Million Dollar - Squat Everyday

Hi guys, I really enjoyed doing the Million Dollar Challenge CT says on his recent article ( 5 Workouts for Non-Responsive Biceps ) , and I also did Deadlift - Friend or Foe a 4 days a week very intense program ( Deadlift: Friend or Foe? - Christian Thibaudeau Coaching - Forums - T Nation )

I got used to a really heavy workload, and the results both aesthetic and on strenght have been amazing, my deadlift at the end of the first cycle went up 35 kg. And the First biceps exercise I did went up 15 kg on the max after 4 weeks.

So what I want to do now is something similar with squat (front or back I dont care, but probably back)

What would you guys do?

(I’ve been recently experimenting 3 times a week, doing the layer system for Squat, but don’t know if thats optimal especially to do everyday and what you guys more experienced and CT thinks of it.)

Thanks in advance.

ididthe friend or foe with squats. it was great.

[quote]domcib wrote:
ididthe friend or foe with squats. it was great.[/quote]

And if Dom and his sore quads can do it, anybody can.

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]domcib wrote:
ididthe friend or foe with squats. it was great.[/quote]

And if Dom and his sore quads can do it, anybody can.[/quote]
It’s true! :slight_smile:

Now you got me thinking.
yeah, I know. That’s a dangerous thing.

When i did the friend or foe with squats, I did not have sore quads.
Back then i was taking lots of MAG-10. I think I’m gonna up the pulses again and see if it does the trick.

Thanks CT

Honestly I was hoping you answered the thread domcib !

I saw some of your older posts and you are very experienced with layers.

Can you tell me more how it went on the friend or foe with squats? The strenght, the development? Any weird pain?

I’m on the opposite side, I can rarely feel sore quads, even on layers, that’s part of the reason, but mainly strenght, than development of the quads, than perfection of the technique which Im pretty comfortable already.

CT do you think Friend or foe would be the optimal way to get the best bump on strenght on my Squat/Legs? I really wanted to do something 6 times a week opposed to 4.

[quote]skariot wrote:
Thanks CT

Honestly I was hoping you answered the thread domcib !

I saw some of your older posts and you are very experienced with layers.

[/quote]
u kidding?
i dont know much.
thanks, and hope it helps you

[quote]skariot wrote:
Thanks CT

Can you tell me more how it went on the friend or foe with squats? The strenght, the development? Any weird pain?

I’m on the opposite side, I can rarely feel sore quads, even on layers, that’s part of the reason, but mainly strenght, than development of the quads, than perfection of the technique which Im pretty comfortable already.

[/quote]
actually i did deads and squats at the same time with friend or foe.
they worked great for me for a few reasons.
mostly because i really hadnt been able to full squat or dead from floor for a real long time. the frequency loosened me up a lot. i got up to weight that i hadnt done in years. so, i guess it gave me strength and mobility.
weeird pain.?.. brething like a locomotive.:slight_smile:

now between the squats and power cleans with the density work, im stronger than ive been in a real long time, and im getting a little shape to my quads…

[quote]domcib wrote:

[quote]skariot wrote:
Thanks CT

Honestly I was hoping you answered the thread domcib !

I saw some of your older posts and you are very experienced with layers.

[/quote]
u kidding?
i dont know much.
thanks, and hope it helps you[/quote]
Nope, not kidding at all, I used to read all your compilation and posts from the spills and layers when I was trying to find info.

So it did helped you a lot it seems, not being able to do the exercise to being able to do it and be the strongest you been on a long while is great.

Plus both DL and Squat on this program sounds brutal!

Still I’m looking for a 6 days alternative. I would really prefer that, do you have any idea that I could do?

CT?

[quote]skariot wrote:

[quote]domcib wrote:

[quote]skariot wrote:
Thanks CT

Honestly I was hoping you answered the thread domcib !

I saw some of your older posts and you are very experienced with layers.

[/quote]
u kidding?
i dont know much.
thanks, and hope it helps you[/quote]
Nope, not kidding at all, I used to read all your compilation and posts from the spills and layers when I was trying to find info.

So it did helped you a lot it seems, not being able to do the exercise to being able to do it and be the strongest you been on a long while is great.

Plus both DL and Squat on this program sounds brutal!

Still I’m looking for a 6 days alternative. I would really prefer that, do you have any idea that I could do?

CT?[/quote]
i’m curious, why 6 days?
you wanna work your legs 6 days a week?
what’s the reasoning?
generally, you need to find what you want to achieve, then find the application that helps you achieve it.
there was a time when i squatted every day. that was because my legs and knees were in not so good shape. so, i found that the frequency woul help a lot. i started with 1 set of 10-12 reps with teh bar every day. and did real work on legs 1 day a week(bodybuilding type). each week i tried to add some weight and go lower, til i got to ATG, and til the weight started getting heavy enough that i started cutting down the days, til i got to the point where the 1 day a week was fine, and anything extra was too much.
So, what are you looking to accomplish?

