My Squat Progress

Training Powerlifting
21

[quote]cog1 wrote:
It took me two years bringing my front squat from 115(52kg) to 265(120kg). My doctor told me due to my lower back pain I should back off back squat so I decided do some front squat instead.

I do lower reps, mostly 10x3 or 5x5 cuz some internet guru said so. I feel that front squat is a great core exercise, after a few weeks front squat, I can plank more than 5 mins with without pain face. Now I just don’t do plank anymore cuz I feel it’s too easy for me.

Ankle mobility is not a problem, keep working on it and put two plates under your heel.

It does not have much carryover effects on back squat. After two yrs of front squat training, my back squat stays in the same level.[/quote]

How have your lifts gone up? 68kg on to your FS is a chunk! I think it’s been about 10months since I last BS.

Koing

22

[quote]Koing wrote:

[quote]cog1 wrote:
It took me two years bringing my front squat from 115(52kg) to 265(120kg). My doctor told me due to my lower back pain I should back off back squat so I decided do some front squat instead.

I do lower reps, mostly 10x3 or 5x5 cuz some internet guru said so. I feel that front squat is a great core exercise, after a few weeks front squat, I can plank more than 5 mins with without pain face. Now I just don’t do plank anymore cuz I feel it’s too easy for me.

Ankle mobility is not a problem, keep working on it and put two plates under your heel.

It does not have much carryover effects on back squat. After two yrs of front squat training, my back squat stays in the same level.[/quote]

How have your lifts gone up? 68kg on to your FS is a chunk! I think it’s been about 10months since I last BS.

Koing[/quote]
I’ve heard that elite olympic weightlifters can front squat 80% of their back squat. I can back squat over 315lbs(142kg) so I guess my muscle just got more balanced by front squatting a lot. As I said, not much carryover effects on my back squat, but my core muscles got much much stronger by front squatting. It has also transformed me to a quad dominant lifter, now my quads will feel sore even after low bar squat session. recently, since I start to back squat again I stop front squatting cuz I think my quads would get overtrained.

For the last two yrs, I front squat once a week, 5x5 or 10x3. For assistant exercise I lunge or leg curl once a week 4x6 or 3x8. Progressive loading for 4-6 weeks and deload 1 week. Nothing fancy here.

btw I’ve also gained 10lbs on my BW, 160(73kg) to 170(77kg), so I guess 68kg on FS was not that impressive.

23

[quote]cog1 wrote:

[quote]Koing wrote:

[quote]cog1 wrote:
It took me two years bringing my front squat from 115(52kg) to 265(120kg). My doctor told me due to my lower back pain I should back off back squat so I decided do some front squat instead.

I do lower reps, mostly 10x3 or 5x5 cuz some internet guru said so. I feel that front squat is a great core exercise, after a few weeks front squat, I can plank more than 5 mins with without pain face. Now I just don’t do plank anymore cuz I feel it’s too easy for me.

Ankle mobility is not a problem, keep working on it and put two plates under your heel.

It does not have much carryover effects on back squat. After two yrs of front squat training, my back squat stays in the same level.[/quote]

How have your lifts gone up? 68kg on to your FS is a chunk! I think it’s been about 10months since I last BS.

Koing[/quote]
I’ve heard that elite olympic weightlifters can front squat 80% of their back squat. I can back squat over 315lbs(142kg) so I guess my muscle just got more balanced by front squatting a lot. As I said, not much carryover effects on my back squat, but my core muscles got much much stronger by front squatting. It has also transformed me to a quad dominant lifter, now my quads will feel sore even after low bar squat session. recently, since I start to back squat again I stop front squatting cuz I think my quads would get overtrained.

For the last two yrs, I front squat once a week, 5x5 or 10x3. For assistant exercise I lunge or leg curl once a week 4x6 or 3x8. Progressive loading for 4-6 weeks and deload 1 week. Nothing fancy here.

btw I’ve also gained 10lbs on my BW, 160(73kg) to 170(77kg), so I guess 68kg on FS was not that impressive.[/quote]

If you do a low bar squat and you feel it in your quads, it probably just means you’re not doing the movement right, aka you’re not “sitting back” to engage the hamstrings/glutes/lower back. I do oly style back squats or front squats every single day, but anytime I feel like it I can put the bar lower on my traps, sit back, and get a gigantic pump in my hamstrings/glutes if I do enough reps.

24

[quote]ape288 wrote:

[quote]cog1 wrote:

[quote]Koing wrote:

[quote]cog1 wrote:
It took me two years bringing my front squat from 115(52kg) to 265(120kg). My doctor told me due to my lower back pain I should back off back squat so I decided do some front squat instead.

