My experience with dynamic effort

[brad310]

I had been working for a while to make 225 my working weight for a while on the bench press. Though I could bench it for a while, i couldnt get 5 reps for multiple sets, and my max was stalled around 250.

So i decided i would blindly trust in the westside method of doing 1 day max effort 1 day dynamic effort. 50% of my weight was rediculously light, but i trusted it and i just used 135 bar weight...and got myself a set of chains. For 2 weeks i did 1 DE, 1 "normal" chest/tri day. Then i got a wild hair and retested myself in the middle of a work set. 270.

That is probaby the single fastest and honest jump ive made beyond novice gains. That was just after 2 DE sessions mind you. So this thread may be premature, the rest of the story is yet to be told, but im an instant believer now.

For my DE, i did 10 sets of 3, at 135 bar + chains set to be fully deloaded at the bottom. While not difficult, i found it to be fun. I was also fresher on my heavy days.

I also changed up my accessory work and changed from incline bar to just doing db bench timed sets of 30 secs or 2 minutes with light weight. Also, right after the work sets, i added drop sets.

Anyway, thought thought i would share my personal story and give a thumbs up to their method. I was skeptical bc it was so light, but ill be damned. Trust the pros.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

It's definitely a real thing. Dynamic effort works more on neuromuscular changes as opposed to just muscular changes. Your central nervous system essentially learns how to fire more motor fibers simulataneously via practice. You utilize more muscle fibers when you move quickly - that's where light weight, obscenely fast bar speed comes in. The rep scheme is meant to keep the speed near maximal and you do a ton of sets to get the practice. The same neuromuscular changes are seen when lifting with increased interference - chained lifts, banded lifts, anything that makes you stabilize a lot more. The reason why you don't only do this is because you wouldn't simultaneously be making muscular gains via hypertrophy (requires much higher load to increase muscle mass).