Well I've spoken before about what I want my goals to be and it's already Week 3 of Month 2 and I feel like I'm making progress. My Press form is much better than when I started although my Est. ORM is lower than I'd like. My Bench has gone up significantly as has my Deadlift. My biggest disappointment however is my Squat. My form has gotten better, the assistance lifts have let me focus more on form and developed that but the growth that I'm seeing or lack there of is upsetting.
I don't blame the program by any means, it's obviously worked and if I'm correct I may only be a 115#'s from my goal by the end of Month 2 which is amazing considering I started 185#'s away from it only two months ago, who can complain about an increase of 70#'s in that amount of time. Not me.
That said, the point of failure here is the Squat. I'll reach 400 and 250 on Deadlift and Bench, respectively, before long but 350 for Squat just seems miles away, I could flex to 425 and 325 but I believe my squat is barely topping 265 at the moment. This just will not do so I've looked on T-Nation and found this article:
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most.../the_squat_4_times_per_week_experiment
Now the problem with this system would be the huge focus on Squats and while I could see progress in five weeks, I'm worried about the gains I might lose on my Deadlift and Bench, both of which I personally care aabout more. The Author makes a point of saying that I need to take out something from my workouts IOT see success and growth in my squat.
In addition, I want to be able to Press 185#'s at a minimum and eventually reach 225#'s. Most of these larger gains would be after I've made it through selection but I do need to start working on my press now for the added health benefits.
Once I've made a decision on how I'm going to increase my Press and Squat while sustaining slow & steady growth of my Bench and Deadlift I'll post it.
9/4/16
9 years ago
4 comments:
If you're squatting with a power lifting style: low bar placement, wide stance, and hips way back you're going to be using almost all of the same muscles you use in the deadlift anyways. You'll use a lot of hamstrings, glutes, and lower back with the quads being somewhat of a secondary mover. This means that if you ditch the deadlift and focus on improving your squat your deadlift should still improve with the squat so long as you do things to maintain your grip and upper back strength as well.
In fact this is exactly how the guys at Westside Barbell train. They almost never deadlift except in competition. They do a lot of squat variations with a heavy emphasis on box squats.
They squat extremely wide as you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKzlVj096Fg
But something more moderate like this guy would be okay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjBkuGH57FM
If you squat like I do with an olympic style: high bar placement, hip width stance, very upright torso, with more emphasis on the quads then there won't be as much transfer to the deadlift. You can see an example of that style squat here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU8eLdjwDk4
Using the first squat I mentioned you could probably stick to the program you're on now and just replace the deadlift day with box squats and then still do deadlifts somewhere as your accessory work. If your back squat and box squat numbers both improve significantly your deadlift numbers should go up. Or you can look into trying something like a Westside program when you're bored with this one.
So I squat as low as the second video with the same stance but I also have the bar a lot higher on my back... what does that mean exactly?
Didn't see the third video, almost exactly like the third video but less bounce, I do bounce but not as much as that guy.
The higher up on your traps the bar is the more torque it is going to place on your back. It will fight to push you forward. In an olympic style squat this is pretty easy to control because your hips drop straight down, and your back stays very vertical. In a powerlifting style squat, where you start the movement with your hips going back instead of down, you're going to get a little angle in your torso and if the bar is up high it's going to fight to push you forward. The lower it is on your back the less this will happen and the easier it will be to keep your chest up throughout the lift.
A good position for the bar to be in is at the bottom of your traps, resting at the top of your rear deltoids. Some guys push it lower and you could if you wanted, had flexible enough shoulders, and were comfortable with it, but at the bottom of the traps should be sufficient.
Here's a pretty good series looking into the powerlifting squat:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ME8gEN54Ao
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV8ZxGICsL0
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQIAzzMDhSI
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvv4uk9XbsY
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwKRhwjRZnM
And a shorter video going over the basics of the powerlifting box squat:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbCaLZ8a0cw
Post a Comment