Question for madcow

[georgian]

I went through the 5x5 a few months ago and saw pretty good strength gains and liked the general layout of the program and was thinking about starting it again, but i play hockey twice a week and have at least one basketball game also which isnt a problem but my legs get pretty overworked as it is just from that and i don't want to exhaust them too much from working out cuz it'll have a large impact on my ability to play. What i was wondering is if you have any suggestions on how to run the program again without doing the squats, which i realize is kind of an oxymoron since the program is structured around the squats. Anyways if you have any ideas they would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Madcow2]

Inseason vs. offseason. Different goals due to different priorities - generally progress vs. maintenence [edit - reverse those]. You can't have it all. The body works as a system and is best stimulated as such. Squatting and pulling from the floor are king for this - both involve the legs as does just about every heavy compound lift in some way or another.

You might try to lessen the squatting and/or some other adjustments but you will almost certainly get less results - just the nature of the beast. If you are doing power cleans (rather than rows which is probably a minority here) swapping to high pulls or clean pulls will save the legs a bit - even more if you do them from the hang. Swapping deads for similar dynamic pulling will also help so you aren't grinding on the legs.

No really good answer, it's a question of compromise dictated by your circumstance.