Road to Relentless - Programming the Squat

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It's about four-months out to the Relentless Detroit meet. Time to get extra-serious about my training. For many, Monday is traditionally "bench day"... for me, I like to squat on Mondays. My reasoning for this is one of recovery. After a weekend exempt from lifting, I'm primed and ready to go come Monday. 

When we talk about lifting, you'll often hear words like intensity, density, and volume thrown around. Intensity is how heavy you're lifting on any given set. The pure poundage on the bar. Density refers to the amount of recovery time; how much lifting you're fitting into a given time period. Less time between sets means a higher density. Volume refers to the over-all amount of lifting performed, sets times reps.

Squats tend to be the most taxing for me because of the combination of intensity and volume. Deadlifts may be higher intensity, but by their very nature they have a lower volume. My grip gives out before my legs and back. With the squat, however, I tend to like a nice middle-ground for volume. Nine to fifteen reps total in my workings sets. Lately, a typical workout may go something like this (weight x reps x sets):

• 45# x 10 x 1
• 135# x 10 x 1
• 225# x 5 x 1
• 315# x 5 x 1
• 405# x 2-3 x 3

Earlier this year I took a lifting seminar with Dan Green, and I really liked what he said regarding the warm-up. He talked about how for any sport - soccer, baseball, etc -- you'd be doing all sorts of drills to hone in on basic skills. What about power-lifting then? Make the warm-up your drill. Focus on technique with your warm-ups, don't just rush to get through them. At a lighter weight you have the luxury of awareness. You can pay attention to all the little things, drilling them in so that when you go heavier it has become muscle memory. 

As an aside, one of the other major takeaways I had from the seminar was his axiom of training: whatever you do, don't hurt yourself.

For quite some time I have believed that warming-up in the rack is all the warm-up you need. That's often true, but sometimes your body takes a beating. Sometimes it needs a little more TLC. And, if I must be honest, sometimes I just want to get straight to squatting. My local gym has only one rack, so when I see it open I want to jump in there and get work done. On the one hand, I don't want to spend half an hour on warm-ups and mobility. On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to make sure that I'm safe. Based upon Defranco's Agile-11:

Soft-Tissue Work (semi-optional) Roll IT Band:10-15 passes Roll Adductors:10-15 passes SMR Glutes (lax ball):30sec. - 2min. Movements Bent-knee Iron Cross x 5-10 each side Cat-Cow Pose x 10-20 Roll-overs into V-sits x 10 Rocking Frog Stretch x 10 Fire Hydrant Circles x 5-8 fwd/bwd/up+down Mountain Climbers x 10 each leg Cossack Squats x 5-10 each side Seated Piriformis Stretch x 20-30sec. each side Rear-foot-elevated Hip Flexor Stretch x 5-10 reps (3sec. hold) each side Squat to Stand

x 10

Twisted Squat-to-Stand x 10 each leg

I also go back and forth with programming my warm-ups squats. It could go something like this:

• 45# x 10
• 135# x 5
• 185# x 5
• 225# x 5
• 275# x 5
• 315# x 3
• 365# x 3

The trick is to not fatigue yourself before the working sets. No sense wearing yourself out before you even get to the heavy stuff. Paul Carter uses a system like this in his Strong-15 cycle:

• 45# x 10
• 135# 5-10
• 203# x 5
• 235# x 4
• 275# x 3
• 304# x 2
• 356# x 1
• 365# x 1
• 377# x 1
• Working set(s) (paused squats, 303# x 3)

I love his idea of the over warm-up. A heavier weight than you'll use for your working sets, to prime you for the work to be done. He also is a strong believer that the gym is for building strength, not demonstrating it. One-rep maxes, while they have their place in a peaking cycle, are often used to demonstrate strength. Strength is built in the reps, in the total amount of work done. I had worked up to 405# x 3 x 3, but after taking a month off, 405# x 2 x 2 is the norm... and sometimes (usually late at night) even that is a struggle. Time to back off, leaving a bit more room for recovery.  My new plan for the next little while, somewhat of a merger of the two styles. I love sticking to 45# and 25# for my sets, as it makes loading/unloading easier. Plus it looks cool:

• 45# x 10
• 135# x 8
• 225# x 5
• 275# x 5
• 315# x 4
• 365# x 3
• 405# x 2

As far as working sets go, I'm of a few minds. In his book base building, Paul Carter describes three phases of the Barbell Squat. I have an all-time PR of 450#, with a daily training max of 405# x 3... so using 425# as my max:

1. 315#x1, 255#x5x5 in 15 minutes or less
2. 340# x 1, 315# x 3 x 3, 255# x 5 x 5 in 20 min or less
3. 340# x 1, 360# x 1, 382# x 1, 255# x 8 x 5 in 30 min or less

I struggle here, as I know that work (volume x intensity) builds strength, and volume trains recovery... yet my ego makes it hard for me to let go of training >400. In the past I've worked with heavy singles before and I'm not convinced they do as much for me as heavy doubles and triples.

I'm going to try using my warm-up as prescribe today, then backing off to 365# or 385#, and doing 3 x 3 there. Maybe I'll even drop down to 275 for a 3 x 5 or 5 x 5 as well; that will get a lot of volume in.