My squat has been stalled badly lately, so I’ve come up with a plan I would like some input on or just to share.
The last success I’ve had came from running a modified Smolov plan known as Peter Putz. It really just takes a couple sets off the base smolov mesocycle, and goes 9x3, 7x4, 5x5, 3x6, which is doable and I forgot what it was but something like 70% or so of the regular volume. It was a 3 week plan with 4 days/week of squats which I did and got my last volume PR of 355x5x5, which was long enough ago.
I’m doing it again, this time split over 6 weeks instead of 3, squatting 2 days/week. The first 6 weeks are going to be the same loads as the first time I ran it, to give me some time to accumulate and allow me to do some assistance work and keep pulling, although I’m going to take it easy there as well and just try to maintain.
Next 6 weeks is the same, but 10lb jumps each wave instead of 20lb jumps. The sets ramp from 9x3,7x4,5x5,3x6 (reps x sets). Each wave is 4 workouts and lasts 2 weeks.
One thing I’ve noticed, is that when I have my loads programmed out before hand, I tend to work harder and am much more motivated just from having a mission for the workout.
I’ve been trying the conjugate stuff, but I still don’t think I’m strong enough to get enough out of it and don’t have the variety of equipment needed to properly implement an ME day.
Edit: My bench has responded well to it though, as slowly but surely I’m creeping up.
I’m pretty excited about this approach, and we’ll see what happens.
