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Quote from: T0ddday on April 01, 2013, 02:54:38 pm

Quote from: entropy on April 01, 2013, 03:52:49 am

But by next year, I should be thinking in terms of a 400 pound front squat while being a lean and cut 85kg bodyweight.

I don't want to be that person putting you down... but unrealistic expectations are often the cause for failure. 

Lol I know I will never realistically squat 400 whether FS or HB - esp while lean -- it's a ceiling for me, if I aim for it, i might exceed all expectations than if I set a lower goal. Aim for the sky  Ditto with the BW goal, 85kg lean is nuts, 80kg lean would be amazing really.

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In a years time you want to add ~30 lbs of muscle and 150lbs to your front squat?  All while playing basketball, running and jumping?

I know I can frontsquat 130kg at a bodyweight of 72-73kg without a doubt. I recently worked up to ~125kg at around a fat 75kg bw. Adding 50kg to that while allowing my bodyweight to go up 13kg isn't unreasonable is it?  That's around 3.85kg on the bar for every kilo of bodyweight, not too crazy.

I anticipate I can get to 140-160kg efficiently once i'm done cutting and eating at a decent caloric surplus while staying around 75-80kg. And from there it's not a stretch to think I could add 20-30kg to the bar while adding 5-10kg of bodyweight. But yea i'll be a bit fatter than I expect, and I probably wont be a lean 85kg, just a very strong one. I'll have to cut to probably 80kg or so, I can see it happening though. I'm confident about getting around 2xbw ~ 150-160kg - anything above that will be a bonus.

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Start small.  Your not a beginner anymore so gains are harder but still attainable.  Think in terms of adding ~20lbs to a lift over periods of 8-12 weeks.  Do this every so often and you will keep getting stronger.

I think I am still a beginner in many ways, at least in hypertrophy terms, ive been been on a caloric deficit for most of the time, not much opportunity to grow mass (and -> strength). When I went off the deficit, gains came easier. I know I can get to 140-150kg without any trouble just by getting off the diet. Not saying i'll squat 400 overnight, it might take a long time.

My motivation is high right now, lets see where it takes me.

Your still a beginner in terms of muscle mass but not in terms of strength increases.  I don't want to burst your bubble but it gets hard.  Well, it got hard for me, it gets hard for most people, you might be the genetic exception.  I think your 4:1 in BW increase to strength ratio is actually pretty wishful thinking but it's not necessarily the ratio that I disagree with as much as the time scale.  The most you have ever front squatted is 125kg.   So you assume you can do 130kg. And, since your cutting you then assume another 30kg will come getting off the caloric deficit, so now your at 160kg.  And then if you allow yourself to actually eat a caloric surplus and gain some weight... that's gotta be worth 20kg, so now your around 390lbs.   At that point... what is 10lbs?  Easy, a 400lb squat.   

Sorry, to say this but this kind of thinking is a bit dangerous.  Aiming for the heavens and landing in the stars is great advice advice for kids, but really just a way to set yourself up for disappointment if your an adult.  There is nothing wrong with setting reasonable goals and exceeding them.   I ran 10.64 at 5'10.5 185 lbs in a time trial after stumbling in the blocks.  I remember thinking:  "Man, I still don't look super lean, if I had my power at 170 that would be worth at least 2 tenths (~10.40)... I haven't even done much true speed-endurance, once I do I will be able to hold better and gain at least a tenth (10.30),,,  take away that stumble has to be worth a tenth (10.20)... Add in the adrenaline of having other competitors gives at least half a tenth (10.15) and throw in a favorable but legal tailwind (10.05)... which is close enough that we can just assume.... SUB 10!... wow I should really start thinking about being a sub 10 guy."    In reality I pulled my hamstring soon after and got really discouraged and haven't ran faster than that ever.  I should have been thinking... See if you can repeat that or get 10.5x.  My point is that once I set unreasonable goals on top of goals on top of expectations I started to set my self up for disappointment after disappointment which led to more injury and worse training.   Don't let that happen to you. 

