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Performance Area => Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion => Topic started by: Raptor on June 23, 2011, 08:38:09 am
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I'm back at my PR of 120x5. The problem is - after I do my squats I'm just dead for days. I can't play ball well, I can't dunk well, I can't jump, tired etc. I'd like to be fresh and able to finally display my strength explosively.
For that to happen I'm thinking of ditching the squat workouts and stay with doing very low volumes every day. Like work up to 95% of my 1RM every day and that's it in terms of strength.
Basically like this every day:
30%x5
60%x3
80%x3
95%x1
And that's it^^^. Every day in the morning. This hopefully won't be tiring so I will be able to play/do plyos while providing enough volume over the week to maintain strength. Now obviously maybe this isn't the "right time" as far as strength is concerned since I just tied my PR in the squat but... I just want to play and enjoy playing.
I also found out that I'm much more reactive/elastic when I stop (high volume) squatting so...
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IF you got a job as a garbage man (or run a jackhammer, or some other physically demanding job) and had to pick up heavy cans all day long, I'm sure the first day would be very difficult - possibly almost impossible for some to complete so what do you do? take 3 days off and possibly lose your job? NO! you would take your sore, beaten self to work the next day. You would mope around and be fatigued - much less energetic than the previous day, but you would make yourself get through it. Get home, soak in the tub, take aspirin, etc. The next day would be worse..etc. etc. Eventually you will be running down the street tossing cans around and joking with your coworkers. How did this happen? You forced your body to adapt to the job at hand! IF you cant' squat everyday, lift heavy everyday then you are not OVERTRAINED, you are UNDERTRAINED!
Btw, i really don't understand you. You're always talking about once you hit 2x BW squat you'll jump much higher but now (again) you want to just maintain your poor strength. Instead of focusing on what is important (improving your strength and maintaining your explosiveness/reactivity) you want to fine tune a slow car instead of getting a bigger engine...
just my 2 cents...
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Well because it's summer and I can't play ball or dunk because I squat. I can squat all winter long when I don't have a place to play, but right now it would be cool if I didn't have all that squat fatigue in my body and I could enjoy playing after squatting non-stop all winter long.
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I agree with damien , you are on a strength PR train lately , continue milking those gains.
If you NEED to jump higher and be fresher now ok , cut some volume, but do you really need to?
Besides , its way too hot now , its better to ball on non rainy autumn days...
My choice would be keep pushing the squat until you stop progressing , then re-evaluate.
Now you got 4 cents ;D
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I feel your pain. I recently made huge gains when I stopped squatting and started working solely on explosiveness/jumping. But my high bar squat went down to where 315 x 1 was a real challenge. I've been focusing on the squat again with Smolov and can hit 335-355 most days (I warm up to a heavy single each session before the volume work), but my jump has lost a couple of inches. Still a few inches higher than it was a couple months ago, but not as high as it recently was and that's a little frustrating. And I seem to have lost all pop in my running jumps.
But that's the way it has to be. I focus on squats and lose some jumping ability. After a few weeks of that I focus on jumping and lose some squatting ability. And so and so as they both edge up over time and I get to the point where I just maintain both when it seems I've hit my peak.
It helps to have long-term plans. For example, I love competing in powerlifting, but working on the bench and deadlift and low bar version of the squat just doesn't comport with my jump goals right now. So I'm not putting any pressure on myself to enter a meet till next year. This is the summer of the high bar squat and vertical jump. It will be the fall of the broad jump and the sprint and possibly the low bar squat if I feel it helps. I'll worry about my bench and deadlift in the winter.
Breaking it up like this keeps me from worrying that I'm not benching anymore and losing strength on that lift...or when I'm benching and deadlifting that I'm not pushing up my vertical. If you want to play b-ball better while everyone is on the courts, I can definitely understand that. Just promise yourself you'll hit a Smolov-Feduleyev in the fall or winter and put ~100 lbs on your squat to the exclusion of all other goals.
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Well the be honest, when I started squatting at the end of the autumn the previous year, in 2010, the plan was to squat ~6 months, then do some plyos to maximize my strength into explosiveness and then enjoy basketball. And I'm kinda at the "enjoy basketball" moment right now.
Although vag is right when he says it's pretty hot right now... I tend to jump very high when it's very hot though.
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In the end it's your personal decision and a matter of priorities. If the priority is increasing VJ asap, then it is certainly a counterproductive strategy to go to maintenance every time you tie a former PR ;).
If that is not your athletic goal anymore if it does not have that level of importance anymore then sure, go ahead and enjoy playing ball. Nothing wrong about that either.
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What I meant is - right now I want to ENJOY what I worked half a year or so for. That is - true jumping and not fatigue masked low performance jumping. It's like "inseason" for me at this point. So it doesn't make sense to go all out with squatting only to go to the park and suck hard at dunking and playing ball.
I don't see any other option. I can still squat in very low volumes everyday so that hopefully helps me. Heck, it might even increase my squat if I'm overtrained or if I'm really a hardgainer.
