Agreed. They’re definitely a high-skill movement and are not easy. I’m just someone who beats myself up a lot when I feel like I’m doing everything right, both in and out of the gym, and it doesn’t go the way I want it to. It’s definitely a mentality thing I need to continue to work on.
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Right. The only things “different” that happened between the 13th and 20th are that (1) I’m watching my parents’ dog while they’re out of town. It doesn’t seem like much and may even seem childish, but I’m someone who gets easily overwhelmed and overstimulated, so adding on another responsibility on top of work life doesn’t really help, I guess.
(2) I’ve been given more responsibilities at work.
Nothing else has changed in my training program, what I eat, how much water I drink, how much I sleep, etc.
I think your last sentence definitely hits home. And certain fitness influencers constantly preach about “going hard or going home”, “in what circumstance would you not want to give it your absolute 110% effort” yadayada. Which makes it hard to back down mid-workout when you’re feeling unstoppable. But, for the sake of consistency and long-term progress, what you stated there is 100% true.
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To note:
Sheet 2 is my from my current block
Sheet 3 is my athketes current block
Note yellow = Main lift
Green = weakness
Blue = Assistants work
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Yea, that’s probably all it needs - time. I need to not rush it or force it, just keep doing my best with what I can and keep challenging myself in reasonable terms.
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Ah yes. So like I said on the 13th, everything was great, I got the 5 reps for 6 sets. I did them again on the 17th, got 5 reps again but stuck to 5 sets. And then the 20th, well that was garbage.
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Thank you! So I could manipulate the numbers on sheet 1 to try and get a better warm up scheme?
If you want make a copy so the original does not change
I assume you have a google docs account
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Good advice so far (as always with these particular gents).
A statement I read from Dave Tate was that any max effort miss is usually a combination of three things:
-psychology / mind
-technique
-not strong enough yet
For front squats, I think it’s even easier to get stuck in your own head about what a “hard/impossible” weight is than other squat varieties.
One thing I like to do is pause (1, one thousand) at the bottom and make sure it’s an extra deep front squat with a weight you can already do and really own the technique/strength ability required to make those reps at that weight.
You might try this when re-using the 135lb weight on future sets for instance. As you get closer to your max working weight the technique aspect becomes even more critical and as you mentioned earlier the front squat in particular can be tricky (I know many lifelong weight trainees who can’t do it). The thing that always helps me most with front squats are ques to keep my elbows in-and-up and have the bar ride as high up on my throat as possible to give me the best leverages for my upper back position. Being able to back squat a weight but not front squat the same amount seems to me to be more about technique, mentality, core stability and upper back strength vs leg strength.
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I totally agree with what you said about challenging yourself in reasonable terms.
Like the other guys have pointed out, every one of your front squat workouts is like the most weight you’ve ever done, for the most reps you’ve ever done. And then you try to beat those numbers again.
And that works for awhile, but at some point that Linear, straight line progress stalls.
From there, it can be good to challenge yourself in a new, Reasonable way. Some how, you’ll need to find a way to work hard with less weight.
The problem is with your 5 x 5 rep scheme and 4 minute rest periods “locked in”, using less weight will feel lije easy BS, and not a chalkenging workout.
That’s where the different rep schemes become useful. Like if you tried 3 sets of 10 with 2 minute rest periods, you’d probably be blasted by the workout, in a totally different way than you’re used to.
And if you stuck with that rep scheme for a couple weeks, you could make easy progress in that new way. While still getting the satisfaction of of a tough-ass workout each week.
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Yup, thank you!
And certain fitness influencers constantly preach about “going hard or going home”, “in what circumstance would you not want to give it your absolute 110% effort” yadayada. Which makes it hard to back down mid-workout when you’re feeling unstoppable.
As you noted: it’s in the name. These aren’t coaches: they’re influencers. Their job is to influence you: primarily to put money in their pockets. If you want to listen to a coach that talks about gradually nudging your way to superior results while staying within your ability, check out Dan John, or Marty Gallagher, or Brad Kearns, or Mark Sisson, or Jim Wendler, or Paul Kelso, or Stuart McRobert, or Pavel Tsastouline, or K Black, and there are others, but still: a long and rich tradition of such an approach.
Smashing your head against the bar and snorting chalk makes for good Instagram reels, but it doesn’t make for a long and sustained career of progress. Consequently, most of those guys that are on the scene creating that kind of content tend to last about 3 years in the sport before they burn out and have to go do something else, or get injured and just go away forever.
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After a few years I completely gave up on doing max singles. One of the biggest risks of max singles is the misses are teaching you how to miss.
Work with percentages, where you are sure that the first rep has perfect form.
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And just for illustration, here is a 12 week percentage based plan from the internet.
Its all based on how strong you are at the start. And each week gives a scripted set/reps with appropriate weight to have a tough but effective, result producing workout.
I don’t think you necessarily need to train this way, it just shows the general process of going up in weight and down in reps, to get stronger over the course of a few months.
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For sure! All good cues. I will say - the amount of core strength and the awareness I’ve gained about my core from front squats alone has been amazing.
Would you say, then, that if technique/mentality/core stability/upper back strength weren’t a limiting factor in the front squat, then theoretically you should be able to squat the same weight for both front and back squats?
Yup I agree. Different reps will definitely be on my list of things to experiment with! Thank you!
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Good insight - thanks!
I really like that visual…thank you! I’m gonna try and apply some of that to my front squats.
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100%. Thanks for the name drops! I need someone more realistic to listen to/watch instead of watching sam sulek do ten drop sets with assisted partials at the end…makes me feel trash like I’m not working hard enough. No hate to Sam, he’s a great guy, but we are NOT the same.
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I am probably wrong in thinking this , but yes in my simple mind this makes a lot of sense to me.
In reality, you will always be stronger with a back squat vs front squat. But I would say if the upper back / core strength were as strong as possible and technique is spot on and mentality is not a limiting factor then you would tend to see a smaller difference between max front squat versus max back squat weights. But who knows I am no expert on the matter.
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@badgerbabe1223 Can I ask… what is the purpose of you having front squats in your training regimen?
Like are you competing in a sport that requires you to be strong for this lift? Or are you really just going for hypertrophy/aesthetics?
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