Vanessa McCoy Back Squats (245 for 10)

Training Powerlifting
21

[quote]alexus wrote:
Girl.

Guys with a similar body type to me who train similarly to me are bigger than me, so I’m basically at peace.

I hate repetitions. I kinda like doing lots of singles of close to max with plenty of rest in between.

Moved from 5x5 squats (trying to grease the motor pattern) to 5x6 (trying to grow legs). But now you say 6x6??? Wah!!! Before you know it I’ll be doing German Volume Training (joke).

Still… Mental toughness, I suppose.

Right now I think I just need to suck it up and grease the movement a bit better with just the bar methinks…

Sigh.

One day I’ll have quads. And a proper squat. Damn it.

[/quote]

I’ve always get my lifter to hammer 6x6. They do that for about a year. I did it pretty much 80-85% of the time for 3yrs…I’d round off a heavy 3RM or 1RM every 3-4months?! I’d go heavy before a comp but not crazy.

Got to build that volume at the start and get some size and work capacity so you can handle the heavier loads.

Guys are more muscular by girls by default so don’t sweat it. Just keep at the squats, eat and sleep and lift and you’ll get whatever physique you want. It just takes time. How long have you been training?

I have some sweet quads after 12yrs of training…and I should f0cking hope so!

[quote]Paperclip wrote:
http://www.crossfitsouthmetro.com/uploads/southmetro/image/squat.jpg

This thread reminds me about that pic. I wonder how did she get that kind of physique, if that pic is real.[/quote]

It’s rare in girls to have legs like that for the most part. Hell it’s rare in guys to have good legs!

I think I read somewhere that she’s an ice hockey player. Great legs :slight_smile:

Koing

22

i’d be pretty darned happy if i could move and look like this:

think i might have a girl crush, actually (blush). what happened to her? is she still lifting?

only been learning oly lifting for 9 months - but only 3 months free weights experience prior and i don’t have an athletic background.

6x6…

once a week?

would it be alright to work up to a max around once a week?

my 1RM on a front squat is 42.5kg. I squat cleaned 40kg once for a single but can’t get any more because I’m not strong enough to stand it up. Can powerclean 45kg with minimal knee bend though, so my squat is limiting that.

still need to work on maintaining my lumbar curve. realized that somewhere along the way i confused ‘oly lifters tend to stay fairly relaxed under the bar’ and ‘sit down between your legs - not back’ with ‘don’t worry about your lumbar curve’. doing mobility work (unweighted then move to plate then back to the bar) to try and drill that properly :frowning: will do this daily…

23

[quote]Koing wrote:

[quote]alexus wrote:
Girl.

Guys with a similar body type to me who train similarly to me are bigger than me, so I’m basically at peace.

I hate repetitions. I kinda like doing lots of singles of close to max with plenty of rest in between.

Moved from 5x5 squats (trying to grease the motor pattern) to 5x6 (trying to grow legs). But now you say 6x6??? Wah!!! Before you know it I’ll be doing German Volume Training (joke).

Still… Mental toughness, I suppose.

Right now I think I just need to suck it up and grease the movement a bit better with just the bar methinks…

Sigh.

One day I’ll have quads. And a proper squat. Damn it.

[/quote]

I’ve always get my lifter to hammer 6x6. They do that for about a year. I did it pretty much 80-85% of the time for 3yrs…I’d round off a heavy 3RM or 1RM every 3-4months?! I’d go heavy before a comp but not crazy.

Got to build that volume at the start and get some size and work capacity so you can handle the heavier loads.

Guys are more muscular by girls by default so don’t sweat it. Just keep at the squats, eat and sleep and lift and you’ll get whatever physique you want. It just takes time. How long have you been training?

I have some sweet quads after 12yrs of training…and I should f0cking hope so!

