Summer of Squats

Ever since I started seriously training in weightlifting I've always known that my strength (or lack of it) has been my biggest weakness and hinderance to my progression as a lifter. It became even more apparent after reviewing my performance at nationals. My technique is pretty good for a person that's only been lifting a year and half. I still have some issues with the 3rd pull but 1st and 2nd pulls are excellent. The fact that I can power clean and power snatch more than I can full clean/snatch (dropping below parallel or to the bottom of a squat) shows that my pulling power and explosiveness is also very soild. Unfortunately, whenever I do try catch the barbell at the bottom of the squat, I struggle to stand up or don't stand up at all. I simply just had poor strength.

I decided that I wasn't going to practice any of the lifts and focus on getting strong as hell. No amount of technique work or power development was going to help me progress further until I could comfortably squat large amounts of weight.

So my plan this summer was to squat and squat often. I began with a Starting Strength (SS) type strength program. I had sucess with this type of linear periodization programming in the past and felt that more would be very beneficial.

The program is designed for strength gains by emphasizing a high amount of time under load with gradually increasing loads workout to workout. Basically you squat 3 times a week for 3 sets of 5 reps. The weight increases the next workout every time you sucessfully complete the number of reps for the day. The weight increases gradually dimenish in increment (i.e. 5lbs to 2.5 lbs to 1 lb) because eventually you will start to reach your plateau. Once you plateau you can reset back to a lighter weight and start over hopefully breaking your previous stall. This cycle can be repeated a number of times until you are no longer breaking through your stalls even. With the SS program, I managed to take my backsquat 5RM from 265# to 295# and my 1RM from 295# to 325#. My bench press and overhead press all increased substantially. From 225# to 255# and 160# to 190# respectively. Granted with all the squatting I did manage to gain about 10 lbs but I still managed to make solid strength gains relative to weight gain.

I began repeatively stalling on SS and I moved to a more intermediate strength program in July called the Texas Method. While similar to SS, instead of making daily progression you make weekly progression because the loads have become too difficult for your body to fully recover. Gains are smaller and made slower but this is the natural progression of strength building. Mondays are a high volume, moderate load day where you squat 5x5 at about 80-85% of your 1RM. Wednesdays are a light load, light intensity day with 2x5 squats at about 80% of your 5RM. Fridays are a high intensity, low volume day where you try to set a new 5RM. The cycle continues weekly by typically adding 5# to each day.

I'll be doing Texas till the end of August where I will then switch over to a new weightlifting cycle. I'm really hoping that my strength gains will lead to big increases in my lifts.