I think everyone just needs to read the book “Super Squats”.
And also everyone, regardless of goals, needs to run 6 weeks of one of the programs in that book.
[quote]cstratton2 wrote:
Your central nervous system can only handle a certain amount of load before it needs a break, as well as other processes that occur with exercise in the body. Deadlifts and Squats are one of the most taxing on your entire system. [/quote]
GTFO lol
The Super Squat Routine â?? The Original:
Press behind neck â?? 3 x 12
Squat â?? 1 x 20 supersetted with Pullover â?? 1 x 20
Bench press â?? 3 x 12
Rowing â?? 3 x 15
Stiff legged deadlift â?? 1 x 15
Pullover â?? 1 x 20
is this the right one?
maybe i started to heavy or my work capacity sucks,
but after squats i do not have the energy left to do the rest of the exercises with any meaningful intensity
[quote]cavemansam wrote:
The Super Squat Routine â?? The Original:
Press behind neck â?? 3 x 12
Squat â?? 1 x 20 supersetted with Pullover â?? 1 x 20
Bench press â?? 3 x 12
Rowing â?? 3 x 15
Stiff legged deadlift â?? 1 x 15
Pullover â?? 1 x 20
is this the right one?
maybe i started to heavy or my work capacity sucks,
but after squats i do not have the energy left to do the rest of the exercises with any meaningful intensity[/quote]
It’s one of the many varieties in Super Squats. When I ran it, I went with the abbreviated program, which was like what I listed above (bench, squat, pull over, row). I ended up replacing bench with dips and then alternating that with press and row with chins every other workout just because I was too cool for school back then, but the limited exercises were somewhat recoverable as a result.
Is it safe to say that doing at least your presses, if not your entire upper body, before high rep squatting is best?
Surely, squat first came from the antiquated notion of all-over-gains from squatting and hormone release from compressing your spine, right?
In this time we understand your back is too tired after squatting to support your presses.
Just like a gallon of milk a day was like an out of control, extreme result producer way back when. It was like 15 years after the Great Depression. People day-dreamed and wished for that much milk back in the day.
I had a coach in high school who didn’t let us get water in practice. It wasn’t that he forbid it, its just that they didn’t drink water in training in his day, so he just never thought of it.
For 20 Rep Squats, the biggest reason for having the squats earlier in the workout versus at the end was the emphasis on really “giving it your all” on the squats. Not just in terms of effort, but also weight. The suggestion was to start with your 10rm, squat it for 20, and then add 5lbs every workout, which becomes somewhat more difficult if you’re too pre-fatigued from an upperbody workout beforehand.
These days, were I to run it again, I’d do the squats at the end versus the middle, but I get where they’re coming from. A buffalo bar would probably be ideal too, in case your upper body is a little too pumped to get a straight bar.
30 rep Death Sets with the Buffalo Bar, to finish a work-out, Dr. Ken style! Some one has to remember the photo of Dr. Ken with the Buffalo Bar in the Ironmind catalogue.
Didn’t the first guy to do “breathing squats” have to tip the bar on its end, then lean it across his shoulders to squat it?
I miss the Ironmind catalog. It was like home gym porn. I remember the Bud Jefferies photo with something like 1500lb partials with the Buffalo bar. Had to suspend dumbbells off the bar.
That description sounds accurate. Milo Steinborn supposedly brought the flat footed squat back from Germany to America, where we were all foolishly squatting on our toes. No one thought to build a squat rack up until that point. I remember Super Squats having suggestions about putting the bar on a dresser and all sorts of other madness if you didn’t have a rack.
Also, the Buffalo bar is still sexy after all these years. Needs better knurling though.
Have you seen the video of Bud Jeffries making that huge partial squat? His upper body is like rotating in a circle. That dude was crazy. His home made rack was like steel I-beams. He was super fat.
What other updates should be made to the classic old school 20 rep squat routine?
-stick with pullover or switch to straight arm pulldowns?
-should we pre-exhaust the quads?
-do we still finish with stiff leg deads, or Romanians, or Glute/ham raises?
Speaking of Old School B.S., have you guys tried the Inman Mile? You load up a bar with like 150% bodyweight and then walk for a mile with it. Supposedly it was an incredibly hardcore, legendary strength feet of yesteryear.
Holy crap, I actually DO remember that video. The most disturbing part about it was his pre-squat hip thrust thing. It was like he was viciously humping some imaginary figure, and because of how heavy he was, his whole body would ripple with every thrust. Oh my god I thought I had repressed that memory, haha.
I liked the pull overs post squat. It felt like it allowed me to get in all the air I needed after all those damn squats. Nice little recovery. The rib cage expansion thing is always a point of contention, but I just liked the break.
I don’t think most people are going to do the SLDLs that way the old school guys did, so having them in the program is probably more confusing than it is beneficial. To achieve a similar effect, I’d probably just hit up reverse hypers and maybe GHR as well. That said, laying my body across the reverse hyper pad after 20 rep squats sounds absolutely terrible.
Never did the mile, but Alpha talked about something similar with farmer’s walks that I wanna try sometime.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Speaking of Old School B.S., have you guys tried the Inman Mile? You load up a bar with like 150% bodyweight and then walk for a mile with it. Supposedly it was an incredibly hardcore, legendary strength feet of yesteryear.[/quote]
In one go? No put downs? That’s pretty insane. I did roughly that, with (lots of) put downs, a few months ago. Ripped my hands to shreds, and took about 4 hours in between eating and kB swings.