[quote]Paperclip wrote:
http://www.crossfitsouthmetro.com/uploads/southmetro/image/squat.jpg

This thread reminds me about that pic. I wonder how did she get that kind of physique, if that pic is real.[/quote]

It’s rare in girls to have legs like that for the most part. Hell it’s rare in guys to have good legs!

I think I read somewhere that she’s an ice hockey player. Great legs :slight_smile:

Koing[/quote]

Koing, how advantageous is upper body strength? Most of the female lifters I’ve been seeing videos of of course have the great legs but they don’t show a lot of shoulder or arm size. (Yet I was doing a bunch of c&j and snatches yesterday and my rear delts and traps are feeling it!)

24

alexus, in my opinion there’s no problem with going up to a heavy single or even max once a week on the squat. Your body will get used to it after a few weeks. Mine did, and now I try to never stray too far away from heavy singles. In fact, regardless of what I am doing on Monday-Friday, Saturday is always max or heavy single on the snatch and clean+jerk, and then heavy single on front or back squat.

Deb, well if you look at a lot of elite lifters on youtube, you can see that most or all do have some pretty decent upper body strength, especially in overhead strength. But some lack upper body size simply because they don’t do a whole lot of time under tension stuff, i.e. push press, military press, bench press, and simply lack the volume. If they do these lifts they are usually thrown in every now and then, and are not a staple of the training program. But the fact is, if you are clean and jerking 315 or 405 or whatever, you are probably going to have some decent push press and military press strength regardless.

As for your form, videos would help, but then again you are Ms. Ninja so nevermind about that. Your traps and rear delts should get some decent work from the oly lifts, first because they stabilize you in almost all the positions (overhead squat, front squat, during the 2nd pull, etc), and second because you actively use them. Some shrug up violently with the bar, some barely shrug at all and instead use their upper back musculature to pull them down under the bar. But if you continue to feel your traps/rear delts burn it might be a technique issue, especially if you are doing lower reps.

25

Andy, lol, I just put up a squat vid :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m working with a trainer now and she’s correcting my form so I’ve been doing a lot of reps. I didn’t feel much until this morning though. I’m not in any condition to post a vid yet but after spending some time with my trainer I’ll be hopefully joining the log here and posting vids :slight_smile:

26

lol, where’s the vid?

And I like how we are getting all these converts to this log, especially all the wimmenz. :stuck_out_tongue:

27

[quote]alexus wrote:
i’d be pretty darned happy if i could move and look like this:

think i might have a girl crush, actually (blush). what happened to her? is she still lifting?

only been learning oly lifting for 9 months - but only 3 months free weights experience prior and i don’t have an athletic background.

6x6…

once a week?

would it be alright to work up to a max around once a week?

my 1RM on a front squat is 42.5kg. I squat cleaned 40kg once for a single but can’t get any more because I’m not strong enough to stand it up. Can powerclean 45kg with minimal knee bend though, so my squat is limiting that.

still need to work on maintaining my lumbar curve. realized that somewhere along the way i confused ‘oly lifters tend to stay fairly relaxed under the bar’ and ‘sit down between your legs - not back’ with ‘don’t worry about your lumbar curve’. doing mobility work (unweighted then move to plate then back to the bar) to try and drill that properly :frowning: will do this daily…[/quote]

6x6 3x a week. The first month will be really tough but that imo is a solid starter to getting strong. But everyone of course has their own opinions on things. All of my lifters do 6x6 3x a week for months on end for the first year.

I wouldn’t max once a week. Save that for once e very 3months or so. Remember your in your first few years of lifting. You need volume and get your 3RM and 6RM up and your work capacity way way up.

[quote]debraD wrote:
Koing, how advantageous is upper body strength? Most of the female lifters I’ve been seeing videos of of course have the great legs but they don’t show a lot of shoulder or arm size. (Yet I was doing a bunch of c&j and snatches yesterday and my rear delts and traps are feeling it!)[/quote]

Do some pull ups, dips and a few curls every so often so you don’t injure yourself if you don’t catch weights in an ideal way. I’d do at least once strength exercise after squats each session. You don’t need to go overboard. IMO it’s a good way to prevent injuries. Your traps will ALAWYS feel if if you haven’t lifted for a while or put extra focus on it as they are suppose to be used in the OLifts. Delts are sore for some other reason, was the bar in front of you on the Jerks or Snatches?

