So I’ve been doing pyramids for my squats (after a brief flirtation with reverse pyramids), and it seemed to go well and work well. But lately progress started slowing, so I thought I’d change it up.
So I took 5 lbs off my top rep set (which I could do for 5 reps), and did 8 x 3 today. I worked, and worked hard getting 8 x 3, and feel confident raising the weight next time by 2.5 lbs.
My other leg exercises stayed the same. On the one hand, it was nice to move the weight for so many reps (over time), but at the same time, my legs don’t feel wrecked now like they usually do. Normally coming down the stairs on leg day (after exercising, of course), I need to hold tight to the railing.
Anyone else do 8 x 3 for low bar back squats? How did it work for strength and how did it work for hypertrophy?
Holy cow the DOMS is significant. Tomorrow is going to suck even worse (in a good way). I do a similar amount of reps with pyramids (8, 7, 6, 6 - in general) without significant DOMS, but today I feel hammered. Cool!
[quote]kravi wrote:
Anyone else do 8 x 3 for low bar back squats? How did it work for strength and how did it work for hypertrophy?[/quote]
Waterbury has written a bunch about 8x3 and 8x4, and used them in several of his programs. It’s right in the sweet spot of volume, weight, and power/bar speed. It’s good stuff… as you learned the day after.
[quote]kravi wrote:
Anyone else do 8 x 3 for low bar back squats? How did it work for strength and how did it work for hypertrophy?[/quote]
Waterbury has written a bunch about 8x3 and 8x4, and used them in several of his programs. It’s right in the sweet spot of volume, weight, and power/bar speed. It’s good stuff… as you learned the day after. ;)[/quote]
No kidding, I felt like I had just been incarcerated in a Turkish prison!
I also think that after a year or so of pyramids, it was nice to just change “how I lift”.
[quote]kravi wrote:
Anyone else do 8 x 3 for low bar back squats? How did it work for strength and how did it work for hypertrophy?[/quote]
Waterbury has written a bunch about 8x3 and 8x4, and used them in several of his programs. It’s right in the sweet spot of volume, weight, and power/bar speed. It’s good stuff… as you learned the day after. ;)[/quote]
No kidding, I felt like I had just been incarcerated in a Turkish prison!
I also think that after a year or so of pyramids, it was nice to just change “how I lift”.
–Me[/quote]
why a Turkish prison?
I’m a Turk and i didnt know that our prisons are famous in your country.
[quote]kravi wrote:
Anyone else do 8 x 3 for low bar back squats? How did it work for strength and how did it work for hypertrophy?[/quote]
Waterbury has written a bunch about 8x3 and 8x4, and used them in several of his programs. It’s right in the sweet spot of volume, weight, and power/bar speed. It’s good stuff… as you learned the day after. ;)[/quote]
No kidding, I felt like I had just been incarcerated in a Turkish prison!
I also think that after a year or so of pyramids, it was nice to just change “how I lift”.
–Me[/quote]
why a Turkish prison?
I’m a Turk and i didnt know that our prisons are famous in your country.
[/quote]
Well, to be fair, it should be “Ottoman Prison” since Ataturk/Mustafa Kemal modernized your prisons along with everything else.
But Ottoman prisons are famous for, uhm, the… crap, how do I explains this? Prisoners getting butt raped a lot?
So my reference simply implied that my glutes were very sore after switching my squats to 8 x 3.
