Detraining and Meet Coming Up

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
21

Damn, that’s a lotta advice. Thanks guys. I’m asking bout the knee sleeves cause well, mine is really freaking. It’s one size smaller than the “tight fit” listed on the SBD’s sizing guide. I need to have socks on otherwise I can’t even get it on, haha. Socks and a plastic bag to reduce friction so I don’t have some rope burn effects of sorts on my fingers. I feel like I get anywhere from 15lbs - 25lbs with my knee sleeves. That being said, I can’t put it on unless I’ve socks and even then, its a pain in the ass. My 1rm without belt is the equivalent of my 3rm with belt so that’s quite a bit of difference I guess. You guys have almost dissuaded me from running my Smolov “hail mary” type program. One last thing though, what if I ran it with 90% of my max? Would that be more reasonable? After all, I ain’t “supplementing” like them Russian oly lifters.

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
OP, I’ll be blunt with this: running a super-compensation program that will leave you little room for volume progression later on is rash. And junior records are really only a reflection of how long someone has been lifting. Worrying about a record like that when the open record in your weight class is nearly twice it doesn’t seem very productive to me, and you’ll get a lot stronger in the long run focusing on the latter.[/quote]

Thanks, I kinda needed that. To be honest, I’m doing it partly for my ego. Let’s just say that no one has ever believed in me. I saw breaking the records as my chance to look at them and pretty much say “suck it bitch”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m doing it for myself too. Doing it to prove to myself that I’m capable of getting shit done despite my not as well off circumstances(me ass be broke). Believe it or not, I would say powerlifting is a pretty… It’s not a cheap sport in my country. Most of my competitors, they’re basically people born with silver spoons up their asses. In my mind, it was something along the lines of. I’ve less resources given to aid me but I’m still gonna beat your ass simply because I’m better. Yeah, I sound a little psychopathic huh.

22

[quote]Benanything wrote:
Damn, that’s a lotta advice. Thanks guys. I’m asking bout the knee sleeves cause well, mine is really freaking. It’s one size smaller than the “tight fit” listed on the SBD’s sizing guide. I need to have socks on otherwise I can’t even get it on, haha. Socks and a plastic bag to reduce friction so I don’t have some rope burn effects of sorts on my fingers. I feel like I get anywhere from 15lbs - 25lbs with my knee sleeves. That being said, I can’t put it on unless I’ve socks and even then, its a pain in the ass. My 1rm without belt is the equivalent of my 3rm with belt so that’s quite a bit of difference I guess. You guys have almost dissuaded me from running my Smolov “hail mary” type program. One last thing though, what if I ran it with 90% of my max? Would that be more reasonable? After all, I ain’t “supplementing” like them Russian oly lifters.

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
OP, I’ll be blunt with this: running a super-compensation program that will leave you little room for volume progression later on is rash. And junior records are really only a reflection of how long someone has been lifting. Worrying about a record like that when the open record in your weight class is nearly twice it doesn’t seem very productive to me, and you’ll get a lot stronger in the long run focusing on the latter.[/quote]

Thanks, I kinda needed that. To be honest, I’m doing it partly for my ego. Let’s just say that no one has ever believed in me. I saw breaking the records as my chance to look at them and pretty much say “suck it bitch”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m doing it for myself too. Doing it to prove to myself that I’m capable of getting shit done despite my not as well off circumstances(me ass be broke). Believe it or not, I would say powerlifting is a pretty… It’s not a cheap sport in my country. Most of my competitors, they’re basically people born with silver spoons up their asses. In my mind, it was something along the lines of. I’ve less resources given to aid me but I’m still gonna beat your ass simply because I’m better. Yeah, I sound a little psychopathic huh.[/quote]

Nah, not that psychotic. Good you had that realisation, though. Focus on doing it for you. You’re the only person who matters. Just run a less intense program and leave that room to grow. From what I’ve seen your progress is just fine, and you don’t want to burn out for a while or derail it just to soothe your ego.

