I agree with meganewb and the above posters that at your point you don’t need to be rotating exercises, the main reason to rotate is to work weak points and to prevent groing stale, with your lifts you don’t really have weak points all the squatting muscles are relatively weak, and at a 225 squat you aren’t getting enough volume to get stale.
A lot of your squat problem is due to leverages at 158 and 5 foot 9 you are too skinny to ever have a great squat. Most guys with large squats in that weight class are five inches or more shorter, a good squatter at your height is at least 242, you need to gain weight and get your squatting muscles bigger, 5x5 is fine but I woudl do a period of higher reps to build more muscle in the beginnings, something like this:
I just want to echo everyone who said that you do NOT need to be switching exercises right now.
If you do feel the need to switch exercises and lets say you’re using a ME/DE type split for your squat then use the squat as your main movement.
If you want to vary it up, start your squat at different levels (rock bottom/anderson squat), try different rep schemes (Go high rep some day), use isometric pauses, the ONLY special exercise i would have you throw in there might be the good morning.
Other than that ONLY THE ELITE really need to switch exercises eveyr week, you can probably blast away on ME squats for a few weeks before plateauing.
Eric Cressey likes to work up to a 1rmax for that day on the exercise and then do singles with 90%+ of that days max… so if you squat 90, 135, 155, 185, 205, 225 for a max that day, then 205 and 225 count towards the count of your singles, and you just have to do work
with however many singles you have left
week 1- 8 (so in the example you have 6 more singles to do between 202.5 and 225)
week 2- 10
week 3- 6
week 4- 3
[quote]Xen Nova wrote:
I just want to echo everyone who said that you do NOT need to be switching exercises right now.
If you do feel the need to switch exercises and lets say you’re using a ME/DE type split for your squat then use the squat as your main movement.
If you want to vary it up, start your squat at different levels (rock bottom/anderson squat), try different rep schemes (Go high rep some day), use isometric pauses, the ONLY special exercise i would have you throw in there might be the good morning.
Other than that ONLY THE ELITE really need to switch exercises eveyr week, you can probably blast away on ME squats for a few weeks before plateauing.
Eric Cressey likes to work up to a 1rmax for that day on the exercise and then do singles with 90%+ of that days max… so if you squat 90, 135, 155, 185, 205, 225 for a max that day, then 205 and 225 count towards the count of your singles, and you just have to do work
with however many singles you have left
week 1- 8 (so in the example you have 6 more singles to do between 202.5 and 225)
week 2- 10
week 3- 6
week 4- 3[/quote]
What’s your opinion on rack walkouts with weight heavier than your 1 rm?
I’m going to add one more thing to all the information you’ve already received:
If you are saying you almost got “folded”, I’m pretty certain that your form is not that good and that you’re leaning forward too much. I would definitely squat at least twice per week, with one session being front squat, perhaps using the 5X5 protocol, and the other day do higher reps back squat; then switch it around after a while and start testing your form with heavier weights on the back squat.
Im gonna have to go with Synthetickiller. Dont switch out exersizes yet. Your to sensitive to the load. Whenever i started cycling exersizes like that i always burnt out and overtrained or undertrained becuase my recovery periods werent perfect.
My Advice would be to Squat once, and DL once in a 7-10 day period. Or Go through a squatting session, and then give your body a good 4 or 5 days to heal up and then hit your Deads really hard.
When i go in for a back workout, i Dont JUST do Deads, i do all my other shit for my back on that day too, so My back may take upto 5 or 6 days to heal, by then my legs are fresh and ready for some squats and a balls-to-the-wall leg session.
Something else, If your looking to gain power in your legs, Squat A2G. Use a lot of Front squats whith oly grip. Do Hack Lifts, (not the hack lift machine, use a barbell, go old skool). And goodmorning seem to help me a lot! If i dont do Hack Lifts, Ill substitute them for Trap-Bar DL’s from a deficite.
Something else, Hack Lifts also made my Deadlift max shoot through the roof (by like 40 lbs) It helps a bunch. Just my 2 cents.
ONe more thing, In my winter program, In a 15 day period i Squat 3 times, One of those days is a 20 rep squat scheme. Another one of those days is my Higher rep work. Maybe Pyramids. With 5-8 Working sets.
And my last day is either a realy heavy day, or a really light day. Depends on the stage in the program. no more than 2 working sets on the last day tho.