I do lower reps, mostly 10x3 or 5x5 cuz some internet guru said so. I feel that front squat is a great core exercise, after a few weeks front squat, I can plank more than 5 mins with without pain face. Now I just don’t do plank anymore cuz I feel it’s too easy for me.

Ankle mobility is not a problem, keep working on it and put two plates under your heel.

It does not have much carryover effects on back squat. After two yrs of front squat training, my back squat stays in the same level.[/quote]

How have your lifts gone up? 68kg on to your FS is a chunk! I think it’s been about 10months since I last BS.

Koing[/quote]
I’ve heard that elite olympic weightlifters can front squat 80% of their back squat. I can back squat over 315lbs(142kg) so I guess my muscle just got more balanced by front squatting a lot. As I said, not much carryover effects on my back squat, but my core muscles got much much stronger by front squatting. It has also transformed me to a quad dominant lifter, now my quads will feel sore even after low bar squat session. recently, since I start to back squat again I stop front squatting cuz I think my quads would get overtrained.

For the last two yrs, I front squat once a week, 5x5 or 10x3. For assistant exercise I lunge or leg curl once a week 4x6 or 3x8. Progressive loading for 4-6 weeks and deload 1 week. Nothing fancy here.

btw I’ve also gained 10lbs on my BW, 160(73kg) to 170(77kg), so I guess 68kg on FS was not that impressive.[/quote]

If you do a low bar squat and you feel it in your quads, it probably just means you’re not doing the movement right, aka you’re not “sitting back” to engage the hamstrings/glutes/lower back. I do oly style back squats or front squats every single day, but anytime I feel like it I can put the bar lower on my traps, sit back, and get a gigantic pump in my hamstrings/glutes if I do enough reps.
[/quote]
I do sit back and I can feel my glutes and ham during the workout. I just feel sore on my quads the day after, and it will last long time, usually I will train with soreness on my next leg day. This happened since my front squat reached higher weight, maybe since one year ago, I’ve felt consistant quad sore after any of compound leg training sessions (FS, lunge). I train with low volume so I never think of overtraining issue but I do think it’s abnormal.

25

[quote]cog1 wrote:

[quote]Koing wrote:

[quote]cog1 wrote:
It took me two years bringing my front squat from 115(52kg) to 265(120kg). My doctor told me due to my lower back pain I should back off back squat so I decided do some front squat instead.

I do lower reps, mostly 10x3 or 5x5 cuz some internet guru said so. I feel that front squat is a great core exercise, after a few weeks front squat, I can plank more than 5 mins with without pain face. Now I just don’t do plank anymore cuz I feel it’s too easy for me.

Ankle mobility is not a problem, keep working on it and put two plates under your heel.

It does not have much carryover effects on back squat. After two yrs of front squat training, my back squat stays in the same level.[/quote]

How have your lifts gone up? 68kg on to your FS is a chunk! I think it’s been about 10months since I last BS.

Koing[/quote]
I’ve heard that elite olympic weightlifters can front squat 80% of their back squat. I can back squat over 315lbs(142kg) so I guess my muscle just got more balanced by front squatting a lot. As I said, not much carryover effects on my back squat, but my core muscles got much much stronger by front squatting. It has also transformed me to a quad dominant lifter, now my quads will feel sore even after low bar squat session. recently, since I start to back squat again I stop front squatting cuz I think my quads would get overtrained.

For the last two yrs, I front squat once a week, 5x5 or 10x3. For assistant exercise I lunge or leg curl once a week 4x6 or 3x8. Progressive loading for 4-6 weeks and deload 1 week. Nothing fancy here.

btw I’ve also gained 10lbs on my BW, 160(73kg) to 170(77kg), so I guess 68kg on FS was not that impressive.[/quote]

When I FS 170 my BS was 201 so that is about 85%. My other bro had 190/205 other bro has 145/150.

How did the increase in squats affect your lift? Did you lift much in that time or not reallly?

Stopped FS because you thought your quads would be over trained? I don’t do any BS or any direct hamstring work, only FS, Sn and CJ.

Koing

26

Your not quad dominant unless your quads hang over your knee caps like an elephant’s testicles.

27

[quote]Koing wrote:
When I FS 170 my BS was 201 so that is about 85%. My other bro had 190/205 other bro has 145/150.

How did the increase in squats affect your lift? Did you lift much in that time or not reallly?