If you do want a little squat volume and intensity there is one thing you can try that I’ve done a couple of times when I wanted to bust my arse squatting. I found it on Youtube from a weightlifter called Milko Tokola and I’ve found it kind of fun in an odd way (I had to scale it to my ability, I think I’m only now approaching being able to do it properly). I just had a look at the start of your training log where you put down your 3 RM, and by now you could most probably do the version of this thing I did, which for some reason is called Pig Squat Training. It goes as follows:

bar x 15
30 kg x 14
40 kg x 13
50 kg x 12
60 kg x 11
70 kg x 10
80 kg x 9
90 kg x 8
100 kg x 7
110 kg x 6
120 kg x 5
130 kg x 4
140 kg x 3
150 kg x 2
160 kg x 1

If I do this I usually try to take as short breaks as possible for five sets and then a slightly longer break, and I’ve only ever done it beltless. From memory I take about 30 minutes to complete it.

The only caveat I’ve got is I’m not sure how great an actual training tool it is, nor where it’d fit in a program. My best guess would be no more than once a week, mostly likely once a fortnight and use it as a standalone conditioning/beatdown kind of thing. Or you could do what I do, and use whenever I’m a bit out of sorts with my training or super short of time in the gym and I want to get something useful done.

The ‘proper’ version starts with empty bar for 20 and ends with a 210 kg single. I have to admit, its tempting me to try it sometime soon, because last week I basically did the last three sets for my heavy wrapped squats last week. I’m going to have to think about that…

23

The worst times I’ve made progress was when pushing too fast and those were times when I consistently had technical breakdown. Learning to take what you can get is a good principle. I made good progress on 5/3/1 when following that rule and less when I got greedy. You have to take what you can get.

Were you not making gains with the 5/3/1 BBB program? There’s a chance that you didn’t taper the volume well if all you did was only 5x10 for assistance. I got amazing gains when doing the 5/3/1 BBB Challenge (3 months) and transitioning to the normal 5/3/1 (5 months) with BBB assistance but gradually tapering off the assistance (to maybe 3x8) as the main sets got harder and I got less extra reps on the top sets. The 5/3/1 program is already something you have experience with too. It’s nice to build a big volume base but you also have to taper it off to get the benefits before the volume becomes too stressful. With 5/3/1, the assistance work is the bulk of the volume.

24

I’d like to say a couple of things:

First, Smolov is not excessive. Forget the idea that you can’t handle it or won’t progress - it simply isn’t true. My concern with it is the percentage-based approach, and I feel it can be LIMITING for some, more so than it is likely to be too much. Still, it will probably work if you set a sensible max., I just feel a personalized approach is better for most purposes (not all).

Secondly, SBDs can definitely add some #s. Not much (maybe 5-10lbs), but think about it - force is absorbed as you descend (I struggle to hit depth with just the bar in mine) and there is some rebound; why wouldn’t there be carryover?

But remember, technique and effort, as well as other factors like nutrition, can often have a greater impact than program selection, assuming you train regularly with a reasonable routine.

25

[quote]halcj wrote:
I’d like to say a couple of things:

First, Smolov is not excessive. Forget the idea that you can’t handle it or won’t progress - it simply isn’t true. My concern with it is the percentage-based approach, and I feel it can be LIMITING for some, more so than it is likely to be too much. Still, it will probably work if you set a sensible max., I just feel a personalized approach is better for most purposes (not all).

Secondly, SBDs can definitely add some #s. Not much (maybe 5-10lbs), but think about it - force is absorbed as you descend (I struggle to hit depth with just the bar in mine) and there is some rebound; why wouldn’t there be carryover?

But remember, technique and effort, as well as other factors like nutrition, can often have a greater impact than program selection, assuming you train regularly with a reasonable routine.[/quote]

Thanks for posting this, lol. I feel like I’m the only one that thinks Smolov is not that bad. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless they’re already doing workloads similar to Sheiko. I wouldn’t recommend taking such large jumps in training volume when it isn’t necessary. People generally take less than a 5% jump each training cycle and moving to a new program shouldn’t be such a large jump either.

