Example from Glenn P. on adding 42 lbs. to the Squat in 10 weeks

Glenn P said:

becky came here with a best set of 5 on the back squat of 178lbs. she is a big and strong looking girl, so i was kind of amazed that she couldnt squat more... but i witnessed her doing about that for sets a few times, and sure enough it was damn hard.

roughly 3 months ago she decided her squat wasnt going up with what she had been doing, and decided to try to do what i had been trying to get her to do... to go along with her trying a new workout i bet her $20 that she would squat 220lbs for 5 sets of 5 reps before the arnold, which as i remember it was at that time about 10 weeks away. she took the bet as her squat had been stuck for over a year and she really didnt think she could make that sort of progress in that amount of time. this is how we approached improving her squat, which is representative of how we usually do things.

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Glenn P. said:

not a perfect sqaut cycle, remember that becky was training often 2 times per day doing snatches and clean and jerks, and sometimes 3 times per day. sometimes what we WANTED to do with squats was not an option based on her going to heavy weights so often on snatch and clean and jerk, and having to back off sometimes on squat to allow her to consistently lift at least %90 to %95 on the competitive lifts. becky was able to succeed with 70kilo snatches and 85kilo clean and jerks consistently throughout this training period, these weights were her maxes before we started this. she occasionally did 72 snatch and 87 clean and jerk, but she was doing 70/85 3 days a week, and doing the 70 snatch often 2 or 3 workouts a day. on her light days she did about 65 snatch and 75 or 80 clean and jerk.

her workouts looked basically like monday, wed, friday, take a morning light workout of 65snatch and 80kilo clean and jerk, then in afternoon take 70/85 and sometimes then start over and work to 70/85 again, then squat, then often in evening come back for something like 70/80. light days were done with 65/75 in the afternoon, then 65/80 in the evening. if tired, she only worked out one on light days instead of twice, or only worked out two times instead of 3 times on heavy days.

id say becky averaged about 12 workouts a week not counting the week directly before collegiate nationals... highest number of workouts was 15 in a week, lowest i think was 10.

at the arnold she did 75 snatch with a stupid miss at 77.5 that showed she was physically ready but not mentally ready, and then a solid clean and jerk with 92.5k. her squat best set of 5 went up 42lbs, with the higher weight actually being done for multiple sets.

i think her success in raising her squat was due to a few factors...

1. she was obviously ready to squat more, but for some reason wasnt. not everyone could make that much progress in a short time, she obviously had a little more in her than she was showing

2. she had never loaded really heavy, she was used to doing a certain thing and really was physciclly ready to respond to something different.

3. she was in good shape with no real injuries (her only injury is a knee problem which is left over from her former career as a track and field athletete, but with enough yelling and screaming and disgusted looks its effects on her training are minimized), so was able to do a fairly heavy loading period with about 12-15 sets of 5 a week for several weeks without breaking down too much. she also had a LOT of support in the gym to keep her motivated when she was tired and still had to do hard sets.

4. she trains with a girl who is smaller than her but outsquats her by a LOT and i suppose this pissed her off and motivated her.

5. by the end of the 4th or 5th week she was beginning to believe in what she was doing, and this gave her the confidenct to put weight on the bar and know she should be able to do it when the time came to rest a little bit and start going after the heavier weights. if you dont believe you are ready, you can fail even if you can physically do it.

we have upped the bet to double or nothing that she squats 242lbs for 1 set of 5 before senior nationals, which is about 7 weeks away.

this will be more difficult, because whe will be loading much harder with the competitive lifts as well as some things like drop snatches and other exercises picked to try to abolish her mental and physical problems catching a snatch. she will drop snatch 90kilos about 2-3 weeks out from the nationals, which will be up 10kilos from her current max. that will take some work, and that plus more snatching and clean and jerking will take a little away from her ability to squat hard. we also will not be able to load the squats with quite so many high rep sets this close to a big meet like nationals. so she will have to rely more on front squats lower volume, higher intensity training.

for our hard training for nationals, becky will approximately double the number of attamps over %90 that she takes in the snatch and clean and jerk for several weeks, along with adding in a couple of assistance exercises that she hasnt done in the past, and adding more front squats. this will make doing 5 sets of 5 in the squat with high weights impossible. so her squatting will include some workouts of 5 sets of 5 with fairly small weights, and more workouts of 1 set of 3-5 reps done at maximal weights.

after nationals, i will INSIST that she pay up the $40 that she will owe me.

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