just starting a new volume cycle, this is my first day. i squat 3x per week and alternate between 10x10 and either 3x20 or 5x20 depending on the weight. all sets during conditioning/volume phase are done without a belt or wraps. this workout was pretty hard!
Holy shit that is impressive
holy shit thats impressive. what was your training like before this?
how far do you mean back? like my past month? year? week?
i guess the past year =]
I don’t have any questions to ask. This is about 99 more reps than I do in a workout at this weight. Impressive. I’ll add a holy shit like the other guys just for merit.
well, i will start with a little more than a year ago. at the beginning of last summer i had been lifting for about a year and worked up to 480 squat at maybe 180lbs bodyweight. at the beginning of the summer i injured my back doing “bulgarian” type training where i maxed out on squat 2 times every day, so i took the summer off from squatting to basically work on the olympic lifts.
I went to lindenwood for lifting and worked mostly on the lifts, but i started squatting again and went from about a 405 squat at 170 lbs bodyweight to 465 at the same bw following basic chinese programing. i injured my shoulder about 1 year ago from now, and ran smolov for the first time, and raised my max to 530 in 4 weeks. I usually take xmas break completely off from lifting so i can play call of duty about 10 hours a day (literally).
second semester last year i came back to University of Northern Iowa to continue my education and work. I trained pretty hard for about a month, worked mostly on deadlifting like sets of ten, and 5 rep maxes for squat. I decided to run smolov again, and it was a horrible idea. I overtrained myself so severely that i tried to end it all. yes i tried to close the book on my story, but failed.
When i came back after a week off, and a few days in the hostpital, i could barely squat 405 that next monday. I decided that i was going to build a huge pyramid of volume, so i started hitting 225, 275, and 315 for multiple sets of 20 in the hopes of building a huge base of volume. my main goal was to hit 405x20. did this for about a month, and then started going for straight 20 rep maxes 3x per week.
in 2 weeks i worked up to 385x20, and hit 405x17? while simultaneously attempting 5 rep maxes, i increased my 5 rep max from 440 to 505 in about a month, and hit 555 for a single. after that, i started another volume cycle, and quickly worked up to 365 for 5x20 and 385 for 3x20. After that i had to quit training for the rest of the summer and got a job working with my brother (laying brick) This was great exercise, but i was not able to train, other than squat like 1 time a month, and go in and hit a 1rm and leave. about 2 months ago i started front squatting monday wednesday and friday just 5 rep maxes.
in about 4 weeks i worked up from 315x5 to 425x5 and a 455 paused front squat. The only reason i was just front squatting was that my squat rack would not fit in my basement, and didnt feel like back squatting out of shitty squat stands. I went to visit some of my friends and had access to a squat rack, so i squatted for the first time in about 4 months, other than just a simple quick 1rm.
I hit 530x1 and 500x5. i got the back squat feeeva. i smashed out a wall in my basement to fit my rack in. so i decided to run SMOLOV SENIOR. i invented this program haha, its just a condensed version of smolov. i took all the days and did monday tuesday wednesday thursday, friday off, then saturday sunday monday tuesday, and then proceeded to max out like 8 days in a row, and the last day was this monday and i hit 600 for the first time. so in about a month i added 70 lbs to my back squat, and squatted every day. took the day after i hit 600 i did 5x20 at 275 just to get used to high volume again.
This is a heavy and meaningful post to me. yeah i almost died from overtraining. squatted myself nearly to death. but im glad it didnt happen because i feel that i have more shit to get done in life. i’ve felt the bottom of the barrel in terms of overtraining. it’s rough. but there is nothing i would rather do than lift the weights. I’m not saying try doing 10x10, but for gosh sake at least try something outside the box! you might learn something great!
Nice squatting, and thanks for sharing your story. Interesting how the story of your life comes out so much in the story of your lifting. With the kind of passion and intensity you convey, I suppose it would have to.
Interesting. Did you do 5rm training after your 20 reps when you say simultaneously training it?
“I ate way to fucking much life cereal yesterday” lmfao
You are the kind of mental I like. Fair play. What can be said to such brilliance of inventive thought and passion? I suppose you might have too much time on your hands, but I’m not sure that’s possible with programming like that.
Wow!
I wish Stallion was still posting here. You guys are two peas in a pod, although I think you are even more over the top.
yeah that Life cereal will kill you, i had a whole box for breakfast because i’m trying to bulk, it was like 600g of carbs and 50g of gluten protein. bad idea. i’m currently eating about 10,000 calories a day, and tomorrow im going to do 5x20 with somewhere between 365-385 to try to condition myself to hit around 455x1x20 in a month, perhaps more. it would be cool to top the 462x20. i remember watching that video a couple years ago and nearly shit myself. and i was doing my 5rm sets some days after the max attempts at 405, and somedays i would do it the other way around. just depended on the day and how i felt.
Your a legend man glad your alive.
Show off.
Training from today was great, worked on my video editing skills as well. I’m going to make daily training videos from here on out just to log what I’ve done.
“show off” yep i am
Fantastic squatting Joe. You will be hitting 500x20 soon I’m sure. Kudos on the “Thigh of the Tiger” tights.