With Smolov, auto-regulation is key. Any time a person feels there is significant form break down, that set should end. The subsequent sets should be 10-20 lbs lighter and further adjustments made with each set. The most important thing with Smolov is to follow the set rep schemes and hit all the reps (with adjustments in intensity as necessary). As long as the total weekly volume increases each week, progress is made.

Making adjustments to Smolov can make it work. It’s similar to making adjustments to a daily max squat program. The adjustments should be made so that volume isn’t too little or too much.

I don’t want to get in an argument about the SBDs because there’s no way to test it for concrete evidence. That’s why I said the confidence boost gives me 2 lbs lol. If I had a choice between Rehbands and SBDs at a meet, I would choose SBDs.

26

I haven’t been training with my SBDs as of late, when should I start incorporating them back into my training?

27

My thoughts (in no particular order):

I wouldn’t stay away from knee sleeves/belt for too long. From my experience (take my advice with a grain of salt), I don’t get much benefit from training the competition movements without the supportive equipment that I wear in competition in the first place.

I’ve only had SBDs for a few months now, but notice already that I can handle more volume when training with them. So I’d leave sleeveless, beltless lifting to accumulation/hypertrophy/conditioning/deload/whatever weeks and use the equipment for the duration of meet prep.

As for the detraining effect, this is completely normal for an apparently quite large chunk of the training population. I’ve heard claims from some people that they are especially strong after a time off from lifting, but I personally experience noticeable detraining even if I miss a couple of workouts in a row, or after I’ve peaked and/or had a meet and proceed to do lighter high-volume work for a while. Your CNS has to have a reason to maintain maximal strength, and will forget about this if it isn’t regularly stimulated. It takes a couple of weeks to get back in gear, but this is, as most others have said, no real problem if you’re several months out from your meet.

Concerning Smolov and other highish-frequency programs: if you’re still able to make progress using regular progressive overload or normal periodization while training each competition lift once or twice per week, there’s no real reason to hop on board a higher-frequency program. There’s a significant possibility that you will experience a stronger detraining effect once you return to a “normal” frequency, and there really isn’t much added benefit to choosing this route if you’re still progressing with regular beginner or intermediate programming. I personally like to use shorter (six-week) high-frequency squat cycles to give me a bit of a boost at the beginning of each year and to provide some variation, but probably won’t consider going down the Smolov path for several years (if at all), when I stop progressing using my current set-up.

At any rate, while it’d be great if you could break the record this year, don’t lose sight of your long-term plan for the sake of one meet this fall. In other words, don’t worry about going too balls-to-the-wall at this point. Log lots of solid volume at 75%-85%, progressively overload, and go through a normal peaking phase until about two weeks prior to your meet. Then reap the benefits of patience and lots of high-quality reps.

28

[quote]halcj wrote:
I’d like to say a couple of things:

First, Smolov is not excessive. Forget the idea that you can’t handle it or won’t progress - it simply isn’t true. My concern with it is the percentage-based approach, and I feel it can be LIMITING for some, more so than it is likely to be too much. Still, it will probably work if you set a sensible max., I just feel a personalized approach is better for most purposes (not all).

Secondly, SBDs can definitely add some #s. Not much (maybe 5-10lbs), but think about it - force is absorbed as you descend (I struggle to hit depth with just the bar in mine) and there is some rebound; why wouldn’t there be carryover?

But remember, technique and effort, as well as other factors like nutrition, can often have a greater impact than program selection, assuming you train regularly with a reasonable routine.[/quote]

It’s not so much the volume itself that makes Smolov excessive, but 8 triples with 90%? It would have to be a very good day for me to get more than one triple with 90%. The rate at which the program expects you to progress is unrealistic as well. You could autoregulate it, but then it’s not Smolov. As far as % and maxes, well, they are what they are. I’m not a big fan of % in training myself, but it is useful as a guideline.