[quote]domcib wrote:

[quote]skariot wrote:

[quote]domcib wrote:

[quote]skariot wrote:
Thanks CT

Honestly I was hoping you answered the thread domcib !

I saw some of your older posts and you are very experienced with layers.

[/quote]
u kidding?
i dont know much.
thanks, and hope it helps you[/quote]
Nope, not kidding at all, I used to read all your compilation and posts from the spills and layers when I was trying to find info.

So it did helped you a lot it seems, not being able to do the exercise to being able to do it and be the strongest you been on a long while is great.

Plus both DL and Squat on this program sounds brutal!

Still I’m looking for a 6 days alternative. I would really prefer that, do you have any idea that I could do?

CT?[/quote]
i’m curious, why 6 days?
you wanna work your legs 6 days a week?
what’s the reasoning?
generally, you need to find what you want to achieve, then find the application that helps you achieve it.
there was a time when i squatted every day. that was because my legs and knees were in not so good shape. so, i found that the frequency woul help a lot. i started with 1 set of 10-12 reps with teh bar every day. and did real work on legs 1 day a week(bodybuilding type). each week i tried to add some weight and go lower, til i got to ATG, and til the weight started getting heavy enough that i started cutting down the days, til i got to the point where the 1 day a week was fine, and anything extra was too much.
So, what are you looking to accomplish?
[/quote]

I want to get into amateur PL. (and my DL and Bench are better I guess)
Not so much train legs , sure I want amazing quads, but the most important thing here is train my squat.

And I read, and on practice that I had it was confirmed (biceps everyday 4 weeks) it’s the best way to get stronger faster and even better technique wise. Even tough I imagine it will be hard, but I like it as a challenge too :).

That’s pretty much my reasoning for wanting to do it 6x (my gym don’t open on sundays). Of course I don’t think this would be forever, but for 8 weeks or two cycles of 4 I think, but still I dont have an idea of volume, %of the load, density I should do it (I wanted to go relatively heavy everyday something like 70,80%) but without some guideline on reps or sets or something similar its probably to easy and do less work than I should, that’s what I liked so much on the biceps routine, but I can’t do the three reps cheating on squat so I can’t use that way per se.

well, the friend or foe for squats will definitely make you stronger. i personally would not include it in my current work, as i have more than enough as it is.
there was a 10day mini cycle layer laid out for squats. that might be a good idea for you. it works for me. my squat is going higher.

or: and CT may beat me up for this and its ancient, and im sure could be made better, but we used it in my throwing days.

you can squat. m-w-f, 4 or 5 sets of 5 reps @80-90% of your max. feel good, go heavy, feel like shit, go heavy, cant complete the sets… lighten it up some. we did that for about 4-6 weeks.

then we did 6-3-3-1, – same 3 days a week for about 4-6 weeks. it was like 80%, 90%, 95%, 100%. same recipe as above, and basically every session the goal was to increase the weight for the 1 rep set, or at least match what you did before.

that was done with bench, military, squats and cleans. 3 times a week. thats it.
the goal was to peak our 1RM strength. (after all, when throwing, you can only throw it once at a time, and the goal is to throw it farther than before)
maybe thats why i suck at 6 reps. :slight_smile:

[quote]domcib wrote:
well, the friend or foe for squats will definitely make you stronger. i personally would not include it in my current work, as i have more than enough as it is.
there was a 10day mini cycle layer laid out for squats. that might be a good idea for you. it works for me. my squat is going higher.

or: and CT may beat me up for this and its ancient, and im sure could be made better, but we used it in my throwing days.

you can squat. m-w-f, 4 or 5 sets of 5 reps @80-90% of your max. feel good, go heavy, feel like shit, go heavy, cant complete the sets… lighten it up some. we did that for about 4-6 weeks.

then we did 6-3-3-1, – same 3 days a week for about 4-6 weeks. it was like 80%, 90%, 95%, 100%. same recipe as above, and basically every session the goal was to increase the weight for the 1 rep set, or at least match what you did before.

that was done with bench, military, squats and cleans. 3 times a week. thats it.
the goal was to peak our 1RM strength. (after all, when throwing, you can only throw it once at a time, and the goal is to throw it farther than before)
maybe thats why i suck at 6 reps. :)[/quote]

I like what you posted, it’s very similar to my own beliefs. It’s not surprising though, throwers were light years ahead of every body when it comes to training for strength and explosiveness… many elite shot putters posted power clean numbers equal or close to those by the elite weightlifters of their countries while also posting bench numbers that would have ranked very high in powerlifting.

