Lessons From Southwood
by Dan John
It's odd when I think that I've been teaching since 1979. Many of my
colleagues are former students, and I'm amazed at the number of
students I have that I've also taught their parents. Yet, as many of
you know, I still train like I'm twenty. Or at least I think I do. I
still leap into the fires with things like the Velocity Diet and Slosh Pipes.

This Is Not a Drill About
a week ago, the loudspeaker came on towards the end of my all female
weightlifting class. "Teachers, go into lockdown immediately. This is not
a drill." If you've lived on another planet for the last twenty years,
you might not know what this means. But every student and teacher knew
what was going on — we had an armed intruder. For
an hour, we sat in total silence hiding from windows and doors. In my
mind, I thought of my children, my Godchildren, and the friends and
family who were also hiding throughout the building. It turns out that
the gun was only a lifelike Airsoft pellet gun. The parents of the kid
later argued to the media that the school had "over-reacted." A few
days later, in Finland, the story was tragically different and many
students were killed. Over-reaction? I think not. My daughter,
Kelly, later told me that the kids had been discussing which room
would've been the best to wait it all out in. It turns out that
students were sobbing throughout the hour and many kids melted down,
almost in turns. Well, nobody cried in the weightroom. Certainly my
physical size helped, but I have to argue that there was also something
else: I train warriors in my weightroom. The girls had just
finished one of the best workouts I know for anybody. And to be honest,
these girls have been transformed by this training program. Let me
share with Testosterone the Southwood workout and its cousin, the Big
Five: Five by Five. Yes, I've written about the Southwood program
before, but it's worth repeating.

Getting Kids to Lift Every
so often, I'll get an email from a high school coach about teaching a
group of kids to lift weights. The emails often sound like the task of
getting kids to lift is insurmountable. Some of the coaches sound like
they need a miracle worker to come in and exorcize the student body before they begin to exercise. I
always argue back to these fine men and women that it can be done...
easily and inexpensively. I can't claim any credit for the following
program, but I'm indebted to Mr. Dave Freeman, my ninth grade physical education coach for making us do this!

Welcome to Southwood After eight years at St. Veronica's School, I transferred to Southwood Junior High to begin junior high. It was a helluva
transition. From Irish nuns to public school is big enough, but I was
also going to play football. At 118 pounds of pure nothing, it was
obvious to everyone that I needed to lift weights. It was at
this time that I was introduced to Southwood's lifting program. In a
portable building, the school had outlaid about fifteen of those
cement-filled weightlifting sets that everyone from my generation
remembers as their first bar. Mr. Freeman spent little time
explaining the "rep-set" system of 8-6-4 because everybody, except me,
knew what to do. That's part of the brilliance of the program. You
learn it once and then you lift. Not exactly rocket science, but who
needs rocket science on the football field? The
program was very simple. First, groups of four boys were given a bar.
The bars ranged from very light, maybe 25 pounds, up to nearly a
hundred pounds. Each cohort of boys would lift one at a time, put the
bar down, and then the next boy would lift. The four would constantly
move from lifter to watcher — the bar never stopped. The three sets
(explained in just a moment) wouldn't take very long. In fact,
sometimes it was hard to catch your breath in time for your next set. The reps were very simple:
First set: 8 repetitions
Second set: 6 repetitions
Third set: 4 repetitions The
goal was also clear-cut: When you got all 18 reps, you added weight. If
you started with a bar that was too light, you'd be bumped up to the
next weight and a stronger group in the next workout. Of course, actual
variations could include making an entirely new group with more weight,
too — whatever was necessary to make the group work together. The program involved four lifts:
1) Power clean
2) Military press
3) Front squat
4) Bench press Each
lift was done in the 8-6-4 rep format. The bar was cleaned (once) for
the set of military presses, and the bar was also cleaned (once) for
the front squats. So, each workout the athlete cleaned the bar from the
ground to their chest 22 times. If, as some people believe, the power
clean is the "king of the exercises," that's a lot of reps with the
king!
Lift with the king. To "hurry up" the training (as if necessary) there were times when Mr. Freeman
recommended combining the power clean and military presses. One clean
and one press, repeated for a total of eight reps. This was done with a
lighter weight. One could also do the front squats after the clean and
presses, too. I've only done this once, and it was an amazing
cardiovascular workout. Each day to warm-up, we had to run two
laps and an obstacle course. The two laps were about 600 meters. The
obstacle course had a wall, various upper body challenges, and some
balance walking. All in all, this wasn't a bad program. Here it is in table format:
The Southwood Program To be performed three days a week in the weightroom:
Power clean
8-6-4 reps
Military press
8-6-4 reps
Front squat
8-6-4 reps
Bench press
8-6-4 reps As
I began coaching, I adapted this workout several times. One thing I've
returned to with training groups is to no longer use the racks on the
bench press. Instead, I have the two spotters deadlift the weight and
bring it over the head of the athlete. I discovered that young
athletes don't set their shoulders right when they get a "lift off,"
but naturally grab the barbell correctly when two spotters raise the
bar over their eyes. Also, this method insures proper spotting because
you simply don't have time to start doing something stupid.

