A Sheiko concept:

Most lifters do a compound movement followed by an isolation movement or two as the backbone of their training. Boris Sheiko, the Russian powerlifting team coach and the instigator of more puking than a Crossfit convention, often designs his high volume powerlifting programs with two squat, bench press, or deadlift sessions sandwiched around another movement in the same lifting session.

So a lifter might go bench-squat-bench, which isn't bad, but the more ominous squat-bench-squat isn't so much fun. The lesson here is you could do the series approach mentioned above in the bench press and feel pretty much worn out, then follow it with a moderate squat workout, then go back and do another bench press workout, generally with a different rep scheme.

Suspend your reservations for a minute. Even somebody with a lower work capacity can have a surprisingly strong second workout of the same lift in the same training session. When you accommodate to this approach, you're handling a lot more volume at a surprisingly high intensity, sometimes very close to the intensity of the first workout that you did in that lift.

If you can't stomach doing this, then maybe the second time through you might do a derivation of the lift like decline, incline, or board press. I guarantee that you'll be stronger in the second lift after a moderate or even heavy exercise is done in the middle of the workout than if you just did the bench press and then went directly to the decline, incline, or board press.

Full range work:

This is probably the most outrageous thing I'll write in this article. Ready? Here goes: If you're over thirty years old, you need to go for a full stretch on every rep like I need to ride out a level five hurricane.

The number 1 and 1a scary things I see in the gym daily are dumbbell bench presses and stiff legged deadlifts done to extreme ranges of motion (ROM). Why can't people carry over their partial squat motion to these lifts? Or maybe they should carry over their extra ROM in the dumbbell bench and SLDL for use in the squat?

Face it, there are reasons NFL running backs are done around 30 years of age. After 30, things just don't work or recover as well, and you might be slightly less mobile than you were at 18. So why do the full stretch thing when it's an invitation to a tear or pull?

Single limb work:

But since I'm in the business of pursuing PRs and not PhDs, I wanted to know how that could help my total. Ethan showed me one of his favorite exercises, the single arm dumbbell press.

Practicing this lift revealed to me the great stabilization issues I had in my pressing motion and torso. (I never say the words "core" or "transverse abdominus." I took an oath, please respect it.) With both hands on the bar, my stronger side compensated for my weaknesses, robbing me of explosion and top-end strength...

Other exercises that can be great difference makers are the one legged squat (pistol) done free standing or to a box, one legged deadlifts, one arm dumbbell or kettlebell snatch, and one arm chins or one arm cable pulldowns for us mere mortals. These lifts can be a normal part of your assistance rotation, or done mainly as a back-off week mainstay and for higher reps. About 12-25 reps works great for single limb work. Bigger and stronger will be your reward!

Arm training:

Most powerlifters don't know or care about whether they need more isometric work to bring up their brachialis, or even if lack of dynamic elbow flexion is limiting their biceps peak. By the time a powerlifter has squatted, benched in a shirt (hello brachialis!), deadlifted, and has done some upper back work, "buffet" comes before "biceps brachii," "brachialis," or "brachioradialis" in the powerlifter dictionary.

Too much direct biceps work is seen as an invitation to a biceps tear, plus it's looked down upon as embracing metrosexuality... not that there's anything wrong with that!

Then powerlifters discovered the benefits of strongman work. Strongman-type training is very demanding of grip, so direct grip work started showing up in powerlifting training. But a funny thing happened on the way to a better grip: it built up the pythons!