Oh, awesome! I took a look at the 10 day layers system, pretty interesting.

Do you think I could adapt your routine when you were throwing to 6 days?

Also would 5x5 only be enough ?

I was thinking something along the lines of the biceps one, 1 very light set, 1 light, 4 heavy like 75/80 , 3 very heavy 85/90, 1 with like 50% at the end.

What do you guys think?

6-3-3-1 sounds pretty awesome!

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]domcib wrote:
well, the friend or foe for squats will definitely make you stronger. i personally would not include it in my current work, as i have more than enough as it is.
there was a 10day mini cycle layer laid out for squats. that might be a good idea for you. it works for me. my squat is going higher.

or: and CT may beat me up for this and its ancient, and im sure could be made better, but we used it in my throwing days.

you can squat. m-w-f, 4 or 5 sets of 5 reps @80-90% of your max. feel good, go heavy, feel like shit, go heavy, cant complete the sets… lighten it up some. we did that for about 4-6 weeks.

then we did 6-3-3-1, – same 3 days a week for about 4-6 weeks. it was like 80%, 90%, 95%, 100%. same recipe as above, and basically every session the goal was to increase the weight for the 1 rep set, or at least match what you did before.

that was done with bench, military, squats and cleans. 3 times a week. thats it.
the goal was to peak our 1RM strength. (after all, when throwing, you can only throw it once at a time, and the goal is to throw it farther than before)
maybe thats why i suck at 6 reps. :)[/quote]

I like what you posted, it’s very similar to my own beliefs. It’s not surprising though, throwers were light years ahead of every body when it comes to training for strength and explosiveness… many elite shot putters posted power clean numbers equal or close to those by the elite weightlifters of their countries while also posting bench numbers that would have ranked very high in powerlifting.[/quote]

thanks. it worked well for me at the time, and the kids i coached. although they told me when they went to college they were taught different philosophies.
i was hoping you wouldnt bury me.
i didnt know about that shotputter/elite weghtlifter stuff. growing up i always looked at the oly lifters as awesome. icant tell you how many times i tried snatching maybe 250 or300 lbs. dont remember exactly how much i did. maybe 225 or 250. but, my knees never gave me more than a half squat. it pissed me off.
obviously there was a lot more to our training. ill post it in the next answer.
hey, ct. thanks.
you are very kind. and of course brutally honest.
those are good traits in my book.

[quote]skariot wrote:
Oh, awesome! I took a look at the 10 day layers system, pretty interesting.

Do you think I could adapt your routine when you were throwing to 6 days?

Also would 5x5 only be enough ?

I was thinking something along the lines of the biceps one, 1 very light set, 1 light, 4 heavy like 75/80 , 3 very heavy 85/90, 1 with like 50% at the end.

What do you guys think?

6-3-3-1 sounds pretty awesome![/quote]

  1. i never did i bicep exercise til i was 40. i joined golds gym and they got me into bodybuilding. biceps interfere with holding the shot in your neck. not good. and it shortens your arm. not good for the discus.
    2 . you can do biceps work if you want. like i said before, i know nothing about powerlifting.
  2. 6 days? 5x5 enough? this workout beat the piss out of us. and we were in our prime. 4x5 with those 4 exercises were: “time to take a nap” stuff. we went 5x5 in between indoor and outdorr seasons. it was longer time period, and we were better conditioned.
  3. i really dont want to offend you, you seem sincere, but, you really need to assess your goals, get the time frame, make a plan, and go for it. if you dont like your results after you have executed your plan, then you can change it up some.
    5 sometimes too much knowledge can screw you up. you cant make a decision and stick to it.
  4. its been 35 years, so i dont rememeber all of it, but i will post some more details separately.
    remember this is for a thrower.
    our goals was to peak for the indoor and outdoor championships. some guys peaked for earlier meets because they did not qualify for the states, mets, regionals, nationals. so each individual trained towards the highest meet he would be allowed to compete in, or place in.
    peak means highest 1rm, fastest, most explosive max with a relatve amount of weight, fastest across the circle while still maintaing position, fastest across the circle in general, peak technical execution.
    AND of course peak mental condition.

