Side note:
My wife is about 4 margaritas deep. She’s a little lady, so that’s taking its effect. She is currently on the couch tearing up because she loves our dog so much and is sad that at one day he will die. (Note that he is at most middle aged right now, not a speck of grey on him)
I’m a lucky man.
haha when this happens my wife looks at me like a wounded gazelle and she a cheetah.
Sounds like you’re doing them wrong 
04may26:
Agile: 5 min mobility
Primary:
Overhead press: 45x10, 95x5, 125x4, 145x3, 165x1, 185x1, 150x3, 150x3, 150x3, 150x3
Superset w/
Lat pulldown: 100x10, 140x12, 140x12, 140x12, 140x12, 140x13 (8540lb vol)
Secondary:
Mid grip Pause bench: 45x5, 135x5, 175x3, 200x5, 200x5, 200x5, 200x5
Accessory:
Db row: 90x14, 90x13 (2430lb vol)
DB Inc bench: 70x15, 70x12 (1890lb vol)
Lat raise: 22.5x15, 22.5x15, 22.5x12 (945lb vol)
Rope pushdown: 45x20, 45x15 (1575lb vol)
Notes:
@alex_uk I feel like the combo of axle+light weight means these don’t suck… yet. But I also knows I’m planning to go to barbell and heavier weight, just trying to ease myself into it gently lol
06may26:
Agile: 5 min mobility
Power:
Box jumps: 5x3
Primary:
Hi bar squat: 45x10, 135x5, 185x3, 235x3, 275x3, 325x1, 345x1, 365x1, 295x3, 295x3, 295x3
Secondary:
RDL: 135x5, 185x5, 235x5, 235x5, 235x5, 235x5
Accessory:
Lots of stretching, hanging knee raises, sit-ups, dead bugs, just trying to get ease the back
Notes:
Side note:
It may simply be a conjugate solution of rotating the movements frequently to keep from getting beat up. I am finding success with that
Edit: Combining the two would be DoggCrapp
I think for now, the issue is primarily lifestyle. I spend 8-10 hours a day sitting at a desk. That’s not great. Now with some grad school study? Add in another 3 or so hours each day at a desk. I’m spending 11-13 hours a day hunched in front of a monitor, because that’s what life is asking of me right now, and it’s just taking the expected toll.
I do also think part of it is just squats. Some people are built to squat. I am not. I can do deadlifts night and day without suffering for it. But my body just isn’t built well for squats. I can squat decent numbers, because I’ve put effort into it, but I’m doing that despite my natural leverages, not because of them. And even if I can move from point A to point B in accordance with USAPL regs, that sure doesn’t mean it’s pretty, or that my body is happy with me cause of it. And there are so many variations I CAN do well. Zercher, goblet, even SSB to some extent.
Not saying I’m stopping the current training or anything. Just that at some point, I’ll be sufficiently beat up that I’ll have to accept trainings going from performance to longevity, and whenever I make that switch, my first change is ditching the barbell squat. (Kind of like me ditching normal bench and focusing on a closer grip. Still doing something similar, but that competition form just wrecks my joints).
Sometimes I do wonder how I’d feel if I hadn’t done a lifetime of contact sports. 2 of my 3 knee surgeries, my shoulder surgery, and my slipped disk all resulted from contact sports. My body would probably be a lot better off if I hadn’t spent years of my life putting as much effort as I could into violently throwing my body against other people lol. On the other hand, I don’t think I would be ME in the same sense if I hadn’t done those things, and on the whole I wouldn’t change the past for anything…. But if you asked me if I could just erase a few injuries while still having done the whole “no fear” style of play, I think I’d take that up in a heartbeat lol.
I do want to give conjugate a proper run at some point. My only concern is really form. I struggle enough trying to maintain a somewhat decent squat style as is, and get in my head a bit when considering changing it up a very few weeks
I do want to give conjugate a proper run at some point. My only concern is really form. I struggle enough trying to maintain a somewhat decent squat style as is, and get in my head a bit when considering changing it up a very few weeks
So closest alligator to the boat: a way to go about “solving” this that some of the big boys use is to spend the first week as a “re-learning” week and the second/third week as a maxing week. So even though the first week is a ME day, you make it a 3 or 5 rep and try to rebuild that skill with the lift. Then, next week rolls around and you crush it. Or, if you’re going the DoggCrapp way, being “good” at the lift kind of works against the point. You WANT to “musclef**k it” so that your MUSCLES are doing the work rather than your leverages.
But going 1000 mile view here: you’re spot on in that there’s really no need to ever do any sort of barbell squat. People got big and strong for millennia without it, and it wasn’t until the invention of a rack that we really got to start loading it. In turn, a loaded barbell squat is pretty alien to our biology, and I think of it more as a “selector” exercise: those that CAN squat well will benefit, and those who can’t will get weeded out. If you look at Tom Platz, his body is BUILT to squat, so it’s no wonder it works so well for him. You look at Layne Norton or Steve Goggins or Mark Felix and you see a whole different animal (primarily: a hinger).
Dan John, a notable “not built for squatting” dude, has a lot of great “squat free” training options that could still work wonderfully with your home gym, and would function well as you move more toward a life of longevity and athletics vs any sort of hard defined powerlifting based goal. Hell, even in the world of strongman you’ll find some specimens that aren’t barbell squatting.
These days, I feel like the benefit of barbell squatting isn’t the training of the legs, but the loading of the body to drive total body growth. Dan John (again) talks about how he includes barbell back squats in mass building programs for just that reason, but that ALSO he doesn’t really see a lot of benefit in himself nor his athletes when the drive their barbell back squat weight up as far as athletic performance goes. It’s great for getting bigger: limited in getting “better”.
Apologies for bloviating there, but you also gave me a great idea for a blog post, so thanks for that.