You have front squatted 275.  That's good.  Two and a half plates.  Three plates is pretty hard.  Three and a half (365 lbs ) is really hard.  Taking four plates (405) atg in the front squat is damn near elite strength.  As a basketball player (eg someone who isn't going to be squatting daily) you are aiming to get your squat up through moreso strength than movement efficiency.  There simply aren't that many non-huge guys who do 405 who aren't weightlifters.  It's a HUGE lift.   Maybe your the outlier and you will do it in a years time...  But getting it in your head seems to me the wrong way to think.  Aim for 315lbs.  Program your way to 315 and when you hit it for a single post the video and celebrate the milestone.  Don't look past 315lbs until you get there.  My advice, you can do with it what you please.

+1 million to t0ddday's post and i am trying to incorporate the same thinking into my own training -- it's hard to fight the desire for bigger numbers in the gym when your real goals are elsewhere. these past few months i would have been better off focusing single-mindedly on the squat and getting that up, but i thought i could do it and do some explosive work, too, and the consequence is that i haven't made real progress in either area. having lofty goals is good -- hell, dunking for me is a lofty goal -- but setting the RIGHT goals is more important. hard lesson for my stubborn, thick brain, and i think you and i are kind of alike in that way.

Thanks T0dday, LBBS and raptor. Advice taken, lets get to 3 plates first! 140kg @ 75-80kg will be sick, btw 1.75x-1.87x bw, which is pretty damn good. Adding the next 15kg of weight to the bar is the main focus. I still don't think it's going to be very challenging but lets see how it goes.

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Thoughts on front squats
I was watching some legit oly lifters (reza etc) that they take the bar on the rack with just 2 fingers. I can do that too and it feels so much better, brings the bar closer into the body and gives a much stabler rack position. But the caveat is it's just two fingers man. Now for the oly lifter thats no big deal, they can just drop the bar. But if I do that, i'll need a new barbell. So i'm forced to hug the bar with my hands instead. That sucks. Just something I wish i could change but i'm not able to.

Quote from: entropy on April 05, 2013, 04:30:28 am

Thanks T0dday, LBBS and raptor.

you calling me lbbs...freudian slip?

He was just thanking LowBarBackSquats for the athletic performance improvement they have offered him. 

Training
FS 2x90, 1x100, 1x110, 1Fx117.5, 1Fx117, 2x105
BP 2x6x76

FS notes:
Back was fried from last workout, couldn't squat shit lol.

BP notes
So far so good. Next time 2x6x77.5.

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Lower back ill recovered, was a waste of a workout. Next time hopefully I can get back on track. It just goes to show how much front squatting demands from the posterior chain, i'm reconsidering the notion that the front squat is a quad only exercise. It's not.

Thanks T0dday, LBBS and raptor. Advice taken, lets get to 3 plates first! 140kg @ 75-80kg will be sick, btw 1.75x-1.87x bw, which is pretty damn good. Adding the next 15kg of weight to the bar is the main focus. I still don't think it's going to be very challenging but lets see how it goes.

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Thoughts on front squats
I was watching some legit oly lifters (reza etc) that they take the bar on the rack with just 2 fingers. I can do that too and it feels so much better, brings the bar closer into the body and gives a much stabler rack position. But the caveat is it's just two fingers man. Now for the oly lifter thats no big deal, they can just drop the bar. But if I do that, i'll need a new barbell. So i'm forced to hug the bar with my hands instead. That sucks. Just something I wish i could change but i'm not able to.

No, if you can get your hands around it, thats MUCH better, youre looking at guys with flexibility issues.  The goal is always to get a full grip so you dont have to reposition for the jerk, those guys are just too big/not flexible enough.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-SEt13Wyhc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-SEt13Wyhc</a>

Quote from: entropy on April 05, 2013, 11:47:09 am

i'm reconsidering the notion that the front squat is a quad only exercise. It's not.

Where did you get that from?  The front squat is in many cases a superior glute exercise than the squat, since the low back and hamstrings do not contribute as much to the lift.  Think of exercises in terms of movement patterns, not muscle isolation. 

