as f ollows:

Week 1: Both the dynamic and “max ef f ort” workouts are done with a box. Max ef f ort is in quotes because it ’snowhere near the true max ef f ort.

Week 2: We use a box on speed day, which is done f irst in the week. On max ef f ort day, we take the box away.We remind our athletes that nothing changes. We still sit back, keep our chests up, and go below parallel. Wetest on f ree squats because it ’s only appropriate to squat in the same manner that you’re going to test.

Once we have a max, we’ll do a three-week wave with the box going up by about 10 percent per week on ourmax ef f ort day. We start at 65 percent. Af ter this, we go to f ree squats f or three weeks to give our athletestime to adjust to not using the box.

Our max ef f ort day would look something like this:

Max effort day

Week Percent Sets/reps Total reps Prilepin’s recommendations

Done on a below parallel box

1 n/a 6 3 18

Free squat

2 n/a 6 2 12

3 n/a 6 1 6

4 Test

Done on a below parallel box

5 65% 6/3 18 18–30

6 75% 6/2 12 12–24

7 85% 6/1 6 4–10

Free squat

8 75% 5/3 15 12–24

9 85% 5/2 10 10–20

10 95% 4/1 4 4–10

11 95% (down week) 1 11

12 Max

We adhere to Prilepin’s recommendations. We do keep the total number of reps in a workout toward the lowend. The numbers of reps per set are kept low to keep f orm f rom breaking down and to provide more coachingtime. The athlete does 2–3 reps, and we tell them what they did right and wrong. They then do another set andrepeat the process.

Our dynamic day would look something like this:

Dynamic effort day

Week Percent Sets/reps Total reps Prilepin’s recommendations

Done on a below parallel box

1 n/a 10 2

2 n/a 10 2

3 n/a 10 2

4 none

Done on a below parallel box

5 55% 10/2 20 18–30

6 60% 8/2 16 18–30

7 65% 8/2 16 18–30

No box, no pause

8 55% 10/2 20 18–30

9 60% 8/2 16 18–30

10 65% 8/2 16 18–30

11 Rest

12 Max

Our reps per set on the dynamic day are lower than what Prilepin would recommend. This is based on Louie’srecommendations that you should keep the reps lower than normal to keep the bar speed high. Remember thatthe experiments were done on Olympic lif ts, not power lif ts. The power lif ts can take longer to perf orm.

For weeks 1–3, we use a box to help teach technique. Week 4 is a down week (rest.) For weeks 5–7, we use abelow parallel box, and f or weeks 8–10, we take away the box to allow the athlete time to get use to f reesquats. Week 11 is a down week. So f or the last 3–4 weeks the athlete will do all f ree squats (no box, nopause). These templates don’t take into account any interruption in training (i.e. non-tradit ional seasons, etc.).

Probably the most important thing that we emphasize to our athletes is moving the bar f ast. If you have anathlete under 70 percent and they move the bar like it is 70 percent, they won’t get a training ef f ect. Personally,my biggest problem when I started using Prilepen’s chart was that I didn’t understand my capabilit ies. A f ewways of combating this is to put the athlete to a stopwatch. Time the concentric portion of the lif t only. Thisalways gets them competit ive. Have them coach one another. Look at their f aces. I’ve never seen someone whopushes with 100 percent ef f ort look pretty. If their f acial expression doesn’t change, they’re not pushing hardenough.

I hope this will give coaches a new perspective on training their beginning athletes. If you have any questionson any of the material presented, f eel f ree to contact me at Kontosstrength@mac.com or takontos@vcu.edu.

References

1) Craven M (1994) Personal communication.2) Laputin P, Oleshko V (1982.) Managing the Training of Weightlif ters. Kiev: Zdorov’ya Publishers.3) Simmons L (2001) HIT…or Miss? Westside Barbell. http://www.westside-barbell.com.

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