Hey guys, im looking to increase total body power and leg strength while also adding a bit of muscle while leaning out a bit more before I make the plunge and move up to the 105s in 7 months time.
despite the fact that i dont do a lot of upper body and focus most of my energy on training the olympic lifts 5-6 times/week, i have relatively skinny legs compared to my back/chest etc…
to work on these things I was thinking about introducing a lot more volume in the squats. Front squat fairly heavy with lot of classic/lifts during the week, then on Saturday (because i can rest on Sunday) squat with high volume. (I would be doing classic training before the squats on Saturday)
I was thinking of a program something like this… (building up slow)
week 1: 120 (2 warm up sets, then 4 sets of 6 (did this yesterday fairly easily with no break in form)
week 2: 120 4 sets of 8
week 3: 120 4 sets of 10
week 4: 130 4 sets of 6
week 5: 130 4 sets of 8
week 6: 130 4 sets of 10
week 7: 137.5 4 sets of 6
etc…
etc…
this way the week can be devoted mostly to the speed and technique of the classic lifts, and Saturday can be more devoted to strength/endurance and hypertrophy of the legs. Then Sunday is for recovery to make sure my legs are in good shape for Mondays session.
Has anyone ever tried something like this?
How does it sound?
i always start off each cycle with 10x10 squats at 60week 1, 65week2, 70week3, 75week4. also the same thing for dl. plus 1 other squat day at lower reps(5-6) and 2 fs days at lower reps(5-6). it works good to drive leg strength and hypertrophy but with so much energy to squats the sn and cj take a little bit of a hit for a bit.
[quote]boldar wrote:
i always start off each cycle with 10x10 squats at 60week 1, 65week2, 70week3, 75week4. also the same thing for dl. plus 1 other squat day at lower reps(5-6) and 2 fs days at lower reps(5-6). it works good to drive leg strength and hypertrophy but with so much energy to squats the sn and cj take a little bit of a hit for a bit.[/quote]
ya i would imagine 10*10 squats would cause the other lifts to suffer, which is why i plan to build up to set of 10 only every 3 weeks and only do 6 total squat sets in that workout.
So im hoping that programing it this way will still get me good hypertrophy and strength while allowing me to keep improving on my classic lifts
[quote]boldar wrote:
i always start off each cycle with 10x10 squats at 60week 1, 65week2, 70week3, 75week4. also the same thing for dl. plus 1 other squat day at lower reps(5-6) and 2 fs days at lower reps(5-6). it works good to drive leg strength and hypertrophy but with so much energy to squats the sn and cj take a little bit of a hit for a bit.[/quote]
ya i would imagine 10*10 squats would cause the other lifts to suffer, which is why i plan to build up to set of 10 only every 3 weeks and only do 6 total squat sets in that workout.
So im hoping that programing it this way will still get me good hypertrophy and strength while allowing me to keep improving on my classic lifts
thanks for your experience, its much appreciated [/quote]
i usally find that people that are concerned with keeping the lifts at close to 100% at all times make very little progess especially when they still need a strength base. i’d rather spend the month a really hit the strength hard and come back to the lifts stronger than ever. the month is also a great time to spend with lower weights really hitting technique.
and fyi and real attempt to increase strength and hypertrophy will take it out of ur lifts anyway
did my “week 2” work out today. did cleans from the box followed by some squat+jerk from the rack.
then when on to do 70 for a set of 6, 100 for a set of 8, 110 for a set of 8 and then 120 for 4 sets of 8 (last one i did 10 because i had enough energy for me.
it wasnt really my muscles, just my heart and lungs that kept me back, next week will be hard (sets of 10) but i think "cycle 2) will actually be easier because of better conditioning.