Heavy Squats and Great Judo

Training Logs
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(EDITED: I no longer desire to box. Instead, I retitled this thread as “Heavy Squats and Great Judo” since I’m switching to Judo as my art. This decision was made on November 14, 2020.)

Bapoleon here! Muwahahah!

Just kidding…

I wanted to be a great powerlifter when I was a teen, a great weightlifter when I was almost twenty. Years later, I’m now less than a month from hitting 29 and all I want is the prospect of competing in amateur boxing. But I still haven’t abandoned my squatting endeavors.

Really, I just want my upper-body to look sexy for the ladies, but leg strength is nonnegotiable. I gotta squat (relatively) big weights while also having the endurance to last for rounds in a good boxing match. That’s my aim at this point in my life. And boy do I need to maintain a healthy diet for that as well.

Historically, these were my best lifts at certain points in my life at certain bodyweight. I am five feet six inches tall…

Bench press: 275 pounds (Bodyweight 200, age 17)

Deadlift: 455 pounds (Bodyweight 200, age 17)

Clean + Jerk: 205 pounds (Bodyweight 190 pounds, age 19)

Olympic Squat: 405 pounds (Bodyweight 230 pounds, age 25)

I also do cardio now. I don’t know if all stairmaster machines have same measurements but… I can do a number 4 intensity on my gym’s stairmaster for 16 minutes and 20 seconds tops, on a good day. I literally only started there at SIX minutes tops, so I’m very happy for the end result of that!

Nearby boxing gym ain’t open yet due to COVID-19. That may be a blessing because it gives me time to play video games and do my personal studies. School will start soon so that’s another time consumer… Lots of things going on in my life. I pray to God to help me power-through these assorted daily tasks…

And as much as I’m very ashamed to admit it, I’m a complete, unhealthy fat man, weighing at a whopping 250 pounds. I gotta fix my diet man… Lots of clean eating and restriction. And I’m only 5’6. Scary, I know. But at least my resting heart rate is pretty good probably due to my rigorous cardio sessions consistently.

Please wish me luck on my FAT LOSS goals. I need it…

Videos will be uploaded soon. Thanks for the read.

And my God, please NEVER HOLD BACK ON YOUR DIET ADVICE. Please, please, please!

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Good luck, I’ll be following along.
I also got into boxing late (27-28).
You should prioritize your goals because they aren’t exactly aligned. I’d try to maintain squat strength while you drop body fat. Any idea what weight class you want to compete? At 5’6 you’ll need to lose 70+ lbs I think. Are you doing any boxing training on your own right now?

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No. Just pure fitness.

I wanna box when the gym opens up. I’ll be like a sponge or something.

However there are heavy bags in my current gym. Just no boxing coaches.

When I lose the weight, it’ll be awesome. Will solve many problems.

Thanks for posting here man! Please stick around!

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Give these all a read

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You’re my angel, The Punisher.

Or demon. Whatever. The point is I’m complimenting you.

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@vision1 @T3hPwnisher

Hi dudes. Just an update, me being slow as heck, I’m still working on my video entry. Still editing. Lots of work. But anyway, now’s as good a time as any to give a log entry. So here goes…

Monday, Squats, 295 pounds for 5 reps. That’s it. That’s my entry. I’ll give details in the video. Those squats were done at October 5, 2020. My first time going full effort with squats after years.

As for diet, I ate four eggs in the morning, a whole chicken, and 5 ounces of spinach. Today I’ll actually COOK the damn spinach. I already got the ingredients.

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Squat PR. 305 pounds for five reps. Second week of squat training.

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Squat PR. 315 pounds for five reps. Third week of squat training.

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Cardio is suffering… I have four whole days to decide how to deal with that. Wish me luck…

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Are you doing anything other than squats?

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Yes. But I’m not listing them here because my program might need some adjusting soon this coming week. I squat everyday, and even then I only record my PR attempts that are done on Mondays. But yes, I’m doing upper-body stuff. It starts with clean-pulls, then neutral-grip pull ups (with weight assistance to make it easier, NOT added weight), bench presses, and lastly, overhead presses.

My best lift with the clean-pulls is 145 pounds for 4 sets of 8 reps. At the fifth set, I added ten pounds and could only manage 5 reps.

And like I said, I will likely restructure my training program this coming week.

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Yesterday, Monday, October 26, 2020…

Squat PR. 335 pounds for 3 sets of 3 reps. Tried 345 by 3 and failed at the last rep.