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It's like "inseason" for me at this point. So it doesn't make sense to go all out with squatting only to go to the park and suck hard at dunking and playing ball.
Don't you have to be relatively fit to play full court ball?, in terms of work capacity/conditioning?.
How does squatting increase work capacity/conditioning?, (to a good extent)?.
I know putting out a 10km+ distance average in a 90min soccer match (still play soccer), you need FAR more than a decent squat/strength-weight ratio. If I did no conditioning work, but had the squat of Andy Bolton, I would be legless after the game (well I would probably be legless at the end of the 1st half actually).
Does squatting alone set you up for full on agility fest?. OK, your not NBA standard, but those boys must put in tons of conditioning work to get through a full game?.
Shouldn't you actually be thinking way past just strength/squatting?.
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some low volume but intensity progressing squatting should be easily doable
my work capacity is decent at best and this is my week:
mon - lower body complex where squats were at 75% (just retested after smolov last thu)
tue - upper body complex where bench was at about 80%...running for footy
wed - off
thu - same as monday, squats anyway...running for footy
fri - top 1/2 bench at 10% higher then max bench press
sat - footy (2hrs of continuous running)
sun - off
and did you say you have to squat everyday?
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I think I can work up to a 5RM but eliminate the additional volume sets without too much fatigue.
And yes, I meant squat every day but in very low volumes (one top set of half squats).
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you'll need to wave you loading then, you won't just be able to work up to 95% everyday and i'm not sure why you'd want or need to
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I have no idea. Maybe. Probably. Is one rep at ~95% that hard every day?
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I have no idea. Maybe. Probably. Is one rep at ~95% that hard every day?
why don't you just do a daily max (no grinders)? much better imho!
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I have no idea. Maybe. Probably. Is one rep at ~95% that hard every day?
why don't you just do a daily max (no grinders)? much better imho!
Good idea^^^
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Yes, thats a much better idea, but dont use only 1 rm maxes, use doubles and triples as well. fwiw, this works very well doing it every other day too, depending on how well you recover, some guys make better gains going to a max (1,2,3) every other day, than they do trying to lift every day. If youre going to be playing a lot of basketball and jumping a lot, this will likely serve you much better.
One other thing is, if you ONLY work up to the rep max, make sure to take plenty of ramping sets on the way to the max, if you are going to hit the max, then do a few back down sets of 2's or 3's, then get to the max asap, then get the extra volume in the back down sets. On days youre feeling very energetic and rested, the second method will be better, on days youre not, simply working up the max and stopping will work well.
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What if I want to stop squatting for a while? How to maintain that strength without going to the gym (and paying a lot of money)?
I'd like to stop squatting for a month or two, just to give my body some recovery time, I feel like I need it, my shoulders hurt immensly, sometimes I can't even raise my arms properly because of the accumulated pain from low bar squatting and the pressure it puts on my arms, and just in general - I need to recover for a while and not squat at all.
My thinking is use some KB swings and focus on the core more (since I suck so hard at it anyway) and play ball, maybe do some plyos if anything.
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I think most people take the daily "MAX" too literally where they try to lift a maximum weight every day instead of just going for a weight that is hard but far from a grinder. In Raptors case this might range from 100-150kg.
I made that mistake and didn't progress in terms of weight lifted/strength (but my form, technique & flexibility improved).
http://jonnorth.blogspot.com/2011/04/max-aita-interview.html (http://jonnorth.blogspot.com/2011/04/max-aita-interview.html)
Here's a good interview with Max Aita (California Strength) where he talks about squatting daily and other stuff.
What if I want to stop squatting for a while? How to maintain that strength without going to the gym (and paying a lot of money)?
I'd like to stop squatting for a month or two, just to give my body some recovery time, I feel like I need it, my shoulders hurt immensly, sometimes I can't even raise my arms properly because of the accumulated pain from low bar squatting and the pressure it puts on my arms, and just in general - I need to recover for a while and not squat at all.
My thinking is use some KB swings and focus on the core more (since I suck so hard at it anyway) and play ball, maybe do some plyos if anything.
How about some pistols & king deadlifts and perhaps some max effort isometrics with short duration?
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Pistons definitely. I also need to work on the lower leg more and get a bit lighter, I still haven't got under 80 kg at 1.82m height.
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What if I want to stop squatting for a while? How to maintain that strength without going to the gym (and paying a lot of money)?
I'd like to stop squatting for a month or two, just to give my body some recovery time, I feel like I need it, my shoulders hurt immensly, sometimes I can't even raise my arms properly because of the accumulated pain from low bar squatting and the pressure it puts on my arms, and just in general - I need to recover for a while and not squat at all.
My thinking is use some KB swings and focus on the core more (since I suck so hard at it anyway) and play ball, maybe do some plyos if anything.
no go, use it or lose it
use some auto reg but set some definite baselines w/ rep speed being the major one
on days you feel good go for it but on shitty days take it easier