Are you a long-legged lifter with deadlift 50k bigger than your squat?
Skinny legs?
Good, it can be changed.
Train three times a week.
You will do four squat sessions.
Eat a lot.
Form must be textbook perfect.
Leave your ego at home.
You MUST complete all sets and reps on squat, you may cut out the fluff stuff.
Don't be a pussy, your body will adapt.
8 week cycle. Quit making excuses, just finish it.
week 1: 6x5@60%
week 2: 5x5@65%
week 3: 5x4@70%
week 4: 4x4@75%
week 5: deload 2x2@60%
week 6: 6x3@80%
week 7: 5x2@85%
week 8: 4x1@90% or take 3 singles at 90%, 92%, 95%, respectively or go for a new MAX
template:
Monday (this is your most important day, eat and sleep well on Sunday)
POWER SQUAT: programming
bench press: 6x5@60% (same sets and reps and weight through the whole cycle)
POWER SQUAT: 5x4@70% (same sets and reps and weight through the whole cycle)
fluff stuff (abs, lats, hams, lower back): do 1 exercise 3 sets of 8-20 reps
Wednesday
HIGH-BAR SQUAT: programming (calculate your high-bar squat around 90% of your power squat)
floor press: 6x8@60% (same sets and reps and weight through the whole cycle) + downset of 20-30 reps (with 2 reps left in the tank)
Romanian DL: 5x5@60% (same sets and reps and weight through the whole cycle)
fluff stuff (abs, guns, delts): do 1 exercise 3 sets of 8-20 reps
Friday
bench press: programming
overhead press: 4x8
FRONT SQUAT: 4x4@70% (same sets and reps and weight through the whole cycle; use about 80% of your power squat for your calculation)
fluff stuff (rows, abs, guns): do 1 exercise 3 sets of 8-20 reps
Squatting is your main focus. Other things are just maintanance level. It's ok for 8 weeks, don't panic. Your bench will not drop 30k because you do lots of squatting now. Most likely, all three powerlifts will go up :-)
Raw Power Squat. The king of all strength exercises. No.1 Go to... exercise for powerlifters, strength athletes, bodybuilders, average gym rats, sprinters, blah, blah.
Raw power squat builds tremendous strength, mass and power in your whole lower body; hell, in your whole body.
Stance
Approach the bar which is in the squat stands at your chest level. Grip it tight with a thumbless grip. Where? As close to your shoulders as your flexibility allows. My grip is with pinkies on the power rings. This gives me a great contraction in my whole upper back and lats. Your wrists should be wrapped tightly and your grip on the bar very hard. It should feel very uncomfortable.
Duck under the bar and place the bar on your rear delts and just below your upper traps. There is a sweet spot there where it feels just perfect. Take a deep breath into your belly. Not in your chest because it will make the rib cage rise and worsen your leverage. Push your belly hard against your belt. Everywhere - in the front, your obliques as well. If you squat beltless, still your abs should be like a giant basket ball. With your upper back super tight, elbows pointing downwards, your belly full of air, bend the bar accross your upper back, it will tighten the lats even more and secure your torso even more.
With super tight upper body, do a quarter squat, squat the bar out of the squat stands and with two short backward streps, take a stance which is exactly your shoulder width, or a little wider or a little narrower. Everybody is different. Generally taller lifters or long legged lifters will naturally assume a little wider stance and shorter and stocky lifters probably a little narrower stance. You have to play with this. I suggest take 50% of your max and devote one full session to doing lots of triples and find a stance where the motion feels natural, smooth and powerful. Then you know where your stand is.
Toes should be flared out a little. Anything between a few degrees to 45 degrees. Everybody is different. Again, you have to play with this. You are standing there now with a supertight core and upper back, glutes flexed, weight on your mid-foot.
Descent
Your descent starts with breaking in your hips. Your butt travels backward and you sit back but not so much as the Westside guys because there is no suit to help you. A split second after you broke in your hips you break in your knees too and squat down. Actually, you squat down and back at the same time.
In the bottom position if your knees travel forward a bit it is ok. Watch some of the greatest squatters and their knees travel forward in the bottom position but not over their toes. Knees should be in linear position over the feet. They should not cave in, neither should they be pushed out too much as many not so good coaches will tell you. In the bottom position your knees are forward (but not over the toes), directly over your feet and your hips are below your knees.
