OH my GOSH. I started doing dead stop front squats about a month ago to help with getting out of the hole on regular front squats. For context, I do one leg day with dead stops, and for my second leg day I would do traditional front squats. I’ve made progress on the dead stops themselves, but I feel like they’re not helping with improving my front squat, as I intended them to. I don’t know if I’m going too heavy too soon or what, but my front squat strength has gone DOWN ever since starting these. If anything, I’m having a harder time getting out of the hole. For instance, about a month ago I was able to hit 5x5 on traditional front squats. The next week, I could only do 3-4 reps for those sets. Today, I got 2-3 max. So I feel like a depressed piece of shit who’s going down a rabbit hole of losing my progress.
I have a guess that it might be because dead stops eliminate the stretch reflex that you get on traditional squats. I feel as if I’m getting too used to eliminating the “stretch reflex” by doing dead stops, which I presume has thus translated to a poor/weakened stretch reflex on regular front squats. I’ve noticed this weakness on leg press as well. All of my other lower body lifts are fine - hamstring curls, Bulgarians (although these too are a squat variation), leg extension, hip thrusts, hip abduction/adduction.
I’m wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this or how to proceed from here. I do like dead stops themselves, but for the purpose of improving my other lifts, I feel like they’re causing more harm than good. I’ve been keeping all other variables CONSTANT.
In that case it is time for a controlled program and analysis.
IMO, return to your “successful” program and run it for 4 to 8 weeks and track your big lifts looking only at your strength doing them. You need to eliminate a systemic biological problem.
I would think that you will recover all of your strength numbers in a month. If you do, maybe add back your stop squats after regular squats, to keep your primary training on accessing full access to stretch reflex assistance..
Basically what you’re saying. You’ve been practicing these dead stop lifts. I’ll imagine you’re relaxing a bit in the dead position, so you’re not keeping your tight body position, muscle tension, etc. Since that’s what you’ve practiced, that’s what your body wants to do when you get back under the full lift. When you release that tension at the bottom, you’re not as strong.
Similar to what @RT_Nomad said, I don’t think you’ve lost huge amounts of muscle/ real strength - you just need that frequent practice with what was working.
Ohh, that makes sense. But just to clarify: once I get into that dead position, I relax a little too much and am getting rid of all the tension that I would need in a traditional front squat. So what I should do on dead stops is to maintain all tension throughout the lift, even when I’m at the way bottom of the lift and the bars are on the safety rack.
If that’s correct, then that does make sense. Looking back at my dead stop work and remembering how it feels, I did pretty much get rid of all tension at the bottom. Not intentionally, but now I know!
Yep. Same page as @RT_Nomad. Go back to what was working, get settled, then add one thing in at a time and assess. You seem dialed in enough that you’ll be able to really control a variable at a time!
Thank you!