Stopped FS because you thought your quads would be over trained? I don’t do any BS or any direct hamstring work, only FS, Sn and CJ.

Koing[/quote]
You are an olympic lifter so you have the right ratio…I don’t really do olympic lifts, only light weight power clean occasionally for explosiveness. My bench press peaked on 275(125kg)x2 until I hurt my rotator cuff, so I guess generally I just got stronger in the past two yrs.

I got constant sore in my quads after leg day and sometimes I feel very uncomfortable training with soreness so I stopped FS.

I think I’m not quad dominant, I just get quad sore easily…

28

[quote]cog1 wrote:
I think I’m not quad dominant, I just get quad sore easily…
[/quote]

Quad soreness is no big deal, imo. It doesn’t really make walking painful, the quads only stay sore for a day or 2, and the more you train them the less they get sore. Hamstring soreness though? That’s a motherfucking bitch.

29

[quote]ape288 wrote:

[quote]cog1 wrote:
I think I’m not quad dominant, I just get quad sore easily…
[/quote]

Quad soreness is no big deal, imo. It doesn’t really make walking painful, the quads only stay sore for a day or 2, and the more you train them the less they get sore. Hamstring soreness though? That’s a motherfucking bitch.[/quote]

My legs never get sore ever now. My traps were sore yesterday after the 5 misses at 122.5 and 6 Cns at 150-170…

Koing

30

[quote]Koing wrote:

[quote]ape288 wrote:

[quote]cog1 wrote:
I think I’m not quad dominant, I just get quad sore easily…
[/quote]

Quad soreness is no big deal, imo. It doesn’t really make walking painful, the quads only stay sore for a day or 2, and the more you train them the less they get sore. Hamstring soreness though? That’s a motherfucking bitch.[/quote]

My legs never get sore ever now. My traps were sore yesterday after the 5 misses at 122.5 and 6 Cns at 150-170…

Koing[/quote]

I’m the same way. Some days I’ll take a lot of max snatch attempts because I’ll just keep missing by a hair. When I do that my traps are usually sore the next day, but I don’t mind it.

31

Koing how are you training at the moment? Just been on the pendlay forum and (I guess it’s you) you talk about training twice a week? How is it working out for you?

32

Have you tried slowing down the eccentric portion of the lift? Cycling a few weeks of slow eccentrics (anything from 3-10s) with a few weeks of quicker eccentrics has consistently worked for me.

33

[quote]oly-ali wrote:
Koing how are you training at the moment? Just been on the pendlay forum and (I guess it’s you) you talk about training twice a week? How is it working out for you?[/quote]

Going well. Take a look at my log here or on FI. I’ve done about 37 training sessions this year so far.

Yes it’s a leap of faith doing 2x a week and it depends on how your technique is and what your goals are. Do you want to lift big now? Or do you want to CJ 200?

+10kg on my 3RM FS, base line I can hit 170 x3 on any given day, last year it was my 1RM
CJ I can hit 145+ every session.

I do enjoy training more but it’s about lifting more, not that I enjoy training so I cut it down to 2x a week and I go and coach my 2 lifters on a Friday as well.

Koing

34

Very interesting. I might have to try this approach sometime soon.

35

that is interesting, koing.

i’m currently (well, still) doing 5/3/1 for front squat but doing it every 2nd or 3rd day instead of once a week. need to increase the weights by 2.5kg when i reset maxes because we don’t have fractional plates.

i suspect i’ve got one, two, or very possibly three more weeks more that i can milk out of it before i won’t be able to get the prescribed weights.

at that point i’ll trawl back through here for ideas of what to do next.

right now it is hard, though, and i feel like i’m profiting from it (the BBB assistance in particular).

i do like having a squat program to be following. think i work harder because of it. i think i’ve got more in my squats than i think i’ve got…

36

Gotcha. Just keep on rolling with it and as long as your making progress it’s progress.

Try and get some bits of wood cut out so you can increase by 1kg or 0.5kg. That will help you out as it’ll be a small %. I’m increasing 0.5% a week :stuck_out_tongue:

Koing

37

yeah.

i think 2 little plastic collars are about 0.5kg.

but we only have two sets of those…

not sure why fractional plates seem to be too much to ask for, sigh.

38

At least you have a womans bar :stuck_out_tongue:

The metal collars at the Surrey Uni are 400g.

Yeah no real reason why fraction plates are pricey but I guess they aren’t sold in much volume :stuck_out_tongue:

Koing

39

You can also get steel washers that fit on Olympic bars cheap from hardware stores for fractional plates.