I suppose everyone has a different perception, but SBD’s don’t add anything to my squat. They are by far the most comfortable knee sleeves I have used and I would recommend them to anyone, but for whatever reason they don’t seem to increase my squat, even with the comp. fit sleeves. The OP says his are very tight and difficult to put on, so in that case I could see some carryover.

29

[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:

[quote]halcj wrote:
I’d like to say a couple of things:

First, Smolov is not excessive. Forget the idea that you can’t handle it or won’t progress - it simply isn’t true. My concern with it is the percentage-based approach, and I feel it can be LIMITING for some, more so than it is likely to be too much. Still, it will probably work if you set a sensible max., I just feel a personalized approach is better for most purposes (not all).

Secondly, SBDs can definitely add some #s. Not much (maybe 5-10lbs), but think about it - force is absorbed as you descend (I struggle to hit depth with just the bar in mine) and there is some rebound; why wouldn’t there be carryover?

But remember, technique and effort, as well as other factors like nutrition, can often have a greater impact than program selection, assuming you train regularly with a reasonable routine.[/quote]

It’s not so much the volume itself that makes Smolov excessive, but 8 triples with 90%? It would have to be a very good day for me to get more than one triple with 90%. The rate at which the program expects you to progress is unrealistic as well. You could autoregulate it, but then it’s not Smolov. As far as % and maxes, well, they are what they are. I’m not a big fan of % in training myself, but it is useful as a guideline.

I suppose everyone has a different perception, but SBD’s don’t add anything to my squat. They are by far the most comfortable knee sleeves I have used and I would recommend them to anyone, but for whatever reason they don’t seem to increase my squat, even with the comp. fit sleeves. The OP says his are very tight and difficult to put on, so in that case I could see some carryover.[/quote]

I’m fairly sure there isn’t an “8 triples @ 90%” session… Also, the percentages are based on the initial maximum, not the current maximum - it should be more like 85% by mid-way through the intense phase.
Still, it depends on the lifter.

30

[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:
It’s not so much the volume itself that makes Smolov excessive, but 8 triples with 90%? It would have to be a very good day for me to get more than one triple with 90%. The rate at which the program expects you to progress is unrealistic as well. You could autoregulate it, but then it’s not Smolov. As far as % and maxes, well, they are what they are. I’m not a big fan of % in training myself, but it is useful as a guideline.

I suppose everyone has a different perception, but SBD’s don’t add anything to my squat. They are by far the most comfortable knee sleeves I have used and I would recommend them to anyone, but for whatever reason they don’t seem to increase my squat, even with the comp. fit sleeves. The OP says his are very tight and difficult to put on, so in that case I could see some carryover.[/quote]

The 10x3 session can exceed 90% intensity (in the final session). Smolov is a daily undulating periodisation program. The purpose of the program is to force a person to super compensate if they successfully go through the entire program. The manipulation in volume and intensity is actually very clever. If you finish the first session of a week, the following sessions in the week should be doable since you add weight but drop reps. By the time you finish the last day of a week, you find that the first day of the next week is easy because the intensity is dropped. Your body adapts through changing intensity and volume at an ideal time. It shouldn’t be possible for a person to hit the last couple 10x3 sessions without going through the super compensation. So on a very good day, I wouldn’t hit that either unless I followed the program. The body can do amazing things.

Earlier I said the volume of Smolov base (working hard 3 weeks out of 6) is similar to the volume of Sheiko (working hard 6 weeks out of 6). The reason why Smolov isn’t worth the time for someone not using programs with comparable volume is because they regress after going back to lower volume. If they are already doing something with a similar weekly volume average then there is minimal regression.

I’m not trying to convince you to do the program since you should do what works for you. Just trying to explain why it works for me and others. Auto-regulating is key for someone not on drugs and is not a professional athlete. The argument could be made that auto-regulating no longer makes it Smolov but the foundational principles for how that program works still stand. Many people alter programs but still adhere to its main principles.