In some other thread, I said that I’ve resolved to do boxing-specific training. Lots of people contributed in that thread. I hate to go against what they said as they really did try to help me. I’m so sorry guys. I just cannot abandon frequent heavy squatting YET. I will, eventually, for the sake of boxing-specific training. But I wanna spend at least one whole training block dedicated to pure strength development on the quadriceps and posterior chain. I’m procrastinating even though it pains me to admit it. So anyway…

After those squats, I did some cable pulldowns with a neutral grip handle for five sets of like eight reps each. Then seated rows for five sets of like eight reps each. I wasn’t really meticulously counting the reps, but I got a general idea on where I am with them. For the pulldowns, it was 135 pounds. For the seated cable rows, it was 105 pounds.

I already designed a program for this whole thing. And by “whole thing”, I meant anything that is not the daily squatting. So for three days a week, last day being the true heavy day, after squats I do clean-pulls for a top set of five and standing overhead press for a top set of five. I was actually supposed to do some light lifting with those movements this day, but decided not to. I’m just gonna save my energy on Friday.

I do some exercises on the muscles that are not heavily hit with those “big three”.

So for boxing, I think I should just get my squat up, and work on having a good number on three sets of twenty reps of squats. That’s my umm… That’s my cardio. I think it’s enough cardio. I wanna think it’s enough for cardio. If not, I will suffer with my silly ignorance when I enter a boxing gym for the first time. Until then, I’m gonna work hard and lift heavy. And then squat 3x20 with a good weight, believing it’s enough for whatever endurance I’d need in the ring…

Wish me luck, folks. Thanks.

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Have you heard of the SAID-principle (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands)? Squatting twenty reps isn’t boxing. Boxing is boxing. Others with fighting experience already told you as much and have much more tangible advice.

Right now, you are operating in your comfort zone. But your goal isn’t inside of your comfort zone, it’s outside of it. To move from point A to point B you’re going to have to be uncomfortable.

No amount of other training will make you comfortable in your alleged goal performance. This’d be true for a job, a musical performance, weightlifting and boxing. You must spend time in the actual arena to become comfortable and adept in that arena. There are no shortcuts.

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20 rep squats cannot be considered cardio

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This is fine, nothing wrong with wanting to continue with this goal if you’re enjoying it, as long as you’re honest about it.

However, this:

image
image800×450 16.5 KB

The fuck are you smoking, man?

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@bapoleon
Have you ever tried boxing or something similar? The cardio endurance needed is insane. Even jumping rope for 20 minutes would better than 3 sets of 20 rep squats (which would likely take 15 minutes anyway).
Heck, just punching a bag for 2 minutes straight is tiring, let alone sparring.

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I’m honestly considering asking Chris Colucci to rename the title of this thread to “Heavy Squats and Olympic Lifting”, but I wanna test out a theory. Most successful boxers I see on YouTube have a certain body type. They’re all pretty thin and tall. I wanna be a stocky-and-strong boxer. I wanna see if I can have good endurance in the ring even without cardio by doing high-rep squats. If this fails, I’ll just focus on Olympic Lifting.

I knew that I wouldn’t really make everyone happy after they all contributed to my other thread, and believe me, I was HIGHLY hesitant to go the route I decided to take. But I really just have to see things and feel things for myself. So yes, after this training block (which I will milk for all its worth), I’ll focus on endurance.

My inspiration here are Tom Platz and Kurt Angle who had amazing performances with their high-rep squats. I read that Tom Platz squatted 100 reps for 225 pounds. It’s hard for me to imagine that kind of person to be lacking in cardio for boxing.

@Voxel

As for the SAID principle, that only really applies when a trainee finally decides to do sport-specific training. I’m at a stage right now where I first must develop general strength and fitness. I’m still quite the newbie. Once I develop a foundation of general strength and fitness, then I can consider doing specific training for boxing.

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Find me a reputable boxing coach that says this when working with a beginner. Right now I read this as you justifying your choice. That’s fine, you are your own autonomous human being.

If twenty reps squats were adequate for endurance for the ring, wouldn’t boxers do that instead of road work and jump rope as they’d be killing two birds with one stone?

I’m not certain about what you are putting into your body but Platz took drugs. If you base your training on that without being in the same boat you might end up on a different shore.

Lastly, please (if you haven’t already) look at videos of Platz training. If you can’t match his intensity and fervour well, let’s just say there’s more to training than a rep and set prescription

Honestly I’d rather jump rope than emulate that

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You can edit it yourself. Edit the first post of the thread

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Have you ever tried 20 rep sets of squats with a heavy weight? They’re awful, absolutely awful. I’ve done my time with high rep squatting and in my experience the only way I was going to finish those sets was because I knew all I had to do after was find a way to drag my ass out of the gym and home to bed. I don’t think I could have repeated that effort twice more.