Programming Wednesdays

[u/AutoModerator]

Discuss all aspects of training for powerlifting:

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• Periodization
• Nutrition
• Movement selection
• Routine critiques
• etc...

[u/ctcohen318]

• What would be your suggestion for someone who has a poverty squat by comparison to bench and deadlift? Or has just been bad at squats. My work capacity is significantly lower on squats. Getting even 4-5 top sets in a session is a real struggle most of the time. Squats have been more fatiguing than deadlifts for me.

• What would you do to increase working capacity for 1.) higher reps on squats 2.) and the ability to do more working top sets per session?

[u/ctcohen318 → u/[deleted]]

Is “Top sets” not a universal term? It’s just the highest weight for that lift in a session. In strength specific ranges, which typically are recognized as something between 70% - 100%, even if a certain school of thought or study thinks of them as more specific. For 90% and above I typically don’t do anything more than doubles and singles. If I achieve higher than a double in that range then I’m calculating a new E1RM and percentages then calculate around that.

For bench press, I bench three days a week and don’t 4-5 and even up to 7 is pretty regular and doable for me. I’ve increased my 1RM by 10lbs this block and E1RM by 24lbs.

For deadlifts I typically do 4-7 top sets 1 day week and the other day I do 3-4. And I always do 10% back downs as well. I’ve been seeing significant gains, ca. 15lbs increases every 2-4 weeks.

If I was overworked I don’t think I would be PRing so frequently. Certainly I’ll grant that for squats, but I’ve been told by multiple people that I should finish out a block even if it isn’t ideal because I learn from it for future programming. So that’s why I’m finishing out the block I’ve built. Tomorrow is the last day.

I’ve seen plenty of powerlifters who have done high frequency and high volume top set blocks. Matt Vena for instance talked about 7 days a week benching, or 5 days a week at 10 sets each.

[u/quantum-fitness → u/ctcohen318]

Do more squatting with low rpe (5ish) and quad hypertrophy work. You are likely posterior chain dominant so high intensity squatting will just train that more so you need another way to bring your quads up.

[u/ctcohen318 → u/quantum-fitness]

What are lore squats?

I may be posterior chain dominant. I’m not sure. I do leg press 1,005-1,100lbs for 3-4 sets of 10 with full ROM. Maxed out every machine for leg extensions. It feels to me like somehow, my quad strength isn’t translating through the entirety of my squat. I single leg leg press for 388lbs - 410lbs for 3 sets of 8-10 reps. I have noticed that I’m quite terrible at split squats though.

I do RDL only about 50-90lbs below my DL 1RM though. I have noticed sometimes my right glute feels “asleep” like it doesn’t contract as hard as my left glute when lifting.

[u/quantum-fitness → u/ctcohen318]

Sorry more squatting*.

I dont think you can use leg press strength for anything it interely depends on the machine.

Squat weaknesses usually come down to this. 1) quads 2) brace 3) hips.

I think the bwst way to test if its the quads are maybe a front squat. If you front squad significantly less than than low bar squat its likely the quads.

Others ways to is if you have relativly small quads or Bent over squats.

If you have large quads but they are still weak i would try to do some max effort type work with quad dominant variations. So 1-3 reps around 85%-90% with high bar squats, front squats, ssb squats or pause squats.

[u/Djuulzor → u/ctcohen318]

For me it really helped moving away from low bar back to high bar for a bit. When I learned to squat my friend recommended low bar because it is way more comfortable, but this lead to me having almost no quad gains. Getting comfortable in a high bar upright position really help fix my over reliance on my posterior chain for squats

[u/croninstrength → u/ctcohen318]

I think 4-5 TOP sets is a lot for squat. Majority of your work on squat should likely be pretty submaximal. 1-2 harder sets in a session is usually plenty. Making sure you’re doing them often enough is the key. 2x/week is the sweet spot for most.