About a month and a half ago, two of us decided that we were going to reach 405x20 for back squat. We took different approaches to reach this. My goal was to do crazy volume initially, like 5x20 at 225 for a week, then 275 for a week, and then i progressed to around 3x20 at 315 for about a week. After that hell, i began to start moving up. I was squatting 3 times weekly, and deadlifting occasionally. I easily hit 335x20, then i hit 365x20.
A couple weeks ago, i made my first crack at it. I hit 405x13, which was disappointing, but im not going to give up on the goal, and in my most recent workout i hit 15 reps. I was advised to also do some 5 rep maxes after, at maybe 455 after. Up until that point, i had never even hit 455x5, so i hit it for a grindy set and was happy. Last monday, i proceeded to hit 465x5, wednesday 475x5, friday 485x5, and today i hit 495x6! 40 lbs on my 5 rep max in over a week! and not only that, but all of these sets were performed after doing 405x15 reps.
Although i still haven’t hit my goal of 20 reps, everything else is having great carryover and training is going better than ever. Coming to the realization, that for me at least, the reps/practice are everything. I’m hoping to hit over 610 within the year at 181. Also, have added about 3 inches to the thigh measurement in the past month with this extra volume. Started benching again, went from 185x10 to 275x10 paused. Sorry for the excessive use of “I” in my post!