My Indicators


In Dave Tate’s article, “Tate's Tool Box: The Art of Program Design Plus 5 New Exercises!” (this is a T-Mag article) he mentions the role of indicators in your program. To reduce the risk of misquoting him, here is part of the text from the article.

Training Philosophy

Every athlete, coach and trainer should have his own philosophy of training based on where he's going. Do you want to get stronger? Do you want to add more mass? Do you want to get ripped? Do you want to use training to better your sport of choice? Do you feel being stronger is the key to success? Do you feel being better conditioned is the key? Do you feel you need all these variables? In other words, what do you really want to achieve from your training?

Key Indicators

Once you know this, the next step is to select what "key indicators" you'll use to gauge your process. For a powerlifter, some of these may include: the bench press, the squat, the deadlift, weight used for dynamic training, specific max effort movements, weights used for triples, etc.

To further illustrate, I can gauge my squat on my best three-rep max on the good morning, and I can base my bench press on a specific percentage of my best two-board press or floor press. I know others who can predict their best bench or squat on their best triple while training for a meet. These items are very specific to each individual but are indicators used to determine if you're moving closer to, or further away from your goal.

If adding mass is your goal, then your indicators would be lean body mass, circumference measurements and body weight. When you have your indicators set, then you make sure to track them as your training progresses. If your indicators are going in the right direction, then you stay with what you're doing.

If one indicator falls off or quits progressing, then you address it in your training to get it back on track. The larger and more specific your list of indicators, the better your progress will be.

In this article, I’m going to focus on what my indicators are on the squat, bench and deadlift, how I came about them. What this will hopefully do is give you a guide and more numbers to look at when assessing your training. Please understand that all of this is specific to me, not you. The exercises that I list are what I used to determine my progress and where I was at.

To make things clear, I use Key Indicators as a way of assessing my training and knowing where I’m at without having to test my lifts. This is a great thing because everyone wants to know if their training is working but they don’t want to have to have a test day every two weeks.

Also, my Key Indicators (as well as yours) take time to know and develop. They also will change over time. So always be on the lookout and always monitor your training.

Key Indicators for the Bench Press

· Floor press – when this goes up, so does my bench press. If I want to know my raw bench press, I can simply floor press during a ME bench session and add about 25lbs.

· Dumbbell bench press – for this lift, when I can comfortably handle 150lbs dumbbells for 2 sets of 8-12 reps, I know that my bottom end strength for the bench press is right where I need it to be. I noticed that when this movement was strong, so was my strength off of my chest.

· Standing military press – I’m not too good at these, but when this went up, so did my bench press. If I could press, without too much effort, 275lbs from my shoulders, then I know that my shoulder strength is up to par. The term “without too much effort” needs to be qualified so this is what I mean; I can press 275 from my shoulders, with little psyche on any given day. This lift always made my low-end strength increase.

· Chest supported row – Every machine is different so weight is going to be inconsequential in this listing. But on the one that we use, if I can handle 4 plates for 2-3 sets of 6-8 reps, I know my lats and upper back are right where they need to be. For me to bench a PR (or come really close) my lats had to be strong enough to hold the weight as well as being able to maintain the correct bar path.

· Upper back hypertrophy – This is a little strange and NO! I didn’t break out the tape measure for this one. If I feel like my upper back is getting thicker and I feel very strong while setting up, I knew that I was on track. Besides the usual rows and chins, I did a lot of seated DB cleans, face pulls and rear laterals. I was not looking at strength but thickness.

Key Indicators for the Squat

· Box squat training at WSB – This is a very strange indicator but stick with me on this one. I did keep track of my progress on the box squat but the biggest thing that I did with this is to simply stay within shooting distance of Mike Ruggiera and in the same training group as Chuck Vogelpohl. As long as I was still allowed to squat with this group, I was doing OK. As long as I didn’t get ousted by Lou and the rest of WSB from this group, I knew I was on track. So the indicator for me was simply not to get my ass kicked too bad by these guys.

· Power Squat – As many of you already know, I believe this is one of the biggest things that I did to increase my squat. Now I was always shooting for PR’s on this exercise, which was nice because it was a new movement to me and I was always setting records. But as time went along, it wasn’t so much the setting of a PR which was important but how 1000lbs felt on my shoulders and on the way up. If it felt light and the reps were explosive, I knew that my leg strength was right where I needed it to be.

· Weighted sit-ups on glute ham raise – My abs are very important when I squat so I am always conscious of where I’m at with this exercise. As long as I’m able to do 5 very easy reps with a 45lbs plate behind my head, I know that my abs are strong enough to hit a squat PR.

· 45 degree back raise – Along with my abs, my low back is also extremely important in regards to my squat training. The big thing that I’m looking for on this exercise is the ability to do 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 100lbs across my back.

Key Indicators for the Deadlift

These indicators are going to be the same as the squat with these exceptions:

· Rack pulls – There are a lot of different pins to pull off of, but the ones that I felt best carried over were pins #2 and #3. When I set records on these, I knew I was on track.

· Deadlift – This is a little different. As long as I could pull about 90% of my max with little psyche, I felt my deadlift was on track. In fact, for my mental training, I made sure that I was calm as I could be for these lifts. Then when the meet came around, I never had any doubt that I could pull my opener. The key to this was removing mental barriers that I may have had.

Now that we went over the indicators, I have thought of one question that may be asked and that I think needs to be discussed. Do I train for my indicators or do I train using my indicators? To make this clear – do I use the DB Bench Press as a training tool or do I use it as a testing device? The answer is both, but you don’t want to follow the line of thinking that “you have to build the lifts that build the lifts that build the lifts.” See where I’m going? All this is going to do is water itself down so that all you are doing is lying on the couch and meditating. So these indicator lifts are the ones that made up the most of my training, although I did do some different exercises.

What Key Indicators are essentially doing is allowing you to monitor your training and to see, during a session and a cycle, how everything is going. If you know what to look for (again this is going to take some time and some thought on your part) than you are on the way to becoming stronger. I would highly recommend looking back at your training and what lifts you were doing when you were strongest. Now you have something to evaluate and something to shoot for.