Adarq.org

By the way - when it gets warmer outside I'm going to try and jump with a weight belt on. If the weight belt gives me a boost in terms of strength in the squat, I'm going to see practically if that's due to better bar stabilizing or if it's also a matter of muscle irradiation with the leg muscles contracting more forcefully due to the core generating more force by pushing into the belt.

I know the vast majority of people around here will laugh at this ^^^ but I'm going to see it for myself. Not sure anyone tried this in the past (jumping with a weight belt on). The downfall is it's weight but I'll try it nevertheless.

You're weak. That's your problem

So you dove deep down into your pinnacle of knowledge to pull out this?

You're weak. That's your problem.

Considering my squat PR today (140kgx5reps), I just came to some "thoughts" after working out so far:

1) At this point, for me at least, it appears I have reached a point where I'm being overwhelmed cardiovascularly at this weight. After my 140x5 I felt REALLY dizzy and felt like passing out... it appears that's pretty much my limit as far as conditioning is concerned when doing strength training. Why should you care about this? Because it could apply to you to. I don't hear anybody talk about conditioning and cardio "strength" for strength training so I thought I should fill that in.

2) I have came to the conclusion that high frequency squatting is the way to go. Even though you might get ballooned squat numbers, the effect that squatting heavy weights again and again has on developing your muscles is unmatched.

You might come in and say "yeah but that squat is not transferrable to athletic movements and is just an improvement of squat movement efficiency". And of course you'd be right. But the thing is - it actually indirectly helps athleticism. You will use higher poundages that will develop your muscles better (subjecting them to heavier poundages will develop both your muscles and your nervous system) and that will, in turn, help with the actual athletic movements.

Also - moving a heavy weight frequently is being underrated in the effect it has for your stabilizer development... since the bar isn't stable (because you won't have 100% perfect movement when squatting) and needs to be, well, stabilized. That creates a good CNS firing to stabilize it and by that I mean a "quick" CNS fire ability. This is so underrated in my opinion.

Yeah we've had this conversation some time ago and it will keep on getting back and back into these boards because frankly, it's pretty interesting to discuss. But the bottom line is what vag said.

I mean jumping 45 SVJ without Photoshop or pulling on the rim and letting go before taking the picture.

I sorta think there is no such thing as quad dominant people.... just people with weak hamstrings and glutes.  It seems a strange solution to switch to a movement where the quads can hardly be used to remedy weak hamstrings.   Why not just train the hamstrings in knee flexion and hip extension and get them doing the movement well?

I think you have a very solid argument here ^^^, especially if you couple this with tight hip flexors/dormant glutes.

And to answer your question - since I can't do high bar squats and do low bar squats and deadlifts instead, yeah, I'm missing SOME quad activity from my training. But like Lance said, "I'm sure moving the bar 1 inch lower on your back will completely deactivate your quads and they will get weak and small". The point is - the quads still get stimulation from the low bar squats. Especially as I'm a quad dominant guy by nature so... I kind of always call on my quads when doing stuff.

My problem is that I was never able, after years of training, to build my VMOs... and I want HUGE VMOs.

Will you continue to increase your squat (focus on this)? Where do you want to stop at relatively? Have you considered going into 200 lbs bodyweight territory to increase your squat towards ~3x?

Well yeah if you think about it you're going to have different squat styles individually, depending on structure, muscle strength (which generates the body's preference to use more or less different muscles etc) and other factors, but a high bar squat will have more potential to determine a more quad-oriented squat than a low bar squat GENERALLY (regardless of structure).

So obviously you can force a more hip oriented jump squat with a high bar position placement but you're going to have to compensate with your back angle etc so it's going to mess things up a bit.