It's a commonly heard claim that the front squat isolates the quads. Logically that's not saying it's quad only - but it's not far from saying that. I dont agree with that at all, it's a very much full body exercise, you can't come into it with fatigued lower back or hamstrings or whatever and hope to get your programmed worksets - from my experience. Hell even if my chest is too fatigued from benching the previous day, i can't stand up with the bar thru the whole set!

A lot of the "glute soreness" people think they get from low bar squats is the glute/ham tie ins being overstretched at the end rom.  You can get sore from static stretching too, doesnt do shit for hypertrophy/strength though.

I have a question - if the glute soreness is just purely incidental in the low bar squat - not associated with hypetrophy/strength, how come those vocal guys who do lbbs a lot usually have big asses?

That vert calculator is fucking trash, and the way it was made is laughable, ie. the POWER SNATCH FROM THE HIP correlating highly with the vert, so this genius goes "since most WEIGHTLIFTERS can power snatch xxx % of their snatch, and they can snatch xxxx percent of their squat, we can take the SQUAT, THE FUCKING MILLIONTH VARIAbLE DOWN THE LINE, and correlate it with the vert!".   The one thing he always maintained was that a 2x bw front squat = 40 inch vert, and out of  all the retarded calculations in there, that one is definitely the most "legit".  I dont think I have ever seen a 2xbw front squat on athlete 6 feet or over at a decent fat % that couldnt fly.

Yeah on the internet i've seen people with say a 400+ lowbar (belted) backsquat, maybe just to parallel, maybe struggling with, maybe getting, a 300 front squat. If the LBBS squat is a double bw one, then the front squat isn't, it's like 75% of their low bar belted squat. So double bw front squats are kinda rare on the internet. You do have to be training specifically for it, otherwise you'd have to be a, i dunno, maybe, a guy weighing 200 with a 540 low bar belted squatter to do it, and that's kind of rare too, especially with an athletic bodyfat, and then I dont know if it would be a proper deep atg front squat of 405 either. I'd like to see that I guess. But I digress. Of all the athletic rules of thumb, the double bw front squat seems like the most honest ,most meaningful one. It kind of forces you to have a decent bodyfat % - because excessive bodyweight really makes the job that much harder, you can't fudge your way to it with depth/assistance/excess bodyfat gain like with other squats. High bar double bw is probably the next best goal, and then i dont even know what a double bw lowbar squat means, it's not something I can realistically hope to achieve but for those who can it seems too easy. I'm rambling, sorry.

Quote from: LanceSTS on April 05, 2013, 12:34:19 pm

 That vert calculator is fucking trash, and the way it was made is laughable, ie. the POWER SNATCH FROM THE HIP correlating highly with the vert, so this genius goes "since most WEIGHTLIFTERS can power snatch xxx % of their snatch, and they can snatch xxxx percent of their squat, we can take the SQUAT, THE FUCKING MILLIONTH VARIAbLE DOWN THE LINE, and correlate it with the vert!".   The one thing he always maintained was that a 2x bw front squat = 40 inch vert, and out of  all the retarded calculations in there, that one is definitely the most "legit".  I dont think I have ever seen a 2xbw front squat on athlete 6 feet or over at a decent fat % that couldnt fly.

I agree so strongly with this.  Though you can count me as number as your first example of an athlete hitting (close to those numbers) who couldn't fly!   Last summer I tripled 355lbs in front squat and weighed under 200lbs... I only practiced jumping for about a month but peaked out at what I think was about 35/36  (standing vertical/running vertical).    The lack of increase to my RVJ was disappointing and reminded why sprinters do not need huge squats...

  Those are good numbers Todday, with 355x3 at ~200, and 35/36,  I wouldnt consider that too much of an outlier though,  as those are upper range numbers in any sport.  Its still silly to assign any exact # based on any type of strength exercise to vert, but since people will notoriously do it anyhow the front squat #'s will give much "better" feedback.