I’m going to warn you that this post could get lengthy, but those who read it might find that they are interested in seeing what happens over the next couple of months.
I haven’t updated in a month or so, but I’ve still been training. I always am. I PR’ed my deadlift in May, pulling 575lbs, which was a 25lb PR. Since then I have dropped the deadlift from my programming and will not deadlift again until Sept-Oct, at which point I will make a run at 600 by the end of the year. Between now and then though, I will be squatting. A lot. My back squat has become somewhat stagnant recently.
PR is currently 462lbs from March, but my numbers have dropped a bit since then, probably from all the heavy pulling I had been doing leading up to my DL pr. Partly out of frustration and partly out of boredom I have decided to embark on a 2nd stint of daily squatting. During my first stint of daily squatting I was met with both amazing and disastrous results. I’m hoping I learned enough last time to avoid the “disastrous” part this time while maximizing the “amazing” part lol.
I will be doing front squats every single day (except some Fridays) right up until the end of August or early September (or whenever I decide the numbers have peaked), the goal being to front squat 185kg (407lbs). My current FS pr is 395lbs from last summer. This PR was the result of daily squatting from March-June. Pretty much all I did during this time period was front squat to a daily max, and then move on to snatch/clean and jerk work. My FS increased by about 40lbs. When I became bored of front squatting I switched to back squatting, and in the first session hit a 20lb PR, followed by PR’s of 5lbs, 10lbs, and 10 more lbs over the next week, for a total gain of 45lbs.
Over these several months I also dropped about 15lbs of BW almost all of which seemed to be bodyfat. I was so elated by the results that I became stupid and eventually suffered a moderate back strain on a routine front squat that kept me out of squatting for the next 2-3 months. That was in June 2012. I did not attempt another front squat for about 8 months. I did not consistently re-implement in them my programming until a week ago.
In hindsight I made several mistakes and should have seen the injury coming. When the squat peaked and the results stopped coming on so magically, I got frustrated and tried to push numbers I wasn’t ready for and wasn’t good for on that day. Just because I did it yesterday, didn’t mean I could do it the next day, but I had trouble accepting that performance was going to fluctuate. Dumb.
I didn’t do any foam rolling or stretching to facilitate recovery and I ignored a severe drop off in my numbers that occurred shortly before the injury. I also did several heavy deadlift sessions, which was not advisable. So I experienced great results, but also a bitter ending.
Last time around, I began with some semblance of intelligence and allowed it to deteriorate as I went along. The plan was that you have a “minimum” that you strive to hit each day. When more is there, you got for it, when it’s not, you don’t And you simply strive to increase the minimum over time. I abandoned this concept as my stubbornness set in and started going for too much too often. I would have been better off stopping at a given weight that felt difficult, and dropping 20-30lbs for some back off sets to accrue volume.
That’s how i will do it this time. 3 days a week I will work up to a top weight and stop, and move on to some upper body stuff. The other 3 days, I will work up to a top weight and then back off to get in some extra volume; I will also foam roll my hips, quads, glutes, and back every night before I go to bed; I will not deadlift anything heavy; and, I will only do this for a finite period of time. I will stop in September whether I have hit my goal or not.
I should say, the purpose of all of this is to lead me to a 500lb back squat. That is my main goal right now. And since my back squat tends to follow my front squat, I will attempt to achieve this by first driving up my front squat. I will update this when I can. Most likely, at the end of every week I will post the numbers that I hit each day of that week. I started last Saturday, so I have squatted for 8 straight days now, today will make it 9 but i have not trained yet.
The sessions were as follows:
Sat: worked up to 365, then hit 5 singles at 350
Sun: worked up to 375, then 360x2
Mon: worked up to 375, then 365x2, 355x2, 345x2
Tues: worked up to 375
Wed: worked up to 375, then 355x2x2, 350x2x2
Thurs: worked up to 375, then 355 for 7 singles
Fri: worked up to 370
Sat: worked up to 385, then 365 for 5 singles
My body feels really good so far. My starting point is well higher this time around than it was last time, so I’m hoping I can hit a pretty big FS at the end of this. Wish me luck.
Anyway, I don’t feel like writing anymore, this post is already massive, and I doubt anyone will read it, but it keeps me accountable and that’s the whole point. If I missed anything, I might come add it later lol.
Here’s 385 from yesterday:
