Caveats up front: I am neither the technique guy or the heavy squat guy.
My only input is that I don’t see you either get really big air or tighten your upper back before you unrack.
2 Likes
Ok firstly well done on fighting that rep and getting it done.
Here is what I see and what I can’t see:
- No where near enough air or hard enough brace both in the middle and with your upper back tightness. You elbows are flapping a little as you struggle.
- You initiate the squat by sitting back which is good. But As you squat down your knees dont travel very far forward and this leaves the bar behind your mid foot.
- As you come up the bar travels backwards and then you have to fight it back to mid line to finish (good fight but I think I already said that)
- I can’t see how wide you feet are or if they are angled out slightly.
- I can’t see if your knees track out and if you are opening up your taint.
- I can’t see if the knees are caving in when you come up.
I think over all it was a good solid squat at near max weight. Work on the brace and tightness and that may help with the bar path too. Other than that my only advise would be to just get stronger.
4 Likes
Good job!
I’m glad you have some bros in the gym. This stuff can be tough all by yourself.
Anyway, you’ve got the recipe. Occasional Heavy stuff to drive to new levels and reveal weakness. Occasional Light work to recover from heavy stuff without going backwards. And mostly Medium work to solidify your progress and leave some energy for the accessories.
I think the guys who actually squat have covered technique stuff.
1 Like
Everything has been covered so far. I’m going to double up on getting braced for the un-rack.
3 Likes
Thanks everyone!!
@dagill2 Before I unrack, I actually get my best belly breath there, but I let go of it during the walk out and rebrace. I know ideally the first brace should be the best brace. Maybe it’s something I can practice even if i’m not using a monolift
I noticed this too. Even on submaximal weights, it’s not completely straight up and down. Bar tends to move forward towards the bottom as I lean forward. Ankle mobility problem?
For 4,5,6, I know I don’t have proof, but my feet are angled slightly, like 30 degrees, and I do make sure the knees track over the toes. I know it when my knees cave in, and I didn’t feel it here since I really worked on that knee caving thing. I had a scare of knee pain before that’s why I made an effort to fix it.
Thank you! And yes, just getting stronger all around is the goal.
@FlatsFarmer Agreed man. Specially since I moved to this state by myself with hardly any friends and no family. And for sure no maxing out in squats again in the next 3 months lol. Someone asked me what program I used to peak, and I didn’t use one. So excited at the thought of what a peaking program could do for me, but that doesn’t really line up with my goals.
@t3hpwnisher thanks!
2 Likes
I like this so much.
3 Likes
That one came from Boris Sheiko. I heard that and was like “Whoa! Maybe he is pretty good.” It’s cool to hear straight from Russians because all the lifter/coaches I’m into were super influenced 2nd or 3rd hand by Russian stuff. I’ve never seen the heavy/light/medium strategy explained that way.
3 Likes
He’s awesome!
I’ve followed online spreadsheets of his programs and never failed to gain strength even though I badly bastardized them and that the spreadsheets online are literally examples from his book, not actual coaching
2 Likes
3 words: Big. Belly. Breath. Just missing a little bracing and you’ll be off to the races man.
4 Likes
Hi stuff seems to work most of the time, even for people who are already strong. There seems to be a lot of room for flexibility and “autoregulation” built in the rigid structure of the workouts. Even the App work for dudes! Imagine if this dude spoke English.
1 Like
When I ran the templates, I’d sometimes swear that he could read my mind or something. I’d be dying and dreading a workout, look at the spreadsheet and the workout planned just happens to be ridiculously easy
1 Like
There’s many tips I could give ya but I think you’re doing pretty well and not too far off 315.
Mostly just keep getting stronger. Working hard (but not too hard lol) and sleeping/eating well enough to recover and adapt.
For max efficiency i think you should focus on your breathing/bracing and creating back tightness/stability. You’ll know you are doing it right when heavy loads even up to abs beyond near max feel stable and not heavy as fuck on your body (they’ll still feel heavy but not unmanageably so) and your torso stays relatively solid throughout as opposed to rounding out, good morninging that shit etc.
Muscularly I think you already have the back and core musculature to support a 315 squat. It’s in how u use it that we can probably improve. You can do barbell rows a lot and get jacked but it’s a movement specific skill thing. Plenty of jacked bodybuilders who find it hard to keep a tight back for not practicing the skill much even though they are very big and strong in general.
Better yet why not do both. Practice the skill well and also get bigger and stronger. FWIW I think you should be doing both if possible. Bias specific skill practice and strength if need tho. Like the past year I’ve been busy as shit. I’ve done like 2-3 sets per week of DB rowing and that’s gone up like 10 a lil bit to be fair (so I can row chicks lol) but I’ve added 40-50 on me squat and it feels good on my back because I’ve been squatting hard-ish a lot. Probably the squatting more than barely doing any rowing
We can talk more specific things over time e.g. I can link u vids on specific aspects of the squat. For now just keep working hard and recovering.
Edit: focus on the big rocks like bracing, back tightness etc. and working hard to get bigger/stronger instead of technical minutiae. 80-90% of ur efforts go to where 80-90% of the gains are gonna come from
1 Like
Thank you brother! Gotta keep practicing that brace!
1 Like
Now:
Flexed: 34cm. Woah.
Can’t remember how i measured the unflexed part
1 Like
DAMN!
Arms getting huge!
1 Like
Nah, I still look lanky. Haha. Shoulders are more important to me aesthetically. Really don’t want to have arms bigger than my shoulders
1 Like
lol yeah
This is beautiful
1 Like
9 January 2022
Sumo
225 x 3
260 x 3
295 x 8 (RPE 8?)
OHP
85 x 3
100 x 3
110 x 6 (failed 7th attempt)
Side laterals
25 x 10 + 20 x 10
Superset
Triceps overhead 15 x 10 x 3 sets
Hammer curls 25 x 10 x 3 sets
Rear delt cable flyes
100 on stack x 10 x 4 sets
Seated hamstring curls
(I actually never figured out how to count the weight here. There’s a weird mechanism for counting small increments)
Alternating legs, 10 reps each, continuous, no rest periods
Triceps kickback
10 lbs x 10 x 3 sets
3 Likes
11 January 2022
210 x 5
235 x 3
265 x 2
Bench
120 x 5
135 x 3
150 x 5
120 x 5
120 x 5
120 x 12
BB Row
115 x 8 x 3 sets
Unilateral cable row
50 x 10 x 3 sets
Superset:
Cable triceps kickback 10 lbs x 10 x 3 sets
Hammer curls 25 lbs x 10 x 3 sets
@simo74 as promised. There’s still some wiggling, so I stand corrected
Seems like a deload is in order. Squats felt heavy, walkout was trash, lower back felt tight.
4 Likes