[quote]dagill2 wrote:
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Speaking of Old School B.S., have you guys tried the Inman Mile? You load up a bar with like 150% bodyweight and then walk for a mile with it. Supposedly it was an incredibly hardcore, legendary strength feet of yesteryear.[/quote]
In one go? No put downs? That’s pretty insane. I did roughly that, with (lots of) put downs, a few months ago. Ripped my hands to shreds, and took about 4 hours in between eating and kB swings.[/quote]
I assumed the bar was on your back versus in your hands.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
[quote]dagill2 wrote:
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Speaking of Old School B.S., have you guys tried the Inman Mile? You load up a bar with like 150% bodyweight and then walk for a mile with it. Supposedly it was an incredibly hardcore, legendary strength feet of yesteryear.[/quote]
In one go? No put downs? That’s pretty insane. I did roughly that, with (lots of) put downs, a few months ago. Ripped my hands to shreds, and took about 4 hours in between eating and kB swings.[/quote]
I assumed the bar was on your back versus in your hands.
[/quote]
That would make far more sense, although I think walking for 1 mile with even an empty bar on my back would fuck my lower back and shoulders up pretty badly.
Oh yeah, I forgot to say bar on shoulders for the fantastical Inman Mile.
Taking the farmer’s implements for a walk around the block was from Brooks Kubik in Dinosaur Training. That was a cool book. Every time I see an anvil I try to grab it by the horn and shoulder it, or grab it by the face and snatch it.
What about kettlebell swings after 20 rep squats maybe?
Wait just a second!
I just invented one of Dan John’s routines!
How often do you guys find yourself doing that?
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Oh yeah, I forgot to say bar on shoulders for the fantastical Inman Mile.
Taking the farmer’s implements for a walk around the block was from Brooks Kubik in Dinosaur Training. That was a cool book. Every time I see an anvil I try to grab it by the horn and shoulder it, or grab it by the face and snatch it.
What about kettlebell swings after 20 rep squats maybe?
[/quote]
I don’t feel like a properly executed KB swing will have the desired training effect on the lower back, but I suppose some bad ones done after 20 rep squats would, haha.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
What about kettlebell swings after 20 rep squats maybe?
[/quote]
What, as a conditioning tool? Yeah that would work.
I feel like shadowbobo has like the shortest attention span ever. He consistently bails after he starts threads.
A question for those of you who actually compete and have run the 20 rep squat program: Do you believe that this program has the potential to substantially add lbs to your 1rm? I have my doubts, but I’m curious what you guys think. I’ve done 20 rep squats from time to time, with as much as 315, but never practiced them consistently, particularly as the foundation of a program.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I feel like shadowbobo has like the shortest attention span ever. He consistently bails after he starts threads.
A question for those of you who actually compete and have run the 20 rep squat program: Do you believe that this program has the potential to substantially add lbs to your 1rm? I have my doubts, but I’m curious what you guys think. I’ve done 20 rep squats from time to time, with as much as 315, but never practiced them consistently, particularly as the foundation of a program.[/quote]
20 Rep Squats did nothing for my 1rm. Like, maybe added 5lbs in 6 weeks. The benefit for me was far more about mental fortitude and really understanding what it meant to push myself, along with “living a program”. It was really ascetic: I would do the program, and then spend every minutes NOT lifting recovering (drinking my gallon of milk and resting) and thinking about the next time I squatted.
The absolute most miserable experience was when you failed to hit your 20 reps. If you failed on rep 18-19, it would just eat at you until you got back into the gym. No better motivation to crush a squat, haha.
At your point in your training, I can’t imagine it would be terribly beneficial, but it could be a masochistic type of fun.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I feel like shadowbobo has like the shortest attention span ever. He consistently bails after he starts threads.
A question for those of you who actually compete and have run the 20 rep squat program: Do you believe that this program has the potential to substantially add lbs to your 1rm? I have my doubts, but I’m curious what you guys think. I’ve done 20 rep squats from time to time, with as much as 315, but never practiced them consistently, particularly as the foundation of a program.[/quote]
20 Rep Squats did nothing for my 1rm. Like, maybe added 5lbs in 6 weeks. The benefit for me was far more about mental fortitude and really understanding what it meant to push myself, along with “living a program”. It was really ascetic: I would do the program, and then spend every minutes NOT lifting recovering (drinking my gallon of milk and resting) and thinking about the next time I squatted.
The absolute most miserable experience was when you failed to hit your 20 reps. If you failed on rep 18-19, it would just eat at you until you got back into the gym. No better motivation to crush a squat, haha.
At your point in your training, I can’t imagine it would be terribly beneficial, but it could be a masochistic type of fun.
[/quote]
That’s pretty much the answer I expected. And it is fun. I enjoy rep challenges in the 10-20 range. It’s been quite awhile since I hit a really really tough 20 rep squat set. And it’s been even longer since I did it with deadlifts.
EDIT: I should add that squatting for sets of 20 multiple times a week wouldn’t actually be a possibility right now anyway, given that I’m only making it to the gym 2-3 times a week.