You should feel now tremendous tension in your quads, hams, hips and glutes - the primer movers. Yes quads, please do not believe the Westside crap that you don't need quads for squatting. You do. Thick and strong quads.
Squat
A slight bounce off your hams and you are driving up with your heels and feet into the ground. Hams will take care of the rebound and the initial few inches, then it is all quads and glutes.
Your torso is still the same angle as in the beginning, you must not cave in. That is why you created the fixed torso and lats when preparing before descent. Strong abs are paramount. If you have weak abs, train them heavy 2-4 times a week. No excuses.
With a raw power squat, notice that you never get burried in the hole because the hams and the rebound can carry you through the first couple inches. Where raw squatters usually miss or grind is the 2-3" above parallel. That is why you need strong quads, to overcome the sticking point.
Frequency and Volume
Several times a week. Twice is minimum. Three times is better. Cycle intensity.
Bodybuilder? Twice a week. Once 6 sets of 5 and once 4 sets of 12.
Strentgh athlete? Twice a week. Once 5 sets of 5 and once 8 sets of 3 with light weight but great power output.
Powerlifter? Twice a week. Once 6 sets of 5 and once 6 sets of 2 heavy. Or the Sheiko "sandwiches" where you squat twice per session and three times per week. Or three times a week: once 6 sets of 5, once 6 sets of 2 heavy, once 4 sets of 8 with light weight for hypertrophy.
Or do Smolov and be miserable for 12 weeks ;-)
Watch Youtube vids of Malanichev, Belayev, Pozdeev for some stupid strong raw squatting with impecable form. Over the lake, guys with insane squatting power and superb form are Dan Green and Jeremy Hamilton.
With the Eastern Bloc training philosophy, when peaking for a meet you want to keep your strength you built during the off-season and transitional periods with multiple sets of low reps in the 60-85%, you want your tendons recover and be fresh for the meet, you want to supercompensate and maximize the accummulated strength and you want to keep your motor learning skills at high level.
What happens when the traditional peaking is used when you cut the main lifts 2 weeks out and only do light assistance before the meet? I think you lose a bit the motor learning skills/patterns and focus on assistance which is completely irrelevant at this point.
Assistance lifts are done in the prep phases to improve muscle balance and to help local hypertrophy. 2 weeks out before your meet you are pretty much done with both these objectives. I never understood the philosophy: "the last week or two before the meet I do not deadlift anymore, I just do some light reverse hypers and abs".
I believe you should do quite the contrary: cut out all assistance and keep doing your classical lifts in order to keep your form and motor learning skills as long as possible right through the meet. You should at the same time lower volume and intensity to let your body recover, supercompensate and be ready to kill some PR's. Frequency does not have to be lowered at all or very little if the volume and intensity numbers are managed well. Remember, increased frequency will keep your motor learning skills right up to the meet.
Ever wondered why Pozdeev can pull over 880 in every meet he enters and he is light 240 yet Western style lifters in order to pull such numbers are usually over 275-300 lbs? It is because they rely too much on muscles to muscle the weight up and less on motor learning skills. Because Pozdeev pulls so frequently and for so many sets he can rely on his extremely efficient skills and less on muscles to pull the damn weight. This is no way to criticise Western lifters, I am just showing alternative methods, you be the judge.
So, how do we peek for a meet?
Let's try this:
5 weeks out:
squat, bench and pull twice a week, squat and bench can be still 3 times a week
5 sets of 2-3 reps with 85%
still doing some assistance but mostly for rehab and keeping the joints full of blood
you feel here very tired and fatigued, maybe even weak; your joints ache
4 weeks out:
squat, bench and pull twice a week, squat and bench can be still 3 times a week
4 sets of 2 reps with 90%
cut assistance
you feel here overtrained but don't worry the strength is there
3 weeks out:
squat and bench twice a week, pull only once a week
3 sets of 1 with 90-95% (you can take 3 singles, maybe 90%, 92%, 94%)
cut all assistance
because the volume is down you suddenly feel the strength is peaking; you are tired as hell and achy but the strength is coming
2 weeks out:
squat and bench twice a week, pull once a week
3 sets of 3 with 70-75%
zero assistance
you are still achy but you start feeling the strength is peaking and you are no more sluggish on the lifts = the speed is coming back
MEET week:
squat once a week, bench once a week; no pulling
zero assistance
2 sets of 2 with 50-60%
focus on impecable form and speed
you are now super strong and supercompensated, recovered and ready to hit some PR's :-)