The Gang of Three There
are three basic methods for doing the Southwood workout. The first, or
the "classic" as we call it, is to use one bar with one weight for all
four exercises. What holds the athlete back on this variation is the
military press. The upside of this variation, and this is
something to think about, is the athletes aren't afraid to go deep with
the lighter weight in the front squat. Since I think depth is more
important than weight in the early learning process, this classic
variation might be the best. However,
the kids really know that they can do much more in the bench press. I
usually find them doing lots of extra sets on their own after the
formal workout is over. I don't see the issue of athletes doing extra
work on their own as a real problem. The second variation is
to change the weights for each exercise. The front squat will still be
held back by the power clean, but I think that an athlete who's early
in the learning curve can get by with less weight on the front squat. I'm
still a believer in "movement over muscles," and I believe more in
correct movement over weight. In other words, I don't think a 600-pound
front squat is a "quad" exercise, as you better have your whole body
ready for the hit. And, if you barely bend your knees, then don't brag
about your big squat, either. In a large group setting, this
requires a lot of plate changing and juggling of athletes here and
there. But this second variation is great for a group up to about
twenty, as well as being ideal for individuals. The
final variation I use is to simply use the Southwood workout as a
warm-up. Now, I know that everybody in the world is advanced now, but
there's something about doing four big movements to get the body going.
Like Alwyn Cosgrove's complexes, there's going to be some fat burning
in all of this whole-body lifting. For fun, try doing the
eight power cleans, military presses, and front squats back to back to
back. Then continue with the six reps and finish by tackling the four
rep sets. I tried doing the bench presses in this cluster, but I found
that I was wrestling with the bar too much getting up and down.
Certainly safety is a concern, but I just found it too taxing for a
warm-up.

Reaching for the Five From
the Southwood Program, we progress to the Big Five workout. It's a
simple linear progression workout using five sets of five reps of the
same four lifts, with deadlifts added to the mix. I've commented in the
past on the Five by Five here at Testosterone. I
have my athletes simply add weight each set, so that they finish the
fifth set as heavy as they can go. With young male and female athletes
at any level, you might find that they can lift within ten pounds of
their max single for five reps. This doesn't happen to lifters with
more than two or three years in the gym, but for a young lifter this
isn't uncommon. So, the next workout looks like this:
Power clean
5 x 5
Military press
5 x 5
Front squat
5 x 5
Bench press
5 x 5
Deadlift (any variation)
5 x 5 This
Big Five workout is one that anyone would recognize from the annals of
bodybuilding history. The late Reg Park used this with great success
and his devotee, an Austrian bodybuilder with political ambitions,
followed a very similar program.

The 5-3-2 Workout Every
fifth workout, we change one small thing by playing with the reps and
sets. We shift to just three sets. A set of five, add weight, a set of
three, add weight, and then a heavy double. This is the 5-3-2 workout.
The goal is to go as heavy as possible on the double. The
problem with going heavy on singles with the young athletes is that you
run into an old phrase called "fuzzy logic." It's one of those phrases
that got beat to death a decade ago, and seems to have fallen into the
same bin as "have a cow, man" and "I didn't inhale." Basically,
when most people go heavy with singles, the spotters help "a little"
and the depth gets suspect on squats. The legs work harder on military
presses, and well, the list just goes on. With a double, I can always
be assured that at least one repetition was really a rep. We don't want
fuzzy maxes in the weight room.
There will be nothing fuzzy in the weightroom. Ever. The
reason I moved to the every fifth session 5-3-2 workout is simple: I
started to see my athletes really improve as the volume of the five by
fives built up. An easier test day every two weeks seems to keep the
athletes enthusiasm high and keeps them coming back for more. I don't
worry about boring my athletes when they're making progress. There's
nothing worse than a program that's both boring andnon-progressive. Sadly, "boring and non-progressive" defines most training programs. After
three, or at most, four weeks of the Southwood program, I shift to the
Big Five. After two months of work on the Big Five with the chance of
maxing four times during the two months, and with a final max day at
the very end, the athletes can now move onto other programs.

Mastering the Major Five There's
a level of mastery in the five major lifts that's evident to the eye of
any visitor. There's also a lot of weight on some of the bars as I've
had sophomores sneak into the 200's on power cleans for a set of five.
That's some good lifting for an adult and amazing from a 15 year old. The
Southwood and the Big Five are just two of the many things I do to
indoctrinate my students into the world of lifting, fitness, and
health. I've had many students who've really bought into the program.
They've supplemented their diet with fish oil capsules multiple times a
day, and tossed back a protein shake before, halfway through, and at
the end of their workouts. The gains in hypertrophy and strength are
impressive. After a few weeks of doing battle with the weights, my students are ready for anything.http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1844960