Weak Legs?

I’m about 220lb, 5’11’’ and have an non-equipment asissisted max squat just over 500lb at competition depth. It’s not that bad, but my all-time max bench is 495lb. If I stop benching for a few weeks my strength doesn’t really decrease, but if I stop squatting for a few weeks, my squat drops drastically, and it takes many more weeks for me to regain my strength.

It also takes a full week to recover from an intense squat workout, whereas every other body part recovers in about 3 days. Is this normal?

Yes.

Take some Surge+PowerDrive to alleviate some of the soreness post-workout.

It should help some.

Nice bench/squat btw.

[quote]benchaffleck wrote:
I’m about 220lb, 5’11’’ and have an non-equipment asissisted max squat just over 500lb at competition depth. It’s not that bad, but my all-time max bench is 495lb. If I stop benching for a few weeks my strength doesn’t really decrease, but if I stop squatting for a few weeks, my squat drops drastically, and it takes many more weeks for me to regain my strength.

It also takes a full week to recover from an intense squat workout, whereas every other body part recovers in about 3 days. Is this normal?[/quote]

yes, this is normal. It’s really hard to keep all your lifts high at the same time. I find that if i really work the bench to hit PR’s, my squat suffers and vise versa.

Also, after a heavy leg workout, I usually am not recovered until the next week’s leg workout.

meat

Thanks. I thought I was an oddball.

How are you judging your state of recovery?

[quote]maraudermeat wrote:
Also, after a heavy leg workout, I usually am not recovered until the next week’s leg workout.

meat
[/quote]

For damn sure a reason I switched to the westside template with the DE day. actually use it more to aid recovery. That ME day beats the shit out of you.

As will any HARD leg day done with proper Intensity IMO

Phill

[quote]benchaffleck wrote:
I’m about 220lb, 5’11’’ and have an non-equipment asissisted max squat just over 500lb at competition depth. It’s not that bad, but my all-time max bench is 495lb. If I stop benching for a few weeks my strength doesn’t really decrease, but if I stop squatting for a few weeks, my squat drops drastically, and it takes many more weeks for me to regain my strength.

It also takes a full week to recover from an intense squat workout, whereas every other body part recovers in about 3 days. Is this normal?[/quote]
Yeah I wouldn’t say your legs are weak. Is that 495 bench raw? If you can raw squat 500 you’re easily into the 600’s with gear

i’d chalk it up to genetics. i’m the opposite. upper body soreness (especially arms) immobolizes me while i can go max effort squat 2-3 times a week no problem. my bench has been stagnant since i returned to weightlifting a year ago while my squat and deadlift have both shot up over 100lbs. i’ve been making bench gains by increasing the volume between workouts to a greater extant than i do with squats. try squatting just once a week but really upping the volume week to week.