Don’t be scared about posting videos. My lifts 11yrs ago was pretty ragged :stuck_out_tongue:

Koing

28

Koing, is that straight sets at a fixed weight? increased whenever possible or ramped up the whole way and/or with set periodization? I think I need more squat volume in my life (I’m guessing you have them do 2 back squat sessions and 1 front squat sessions?) -thanks a lot

29

brian.m’s question x2.

would it be stupid to do it 3 times a week with front, overhead, and back squats do you think? i think overhead squats are important for my snatch catch position at this point at least…

30

[quote]brian.m wrote:
Koing, is that straight sets at a fixed weight? increased whenever possible or ramped up the whole way and/or with set periodization? I think I need more squat volume in my life (I’m guessing you have them do 2 back squat sessions and 1 front squat sessions?) -thanks a lot[/quote]

We did the same weight across all 6 sets, trying to increase the weight between workouts where possible. Alternating front and back squats.

31

[quote]The Ox Man wrote:

[quote]brian.m wrote:
Koing, is that straight sets at a fixed weight? increased whenever possible or ramped up the whole way and/or with set periodization? I think I need more squat volume in my life (I’m guessing you have them do 2 back squat sessions and 1 front squat sessions?) -thanks a lot[/quote]

We did the same weight across all 6 sets, trying to increase the weight between workouts where possible. Alternating front and back squats. [/quote]

Correcto!

Aim for 80% of 1RM, if you can’t do that use 75% or whatever you can for 6reps x 6sets. Aim to increase once you can do that session for say 2sessions in a row. Remember to alternate front and back squats.

[quote]alexus wrote:
brian.m’s question x2.

would it be stupid to do it 3 times a week with front, overhead, and back squats do you think? i think overhead squats are important for my snatch catch position at this point at least…[/quote]

No.

The OHS won’t be included in your squats. The OHS will be in addition to the front or back (alternating) squats 6reps x 6sets.

Do you do any dips? If not I would do some dips as long as you have the required flexibility to rack a Clean properly which I’m guessing you have :slight_smile:

Koing

32

[quote]Koing wrote:

Do you do any dips? If not I would do some dips as long as you have the required flexibility to rack a Clean properly which I’m guessing you have :slight_smile:

Koing[/quote]

What’s dip good for? And should we train the pecs if flexibility isn’t a problem?

33

thanks Koing, do you prescribe deloads, or just man(/woman up for Alexus) up?

34

[quote]Koing wrote:

[quote]debraD wrote:
Koing, how advantageous is upper body strength? Most of the female lifters I’ve been seeing videos of of course have the great legs but they don’t show a lot of shoulder or arm size. (Yet I was doing a bunch of c&j and snatches yesterday and my rear delts and traps are feeling it!)[/quote]

Do some pull ups, dips and a few curls every so often so you don’t injure yourself if you don’t catch weights in an ideal way. I’d do at least once strength exercise after squats each session. You don’t need to go overboard. IMO it’s a good way to prevent injuries. Your traps will ALAWYS feel if if you haven’t lifted for a while or put extra focus on it as they are suppose to be used in the OLifts. Delts are sore for some other reason, was the bar in front of you on the Jerks or Snatches?

Don’t be scared about posting videos. My lifts 11yrs ago was pretty ragged :stuck_out_tongue:

Koing[/quote]

One of my issues has been keeping the bar close and with my jerks I had a bad habit of pressing the weight. I think that’s where my delt fatigue might be coming from.

I think I need lots reps but I can’t feel it without some weight on the bar. I guess that is going to mean fatigue, doing it wrong, repeatedly! :smiley:

At this point where I am working on form, is it a mistake to do some cleans or snatches every day? I want to reinforce it right away when I feel I’ve clicked with it so I don’t want to go days without doing some more.

