Am I meant to be on the verge of death every time I do a widowmaker set?

Training 5/3/1
1

Maybe I chose the wrong exercise to do it on but for squats I feel like I’m almost collapsing and fainting when I force myself to get to 20 reps and it impairs me for the rest of my assistance. Also I’m doing low bar squat and taking rests at the top is really hard because the bar starts sliding down my back after 10 reps so it’s really hard to keep stable for the later reps

2

Well, I do 20 rep back squats with a the low bar position, and it goes fine for me. Last two times I did 215 lbs, and my 1RM is around 345 lbs for reference. I do this before a tough WOD for Crossfit.

It’s hard, for sure, but I don’t feel on the brink of death or close to fainting. My approach is to get to 15. Don’t step and think about it, just get to 15. Once I’m at 15, I pause for a few deep breaths and then it’s just 5 more. I do these 1-2 at a time before pausing for a couple deep breaths. Then I recoup for about 5-10 minutes and hit a WOD pretty hard.

Are you using too much weight? Is your conditioning poor (I find being conditioned makes this much easier for me compared to others that lack my level of conditioning).

4

My training max is 315 which I can do a fairly comfortable 3 reps with. My actual max is probably around 350. I’m currently doing leviathan and in week 3 it had me doing 225 for my widowmaker set.

I think my conditioning is ok, I do at least 2 hours worth of pure cardio a week. Maybe it was just a bad day and I didn’t have my belt with me to do the widowmaker set today too. But tbh it’s not really THAT much easier with the belt. My biggest issue is just maintaining the low bar shelf, it’s perfect up to 10 reps but I don’t know what I can do to stop the bar sliding down which is what probably makes it so much harder

1 Like
5

Not sure how to help here. For whatever reason, holding that spot works out well for me. We’re very similar in strength numbers, though, so that weight seems right for you.

Now, high rep front squats are a whole other issue…holding that front rack position is very challenging for higher reps, even at relatively lower weights.