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I can't even squat light after that, it's just 15 years of squatting has won away what I was born with. I think it's a OA at work, i had a doctor warn me about that in 2019 when I had my first and only serious knee injury. It seems I have to accept that now, i cant just ignore it anymore.

GPT tells me to do higher reps with lower weights, i will give that a shot. But def need to stay away from heavy squats now.

Sorry to hear that man. I've never thought heavy squats at low reps would contribute significantly to knee cartilage wear. I have barely kept up with sports injury stuff, but I would think that running, playing bball - activities with lots of repetitive knee loading - would be worse long-term for cartilage loss. Is it bad after playing ball?

Squats last week:

4x10@90kgs --> good. 4x10@95kgs next time.

5x5@105kgs, 1x20@65kgs --> I opted for 105kgs instead of 110kgs, felt about right. 5x5@110kgs next time would be nearly back to my recent high of [1x5@100kgs, 4x5@115kgs].

Missing going to the gym for about ~12 days  . We went away for a few days and one kid caught pneumonia for ~1 week. I wasn't too affected - as a parent you almost always get a mild version of whatever the kids have - but everything gets a bit harder when kids are waking up in the night and you aren't sleeping right. (This is why I'm not scheduling in deloading - this will happen sporadically.)

I went a couple of days ago and just did everything as normal, just replaced squats with light DB goblet squats. Getting back to routine next session, but will drop the weight a bit.

Nice to see you back mate. Where's your squat at nowadays?

I got the kid's vertec ^ and it's great! I wish this had been around years ago, would have made my homemades a lot easier. I have a spot in my backyard I can use to jump at, but I'm not planning on starting that yet.

I jumped at an outdoor bball ring playing with kid #1 and was just grazing the rim on SVJ. Just. Missed the rim a lot of times  . So probably in the 29-30'' range atm.

Squats last week:
4x10@85kgs --> aiming for 90kgs this week.
5x5@100, 110, 110, 105, 100 --> bumped up the weight a bit in middle sets but was pretty challenging. I also threw in a 60kgs x 20 reps set at the end, not quite MEBM intensity level but just for more reps.
Aiming for 110kgs for all sets next time.

Thanks for the tips CoolColJ.

Training last week:

I've felt pretty good overall, definitely getting some "beginner's" gains so I'm dropping the BSS-only session and changing it to 4x10 and 5x5 + BSS across three sessions/week:

Day 1: Squat 5x5@90kg, 100x3, 90 // BSS 3x10/leg@16kgs
Day 2: Squat 4x10 @80kgs (this was pretty easy so going up next time)
Day 3: Squat 5x5@100kgs // BSS 3x10/leg@16kgs (also felt pretty easy, I feel like 5x5@105kgs is doable.)

Each session:
- 3xF back ext. @ 10kgs, working towards 20+ reps for 3 sets.
- SL calf raise 3xF/leg @ 12kgs, getting about 30/25/20 reps here.
- some anti-rotation and leg raising ab exercises.

BW: ~78kgs

I'm mostly getting volume up, 4x10 and 5x5 are great for this. Eventually it'd be nice to hit 4x10@100kgs - I think that's the most I've done for 4x10, and ~125kgs 5x5.

An essay on vertical measurement:

I missed testing my SVJ on the weekend, aiming for this weekend. I've been thinking a lot over the last few years about the well-worn topic of the best way to measure vertical. It's something so fundamental but also very difficult to accurately measure compared to a horizontal jump.

Hang time based calcs with video are more popular now but are still hit-and-miss. The variance is always going to be high - even with 120fps+ footage minimum there's too much uncertainty about when exactly to start and end the jump (foot up/down, toes touching etc.). These have been discussed a lot here. (Vag had some good corrections in this thread.)

Never used jump mats, but regardless of their accuracy, they are prohibitively expensive.

[Head touch height - height] removes the standing reach error, but if you don't actually hit your head on the object, you need film to see how close you got.

I'd say the most common is [highest touch height - standing reach] (provided the jumper is accurately reporting their std reach). It is probably the most consistently accurate measurement. The major practical issue with this is getting access to a training space that allows you to jump at an object of known height.

Gyms can be OK if there's a jump target, but often space is an issue.

Indoor bball courts are great, but they usually cost money to access and aren't always clear enough to jump.

Outdoor bball courts are feasible but the ring height is usually variable and sometimes surface is an issue. If you have a good spot with a measured ring and not too slippery, then that's ideal.

Additionally, similar to head touch, when jumping at a ring or something of fixed height, you also need to know how much of your hand you get over the ring - usually not a huge issue but knowing exactly how high you touched is better. Vertecs are obviously awesome for this but are also awesomely expensive. Home-mades are doable (I've done two) but they are very labourious.

Thus (and don't laugh), I am considering buying this:



which I found by searching amazon for 'vertical jump tester' just for fun. Super cheap, has a small but sufficient range of 25cm, plus suction cups. I have a spot outside I could put this for jumping at. Could be a bit of fun to track SVJ vs squat again, maybe not as serious as in the past but I do enjoy this type of training while the weather is cold. (It's also a very time-efficient training. I simply can't fit in >1hr long runs etc. yet.)

Training last week:

Day 1: Squat 3x10 @ 80kgs, 1 x 10@60kgs --> this is pretty challenging, had to drop the last set down to maintain good form and not overdoing it. I'm going to stay here for a few more sessions.

Day 2: BSS 3x8-10/leg @ 16kgs --> pretty easy

Day 3: Squat 5x5@90kgs --> pretty good, I could probably do 95kgs but not 100kg yet.

Every session:
Back ext 3xF @ 10kgs --> usually getting 12-14 reps here. Nothing new but this such a good exercise for isolating the hams. It's hard to load much more than 20kgs but I think reps to ~20 at that weight will be good.

SL calf raise 3x~20-25/leg @ 12kgs --> same as above.

Abs and some KOT stuff with a slant board as a cooldown.

I'm going to try to test my SVJ this weekend just for fun. I'm thinking of doing this routine really consistently until I hit 4x10 @ 100kgs, 5x5 @ 120kgs, then test again.