Thanks for stopping by DSSG. Its funny because I have been thinking about giving those kind of squats a try again. I did them a few times a while back but felt a little awkward. You have to be careful to align the bar correctly over the mid foot. I started with it a little to far in front and tweaked my back a bit. But I do think it can definitely benefit my conventional pull and help me get use to heavier weight on my back. It would be much easier to do if I could do them suspended from chains.
My squat is in the same boat as you. I did smolov with high bar, and then afterwards with the dropped frequency and experimentation with olympic shoes it just went to shit. Then I had to get sick so that didn’t help! My hips need a bit of a break though so thats why I’m considering box squats for a cycle or two. And then the anderson squats a little above parallel would be easier on them too.
Best of luck on the PRs. I too hope to get an official bench in the 220-230 area soon. I want to eventually deadlift 450 within the next 4-6 months.
Yeah, I had ran smolov and an injured groin on the second to last day of the base cycle. I am not sure if it increased my squat any, but it got me a 10 pound conventional deadlift pr so I guess it did.
Then I had decided to switch my style up to a wide stance squat, it felt more stable and easier on my groin (who would of thought?) but I was extremely weak in the bottom and slower/maybe even weaker and my hips/hamstrings weren’t developed much.
I had also started using the conjugate method,my eventually quads got weaker than my hamstrings/glutes and the hamstrings/glutes got a lot stronger.
I ended up with a squat stronger than the previous style was before and after smolov without the added strength of frequency. If I had to guess, my wide stance might of been around 260 (maybe less as I was absolutely piss weak with it, I actually got stapled with my DE work with 195 or something like that when I had accidentally lost tightness in the hole on one of my last sets) when switching to it and I got it in the 290-300 range (never got to test it properly).
I think I’m a better lifter now for switching to that style as my posterior chain has improved a lot switching, and my lifts have been improving steadily since.
I’m thinking I might should go back to flat foot low bar, but I may continue on with the oly shoes using a low bar stance. Figure I should give it a little more time cause of the money I spent on the shoes. I’m actually probably going to do my box squats with oly shoes.
Doing box squats for at least a cycle. They’re pretty much identical to my normal squat. I’m not making my shins super vertical or anything. Using a low bar placement and olympic shoes. I have an 1130 hockey game tonight! Not sure if I’ll be able to stay up for it or not. But I didn’t do cardio today incase I play.
Box Squat:
45 lb x 10 x 2
80 lb x 5
100 lb x 5
120 lb x 3
140 lb x 3
160 lb x 3
180 lb x 7
Pin LB Squat:
195 lb x 3 x 3 (set from pin #4 which is several inches above parallel.)
Good Morning:
95 lb x 10 x 3
Clean Grip Rear Lunge:
60 lb x 20 (just wanted to get some blood flow to my adductors.)
So yea, I did some stuff yesterday at the gym. Didn’t make my hockey game so figured I needed to do some conditioning.
Rower- 2100 meters in 12 minutes
Treadmill- did 4-5 high incline sprints that were around 15-25 seconds each. Rested around a minute in between.
Seated Rows- 75x10x2.
KB swing/jump rope/ab wheel circuit for 3 sets.
Abs- I don’t know what to call what I do. It was hanging side body raises, alternating every rep. did a couple sets.
Newish workout plan for next 531 cycle. Since I’m deep in off-season, I’ll be taking a break from doing 531 with deadlifts. My lower days should look like this…
Tuesday
Low Bar Squat- 531
Pause squats with first work set weight
Straight leg deadlift- simplest strength template
Then several light sets of lunges and conditioning/abs
Friday
Speed Deadlift- I’ll be using bands with these
Front Squat
Hamstrings
Conditioning/abs
How heavy do you go on KB swings? Also, I saw your height posted, how old were you when you stopped getting taller? I seem to have my height topping off at about 5"8’ unless I hit a growth spurt (I am hoping I do) at 15 years old.
At 15 you definitely have a chance to still grow more. I was 16-17 when I stopped growing but plenty of guys don’t stop till around the 18-21 range.
The heaviest KB my gym has is 50 lbs so I really just use it for cardio. Its safe to say it may help with lower body recovery too since it gets the blood flowing. If you have access to them I recommend them.
Visited with my grandparents at their retirement place with the family today. My Papa is on the nursing home floor as he has parkinsons and other issues now. He has his good and bad days. Nana has her own nice apartment there though and is still getting around fine and fairly sharp. Got to the gym later than usual so I did a BBB style workout and then did some stuff with my bands later on at my apartment.
Every upper body day I’m warming up with some light pushdowns, facepulls, pulldowns, and a front/side lateral combo.
