Heavy Partials

Workout of The Week

Heavy partials are an advanced method for strength gains. I don’t recommend partials for novices or weaklings. If you’re struggling to even squat your bodyweight, you’re not ready for partials. However, for late intermmediat or advanced trainees partials can be great. You could also use very submaximal partials with novices to build strength and technique in certain positions.

Bench Partials w/ Boards or Bench Blockz

Overhead/Military Press from Pins

Pin Squat / Anderson Squat

The difference between the pin squat and the anderson squat is that an Anderson Squat starts in the bottom (on the pins). A Pin Squat starts from standing and involves a lower phase.

Rack / Block Deadlift

Best use cases for partials:

• Power Training

  • Overcoming inertia by going from a complete dead stop. This builds starting strength. You don’t have to go super heavy. If the goal is power development then you shouldn’t go heavy. This is where movements like floor presses, board presses, or quarter squats become useful.

• Positional Weaknesses

  • Lift from the position you’re weakest in. For example, if you bench lockout is weak, train mostly the top range. If you lose position in the mid range of your squat, squat from Pins at or right beneath this height.

• Overloading

  • Handle more weight than you normally could to train your nervous system to handle greater loads. You would only do this for the top range of movements since that’s where you’ll lift the most.

Partials are a great tool but only if you’re using them correctly. Most of the bros at the gym half squatting in the power rack aren’t doing partials. They’re just doing really bad squats. There’s a difference.

I’d recommend atleast squatting 1.5X your bodyweight before ever attempting a partial. There’s nothing magic about this number, but at that point you have decent strength at most lifts to derive some benefit from training partials. Most people will also tend to begin plateauing around this point.

“Why only 1.5X your squat and not a multiple of a bench press or other lift?”

Squats are king. If you’re not squatting it better be for a good reason (I.e., you physically can’t). You want a big squat if you want total body man strength.

Partials really will only benefit those seriously strength training. If you’re not pushing your squat, you’re probably not strength training super seriously and won’t benefit much from partials anyway.

Weekly Training: Plus Set Method