ok so u got an idea odpf the basic weightlifting routine. the program was always designed bacwards. meaning, take the date you wanna peak then work backwards to where you are. so, 2 weeks out. explosives. jerks, push press, speed squats, speed bench etc. we re using lighter weights here. the shot is 12 or 16lbs. speed bench at 225 with a 265 1RM is dumb.(i did have 1 guy who insisted on doing this. he never threw any farther all year long)
preceeded by 6331
,preceeded by 4x5, or 5x5
preceeded by 3x10,
or pyramid(7531246),
preceed by 5x10(this was just to get used to lifting)
each section was 2-6 weeks depending on how the calender fell.
in between each section we did 1 week of maxes in all the exercises. thats how we get our percentages for the next section
that was mwf
if anyone wanted to do some drills or sprints, or throw after the weights, that was fine.
oh, and for variation, and to break up the monotony we would use push. press especially if you couldnt finish the military set. finish with push press or even jerk if you had to.
deads were a nice break from squats, and a good motivator because you could do a lot of weight. moving heavy weight does wonders for your self confidence.
front squats. not to many. you getpissed cause you cant do as much as a squat.
snatch. not to many cause we never had someone who knew teach us. we learned by doing. (transalate in americas funniest videos)

by theway we worked in teams of 2-4, so there was adequate rest between sets. sometimes we’d also do circuits to chane it up some.
4 movements, 4 guys, continuous. you get done fast that way, and you could go out and throw.
coach would ask if you got your lifting done. “yep, got it all done, now we wanna go throw some” coach says. “ok cool, you guys got that done fast”. “yeah coach, we didnt screw around, we got it done” “good job”. funny stuff.

on tues, thurs and sat. til the weekend meets started.
drills, throwing, sprinting, jumping, bounding, hurdles, steps. not all on the same day. but you get the picture.
most of the sprints were short. the shot circle is 7 feet, the disc is 8 feet.
acceleration from a dead start is what is needed. lots of 10 yard sprints. broad jumps, long jumps, high jumps, side jumps, triple jumps, verticaljumps, plyo jumps. forward, backward, sideward, up, down, over, under. u name it, we did it. no pole vault. 260 is a bit heavy for pole vault.
seriously. google the video for werner gunther. most of that stuff was very typical.

remember. the throwers goal is acceleration and explosion, yet needs the agilty and strength to do that in a 7 foot circle, and stay in the circle. how easy is it to stop a locomotive running at top speed on a dime?
yep. its tough. that is called “the block”
imagine a catapult. u cut it loose, it accelerates, it stops abruply. the implement takes off like a rocket.
it is extremely violent.
i hadnt trown in a few years. when i was coaching, i got the bug, i went to throw the javelin as if i had been throwing all along.
i planted and locked my left leg (block) and launched the rocket. unfortunately my quads could not absorb the shock.
my acl, and meniscus did. they took me out on a stretcher.

so, you wanna do 4x5 6 days a week?
sorry, i dont think that will get you stronger
im my opinion. in order to lift heavy weights, you gottalift heavy. and i dont think the body can handle that every day

myapologies for the lenghty post.
thats enough now.

Thanks domcib, it’s really great to have someone experienced as you (and CT) giving feedback

I’ve been lifting just two and a half years, and Im 23. I’m very new on this compared to most people.

I did biceps work because I felt mine was very behind and the way of it (everyday) sounded like an awesome and fun challenge. I wanted to see what it could bring me.

My recovery is awesome, I have a very calm job and besides the gym, I rarely do any other sport, besides the ocassional 1 time a month soccer.

I really wanted to plan something for next 4-8 weeks, doing everyday, you guys are helping me consider how to plan and if this would be good for me, that’s very good and I thank you for that. (I don’t have a competition in mind yet, I want to get my numbers to highest possible)

I hope I’ve been clear on my message, english not my first language and Im not very comfortable with it, I appreciate your message, if you remmember more, even because of curiosity (I love training and reading about it) please say :).

Throwing sound awesome!

That was a great read, thanks for that.

It’s interesting how some of this stuff just gets lost; the trainers pass it down at a given school or whatever, but you never see it unless you’ve either either been there or know someone who has.

Our cross-country training was the same way. We pulled in a coach from the top school in the state, and went from not even qualifying for states, to 12th place, to 5th place in 3 years, with a sophomore who placed in the top 5 (he might have been 3rd, it was awhile ago). We dominated our region.

You can’t find that program online or in a book anywhere, but it worked, and it worked well.

So yeah, I appreciate that writeup.

@skariot-- your english is fine
you are still young. my best advice to you would be to pick a program that sound like fun, and go for it. Truly give it your best shot.
Read CT’s article on “effort” or something like that. Very inspiring. Also read Justin Negrete’s article. Great stuff there too.

My all time bests were when i was 19 or 20. I stopped lifting for many years after that. Just occasionally when I felt like it.
I posted a couple of pics of myself throwing the 35lb weight and the shot when i was at Rutgers. My brother found them and i put them there to inspire me.
http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding_indigo_2/domcibs_indigo3g_log?id=5358280&pageNo=22

That was freshman year indoors, so i guess im 18 or 19 in those pics. I dropped out of school after my 1st year. I started lifting when I was 15.