Press:
45 lb x 5
55 lb x 5
70 lb x 3
75 lb x 5
85 lb x 5
97.5 lb x 9
85 lb x 5
75 lb x 10
Fat Gripz Lat Pulldown:
90 lb x 15
105 lb x 10 x 4
Fat Gripz Dumbbell Bench:
45 lb x 10 x 5
Later on at my place…
Band work doing- Facepulls, curls, side raises, and BPAs.
[quote]Drake37 wrote:
Looks like you’re feeling better.[/quote]
I am much better. Just got a cough still.
Of course my training log is a joke for now since I’m weaker than I was training for my November meet(partly due to getting really sick). I’m fine with my experimenting doing smolov and testing out oly shoes, but I think if I just stayed the course with 531 I would’ve been better off. Oh well, you live and learn I guess. I’m looking forward to including speed deadlifts again next cycle. Its been a while since I did those.
I gave somebody I kinda sort of know from the gym $40 today! Went to an ATM and just handed it over. I don’t usually do things like that, but figured I could this once. I don’t expect to see it again even though he says he’ll pay me back. Hopefully he was being honest with me and it will be used wisely.
Then something else unusual happened. While I was walking my dog I actually had a 5+ minute conversation with someone of the opposite sex. It was a nice friendly chat. For some reason it stopped when I told her she should give me a blowjob since I have a cute dog…I kidding… I know I’ll sleep better tonight now. I always do when I get out in the sun and interact with people like a normal human does.
Deadlift:
140 lb x 5
175 lb x 5
210 lb x 3
225 lb x 5
265 lb x 5
295 lb x 11
225 lb x 2 x 2 (Tried light back off sets for the first time.)
Front Squat:
95 lb x 5
115 lb x 3
135 lb x 5 x 5
Density training with this. 5x5 sets done in 6 1/2 minutes. Probably time to up the weight some.
Manual Leg Curl:
5 x 4
Will do my KB/jump rope/ab wheel circuit tomorrow. Trying to come out of the gym more fresh.
Not a bad workout. Wasn’t any stronger than last week, but not planning on any gains until my deload week since I’m doing a lot of rep maxes this cycle.
Close-Grip Floor Press:
45 lb x 10
70 lb x 5
85 lb x 5
100 lb x 3
110 lb x 5
127.5 lb x 5
145 lb x 9 (1 in tank)
110 lb x 10
Incline Bench Press:
135 lb x 5
155 lb x 4
95 lb x 10 x 2
Did rep max to get a number for using the simplest strength template. Left one in the tank on 155 though as it would’ve been quite a grinder. I’ll be taking 90% of 180.
One-Arm Dumbbell Row:
50 lb x 15 x 3
Band work with elitefts orange micro.
A1. Pushdowns- 15 x 4
A2. Face Pulls- 20 x 4 (these feel much more effective than using a rope.)
B. BPAs- 20 x 2
Thanks. I’m not too impressed with it though. Back in the day I use to always to incline bench first and it was much stronger. Although I was about 20 lbs heavier…its not bad though and I’m taking a fairly wide grip with my pinkies on the rings. Its wide for me anyway since I do pretty much everything else with a close-grip.
I see you have the pic of that holocaust victim who shat himself up again. That is so disturbing! lol
How high of an incline is that? I like to use a low incline and a pause (plus my narrow grip that I use as my main grip width) for variety mostly. It also adds more emphasis on the triceps and pecs at the same time while taking the deltoids out more (this is coming from someone who also lowers the bar to the upper abs and tucks the elbows a lot for everything and also tears the bar apart unless trying to use the pecs, even tucks the elbows a bit when using a very wide grip) for me at least.
I have gotten 145X12 for a low incline pause press myself as a personal best.
Its just the standard gym incline so I’ll guess somewhere between 30-45 degrees. My main grip is narrow too, but I figured I could use at least some wide grip work. It definitely made my anterior delts sore for the first time in a while. I’ll keep it in awhile and see what happens I guess. 145x12 is good for your size. I just hope it helps improve my flat bench. Its been in a funk for WAY to long!
Triceps, triceps, then even more triceps is what gets my bench up along with partials (floor presses, and rack lockouts, probably board presses too if I had any/a board handler).
I am so freaking imbalanced that my pec had actually gotten a minor strain at one point with rack lockouts/close grip floor presses. Since then, I have done the occasional incline work with a narrow grip, or ultra wide bench pressing with a pec emphasis like I am doing right now. This is to just get them to some resemblance of them belonging on the same body as the shoulders/triceps, and get an easy strength boost from bringing an incredibly underdeveloped muscle up to par even if it isn’t a weakness (might help give some momentum to the lockout from the bottom/mid being even easier and prevent anymore pec strains)
I’m really liking the the close-grip floor press. My OHP is narrow too so hopefully those are making my tris stronger. The dumbbell presses are probably helping some too. Floor press is a little easier on my shoulders since the ROM isnt quite as long. I feel like my lats really help me get the lift started, especially with the closer grip.