Smolov and eating

whatup man, glad you decided to journal!



well, there's quite a few approaches you could consider.. one thing that will make things even easier for me/lance/everyone on here, is if you filled this out: http://www.adarq.org/forum/performance-training-blog/free-training-free-customized-athletic-programming-free-online-coaching/

it's not saying you want 'free coaching', but having that background info on here would help us give you even better ideas.

like Damien posted, smolov is actually a viable option, but I don't know enough about your training history etc to really prescribe it.. it might not even be needed.. A few things that can help build considerable squat strength is simply rotating a few more volumes in and taking advantage of 20 rep squats, for example, you would have 3 workouts:

5 x 5 <-- can be same weight or work up to 5RM depending on how you feel that day (or to reduce fatigue)
5 x 10
4 x 3

those would each be separate sessions.. On any of those sessions, you could throw in a finisher of 20 reps straight.. It would be good to get in at LEAST once every other lower body session.. it might seem nutty at first, and the soreness might be pretty intense after the first 5x10/20 rep squats, but you'll adapt pretty quick and then you're pretty much fine from there on.

The idea with the above sets/reps schemes, is that you hit a variety of volumes which all feed off each other.. 4x3 would really focus on max strength, 5x5 and 5x10 focus on max strength & hypertrophy, but have are less maximally intense than 4x3.. 5x10 is BEAUTIFUL for hypertrophy AND building max strength.. All of those sessions would utilize full recovery between sets.

So you'd have:

5 x 5   OR   5 x 5, 1 x 20  <-- can be same weight or work up to 5RM depending on how you feel that day (or to reduce fatigue)
5 x 10   OR   5 x 10, 1 x 20
4 x 3   OR   4 x 3, 1 x 20

Those 20 rep finishers are addicting, i'm actually going to write a new blog post on them tomorrow.. They helped me go from 225 x 5 to 305 x 5 in basically 5 weeks at 154 lb.. so I mean my squat (half squat) wasn't EXTREMELY weak to begin with, but regardless, the accelerated gains are what you can expect using 20 rep squats and 5 x 10.

Other than that, you'll want to be able to squat at a higher frequency, not sure what your schedule is, if you fill out that summary questionnaire thing, it'll have that in it.. But if you had nothing too important to attend to, you'd want to be able to squat, 2 days of active rest, squat, 2 days of active rest, etc.. Depending on the session and how you feel, you could even get in one day rest occasionally.. the idea here is simply building work capacity.. if you can adapt to only 2 day rest with those types of protocols, your work capacity improves, which implies you are now stronger.. I am adapted to 1 day rest (or no days rest) with squatting, so it means I can get "more work in" in a given period, which should yield more results than someone with less work capacity, as an example..

simply put, if you are able to get more work (of high quality) in by May, you will be stronger..

fill that thing out man it'll still help me/the forum put your training into more perspective..

hope that helps for now.

edit: those 20 reppers don't have to ALWAYS improve every session, sure that's the goal, but depending on daily fatigue/diet etc, they could fluctuate, but that's alright, it's the time under tension of that lift that will always promote some kind of growth.



nice man, just make sure you don't neglect "athletic movements" (sport work/reactive work) while improving that squat, you don't want to improve your squat while having a detraining effect on your ability to produce/absorb force rapidly, but ya, you can really focus on improving that horsepower, just don't become a "powerlifter"

peace!

Oh and just to throw this in their since you mentioned previous training habits. As far as squatting, deadlifts, etc. From what I can remember I've only done 5x5 at 70-80% 1RM, 3x3 at 85-90% 1RM, and the "explosive training sets"(that's not exactly the name but its something like that) that are in Jacob Hiller's "Jump Manual" which turns out to be 8x8 with some super sets at the end(last 3 sets) with decreasing weight.

 Yea man, I had the team doctors/physical therapists from the Tennessee Titans work on it so recovery went by pretty smoothly. I actually don't even have a meniscus anymore. I hurt it about 3 months before in March. After it stopped hurting in a about a week, I went back to playing on it and deteriorated it so much that it couldn't be repaired so they took it out. So now idk whats in their, but its not a regular meniscus haha.

I think its great, I've almost never done any high volume training and I have definitely have never used a 20 rep finisher. I'll be starting session 1 either today or tomorrow. Then i'll be back here to tell you how it went/ what I think. Oh and one more thing, should I try to use a 20 rep finisher after every session or just pick and choose? Thanks.

Can't remember what study and I don't think it matters, but a finisher set of 20-25 reps accelerated strength gains in subjects who performed it vs. subjects who didn't.

That shit's the truth man.

nice, if you stumble upon that again, post it in peer-review subforum !!

pc