[quote]grettiron wrote:
I’ve never seen anyone squat so frequently. Are you following a plan with a name? What’s the method to your madness?[/quote]
I’m doing a sort of combination of olympic style lifting (bulgarian/John Broz influence), chaos and pain, and some ideas I got from Jay Nera’s training log. I’ve been working to increase the number of workouts I do, my goal is to get to six sessions a week and see how I feel. The actual workouts are structured like this:
1)squat exercise: usually a back squat with or without belt/wraps, SSB squat, front squat
2)bench exercise: bench, CG bench, dips(rarely)
every now and then if I have the energy I’ll do some assistance like chins, GHR or complexes and I usually deadlift once every couple weeks. I bench around 2 to 3 times a week and try to pretty much squat every day. My squat seems to respond well to frequent training and my strength keeps going up, plus I love squatting.
Other than that I usually stick with singles or doubles and occasionally 3s,4s or 5s and I take a deload every fourth week. There’s a slight emphasis towards volume in one 4 week cycle and then intensity the next, although not much.
Any other questions please ask![/quote]
Great explanation, thanks! Have you always done high frequency?
I’m squatting every 9th day and making pretty good progress… higher frequency never seemed to work out well for me. But I did bench, dead, press and do assistance every week. Maybe it works for you because you focus on just squat and bench?
Great explanation, thanks! Have you always done high frequency?
I’m squatting every 9th day and making pretty good progress… higher frequency never seemed to work out well for me. But I did bench, dead, press and do assistance every week. Maybe it works for you because you focus on just squat and bench?[/quote]
Over the past year and a half I have been slowly increasing the number of times per week I did the big lifts. My best gains have come from bill starr’s 5x5 and sheiko, so a high frequency on the main lifts and limited assisstance work. I find I make my best gains just focusing on the lifts themselves and not doing much else. Recently I’ve been looking at it (powerlifting) like a skill, it takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill (Gladwell, Ericsson) so I’ve been trying to train more often and in more contest like conditions, hence the high frequency of near max attempts.
This is all kind of hypothetical, plenty of people have made great gains by emphasising assistance and/or by training less often. There seems to be no shortage of different ways to get strong.
SQUAT (monolift, squat bar)
warmup: barxsome, 286x3, 396x1, 396x1
*add belt + wraps
462(210kg) x 1
506(230kg) x miss → felt light, lost focus
DEADLIFT (no belt)
warmup: 275x3, 365x2
455 x 1
506 x 1
spent all of last week working 12.5 hour graveyard shifts doing securty for the G20 summit. I totalled about 70 hours and didn’t get alot of food or sleep so today was going to suck. I should have had the 506 squat but oh well its not a bad start just have to work back up.
dynamic warmup, hip flexor stretch, sumo squat lunge
SQUAT
warmup: barxlots, 155x5, 265x3, 330x1
375x4 (decent)
375x4 (tough)
375x4 (very hard, ugly)
375x2
*add belt and wraps
462x1 (tough, a little high)
462x1 (easier, left side dropped)
[quote]muscle_g wrote:
Looking strong dude! Got any meets coming up?[/quote]
Thanks mate! Actually, I’m feeling a little below my best right now, but hopefully I’ll bounce back stronger in the next week or two. Right now the plan is to do the WNPF Can/Am nationals in september and try to total in the mid 1400s and then possibly do a CPF meet in december, that’s as far ahead as I have planned at the moment.
SQUAT
warmup: 235x5, 325x2
415x1
450x1 → PR (+10 lbs.)
*add belt + wraps
505xmiss → dropped too deep, had nothing
505x1 → a little high
DEADLIFT (no belt)
warmup: can’t remember
325x2
415x1
505x1
535xmiss (above knees)
535x1ish (stalled right at lockout, held it there for 5-10 sec…felt like forever)
Very, very hot in the gym today. The temp was close to 40 outside and there were something like 10 people shoved in a tiny garage. PR on the beltless squat which is nice but my belt/wraps squat is still low. It feels really strong on the standup and walkout but loses everything in the hole, I think my back is rounding down there 500 should be easy.
The deadlift was frustrating, didn’t feel in great pulling shape. I may try to drop my hips some and get my upper back tighter from the start to help my lockout as off the floor is easy. Maybe work in some assisstance (DB rows, GHR or higher rep stiff legs) probably will start back with the belt soon and see if that helps.
with a meet comming up in a couple months I want to put down something more concrete for my training.
DAY ONE
squat (heavy)
bench
DAY TWO
squat (light)
deadlift (accessory)
DAY THREE
squat (heavy)
bench
DAY FOUR
squat (light)
deadlift (accessory)
DAY FIVE
squat (heavy)
bench
for light squat days I’ll shoot for 10-25 total reps @ around 75% (5x5, 10x2, 4x3 ect)
for heavy squat days I’m looking for 4-10 reps between 85-100% (singles, doubles, triples)
the deadlift work will be mostly accessory stuff, but I want to pull from the floor every second or third week
I’m not exactely sure what I want to do for the bench, I know I want some overload work in there (pin presses would be easiest) but I may drop it down to fives for a while and build those up then switch to 3s then singles
I think I should do some extra work for shoulders/tris and hams/back at least once a week
Life happened the past few days so I couldn’t get to the gym until now. Nice easy workout, tomorrow I’ll up the weight to 400 for the squats, I’ve already altered the plan I wrote earlier but I’m liking the look of what I have now.
today called for 420, I don’t have enough olympic plates for that so I had to duct tape 45 pounds of standard weight to the ends of my bar for the work sets. Surprisingly it held perfectly and felt fine, both sets felt light and fast. Shoulders are trashed from yesterday, maybe the KB work I did.
both sets were hard, unfortunately I’m an idiot who can’t add, I forgot the squat bar was 55 pounds and not 45…today should have been 460. Oh well, at least I’m strong enough to do it. The first set was ugly as hell, the second was better. Both were really hard.
I’m not sure how this deadlift plan will work out, usually I don’t do well with frequent pulling, and I my body got the “don’t wanna deadlift” feeling today, but it seemed ok after the a couple deads. I’ll keep going for a while and see what happens.