35

‘some dips’ is mighty ambitious lol. i might possibly be able to do one dip.

i’ve been doing an upper body circuit-like thing (with a couple minutes rest between sets) one day a week as a break from oly lifting day). try and do these movements one other time per week near the end (but press / pp / jerk more frequently):

chin ups 5x1 (more or less cheating - i can do one from a dead hang kinda sorta
push ups 1x7, 1x6 (can’t get all the reps near the end)
press 2x5 (some push pressing trying to get good leg drive)
inverted rows (smith machine) 2x5 (will work the bar closer to the ground then raise feet off the ground)

whole thing x5.

the idea being to try and keep my shoulders healthy by doing horizontal / vertical push / pull. i guess i could try and replace pressing (since I do a lot of this anyway) with dips (we have an assist machine - or i could aim for 5x1 if they are really very hard)…

my delts get a hammering from resting the bar in the position for jerking it debraD. i’ve just started doing these - but really feel it there. i’m noticing my delts are becoming fairly prominent, actually. all the more comfortable for racking, i guess, lol. actually some dude asked me what upper body work i did the other day. maybe this is hitting my shoulders from all angles or something…

what do you mean you ‘can’t feel it’ without weight on the bar?

i usually train 6 or 7 days a week. have a day off when i feel a bit of a wreck. but one of those days is the above (+ some more serious mobility / flexibility work / mental deload). and typically another of those days is more of a mess around day. so 5 serious training sessions per week. so… i can do my 6x6 squats 3x a week and do overhead squats on those other days, no prob. overhead squats are more of a mobility drill for me anyways. i notice my squatting mobility deteriorates with even one day off…

36

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
lol, where’s the vid?

And I like how we are getting all these converts to this log, especially all the wimmenz. :P[/quote]

lol Andy. We’ll have to get Masch over here, too…

37

soon enough. my master plan is almost complete… moohahahaha.

38

[quote]alexus wrote:
my delts get a hammering from resting the bar in the position for jerking it debraD. i’ve just started doing these - but really feel it there. i’m noticing my delts are becoming fairly prominent, actually. all the more comfortable for racking, i guess, lol. actually some dude asked me what upper body work i did the other day. maybe this is hitting my shoulders from all angles or something…

what do you mean you ‘can’t feel it’ without weight on the bar? [/quote]

When I dont have any weight on the bar, I dont feel my lats as much or feel my hips drive and I have a tendency to just lift the bar and not give it any power. My form seems to be better with a bit of weight.

I dont know if this is typical though or just my unfamiliarity with all the different things Im concentrating on right now.

39

[quote]debraD wrote:

[quote]alexus wrote:
my delts get a hammering from resting the bar in the position for jerking it debraD. i’ve just started doing these - but really feel it there. i’m noticing my delts are becoming fairly prominent, actually. all the more comfortable for racking, i guess, lol. actually some dude asked me what upper body work i did the other day. maybe this is hitting my shoulders from all angles or something…

what do you mean you ‘can’t feel it’ without weight on the bar? [/quote]

When I dont have any weight on the bar, I dont feel my lats as much or feel my hips drive and I have a tendency to just lift the bar and not give it any power. My form seems to be better with a bit of weight.

I dont know if this is typical though or just my unfamiliarity with all the different things Im concentrating on right now.[/quote]
Actually this is not uncommon at all. The sweet spot for where perfect technique should be is around 80%. Obviously you should strive for perfect technique all the time but with lighter weight there is much more possibility for little variances in how the bar tracks. As long as you can control it as you increase the weight and ‘grease the groove’ so to speak, it’s not a big deal.

40

ah. yeah, i think i do get you. i’m working on speed right now and finding the bar to be plenty. mind you, the bar is one hell of a lot closer to my 1RM than i’d like to admit :-/