Back Squat PR After 10 Months Off

Short version: first session doing back squats in over 10 months and i did a 220kg Squat, +50kg PR.

The last time i did a squat was when i was BW 113kg and lifted 170kg. Now i’m BW 130kg and lifted 220k, +50kg PR.

How come my squat went up so high without even training it?

What DID you train during that time?

Everything i could do without hurting my knee, which basically came down to just deadlifts & benching. I don’t mean to brag if i’m coming off that way, just feels really strange… part of me feels like i’ve been april’d fools with fake plates lol… but i loaded the bar so that can’t be right; 5 20kg pps + 20kg bar.

Leg press routine?
What did u do for your core?

Well don’t start squatting now dude. Wait another year and then squat like 600lbs or something.

Was the depth the same on both squats?

Congrats on the PR! Just out of curiousity, what kind of a build do you have? You said you gained 17 kg over the time period of your injury – from your perspective was that mostly lean mass? And I’d also be interested in knowing what you in fact did to train your legs during that injury time-out.

I would say most of it is definitely fat. I’m sitting on 25-27% BF right now, 6"2 in height. I didn’t completely shut out legs, occasionally i would do leg press & leg ext, but probably only did these like 2-4 times in a month. I checked my log, and i did 1 week of back squats back in OCT 2013, i did a rep PR back then which was 160 x 2 (in the comments section i said it felt really easy). Then after that i decided that my knee was playing up again so i stopped until now, which i lifted 220kg for a PR. So yeah, still pretty strange.

Only thing i can really think of is the BW increase and my Central Nervous System from all the strength training helped my Back Squat??

[quote]BIG-GEORDIE wrote:
Was the depth the same on both squats?
[/quote]

Yeah, let’s see that vid first.

Well, you went up in BW by 17kg. That in and of itself could play a large role in adding weight to your squat even without training it. That said, 2X bodyweight is the going metric for squats so pound for pound you should be aiming for a 260kg squat! :slight_smile:

I’m currently running 2.4 X BW on my squat with 2.5 being my short term goal. Would love to hit 3X BW eventually.

Currently I weigh 96kg and my squat is 227kg.

So how’s your knee feeling after that?

Well the increased torso girth should help with stability, and I assume you’ve gained some muscle which would obviously help. 220kg isn’t that much different as a proportion of your bodyweight, and you have trained your legs a quite bit from the sound of it.
I didn’t lose anything noticeable on my squat last time I was injured in the autumn, with 10+ weeks off squats and deadlifts. I just did some leg ext. + leg curls, and occluded stair climbing. Strength sticks around (as long as you eat) for a long time, at least compared with aerobic fitness or other attributes.

So basically the heavier you are the easier it is to squat?