I'm a fairly natural squatter. I managed to squat 225 parallel my first time squatting, at 180. I got to 365x5 with a manta ray to "almost" parallel within like 1-2 months of squatting. First time deadlifting I pulled 265 or 255 at 180. For squats, I always hated high reps. I hate high rep anything. Unfortunately I need high reps for the overhead and bench press, though. Deadlifts and squats I think it's more nervous system. Then again, for whatever reason, I have good leg and glute genetics. I have odd proportions. 16-17" calves, 24-25" thighs, and 13" arms. Yep.
I quit the Smolov, though, my knees were hurting too much. I found out the reason why, though. I gotta get my quads stretched out more. If I stretch my quads, they don't click. So I think the quads got too tight, and pull weird on the knee cap. Like it wasn't so much pain, but noise. But yeah, gonna spend more time stretching the quads so I can hit good depth. I go full depth on all my squats now. Quad, maybe some hamstring stretching, and hip flexor stretches.
For your deadlifts, you ever try lifting sumo? Sumo makes you use your legs more. Since I'm an ice skater, I have stronger thigh abductor muscles anyway, and sumo works them more. So it's good for me. Places a lot less load on your back. Of course, it's sorta "cheating" but who cares. Lol I also got short legs/long arms. Sumo+long arms=mega cheat deadlift. Louie Simmons recommended training sumo, and then lifting conventional at comps if you're a conventional lifter. Saves the back from being beat on. Louie Simmons wrote a great article on training if you got a back injury. He injured his twice, once deadlifting, once falling on ice.
http://www.deepsquatter.com/strength/archives/ls30.htm Maybe be of some use. He's a big fan of reverse hyperextensions for fixing the back up.
Right now I'm being hella lame and basically doing some bodybuilding type stuff. 10x10 sets of dumbell presses. Yep. Part of me cares how I look, I guess. Also though, I realize for my skating, I do need some upper body strength for control. Legs provide the power, upper body and "core" provides the control to do rotations and stuff, though. Maybe it'd be easier if I did speed skating instead of figure, speed skating I could just squat a gazillion million pounds and that'd be it for my training.
BTW, if you wanna have a fun template for squatting. For speed skating, this one speed skater won both the sprints and long distance races one year, and had giant legs. You know what he did? Squatted with 200lbs....for 300 reps.
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_art ... ve_me_nutsQuote:
Case in point: Eric Heiden.
I always use this example when doing seminars for people interested in Hypertrophy Training. Eric Heiden was a very special athlete. He won multiple gold medals for the US in speed skating. He also accomplished what most exercise physiologists would say is impossible. He won Gold in all the sprint events and the endurance events as well; kind of like winning a marathon and the 100-meter sprint in the same Olympics.
What he accomplished was truly spectacular. Eric's physique was also well known. At about 185 lbs he had 28-inch thighs at a time when no one even in bodybuilding could come close. The sweep on his thighs was just incredible and something any bodybuilder would kill to have. Because Eric was training for speed, power, and endurance, he developed a very unique training style that's been ignored to this day, I think merely because it's so hard, and goes against the grain of thought, that heavy is a matter of load only.
yah 20 r squats are hard but that's what i like about them. perfect combo of light weight and not too many reps so my herniation doesnt actup. 200x300 would murder my back.
yah 225x1 is a good parallel squat...but as a noob are you sure you went par? I feel alot more confident doing 20 r squats bc telling someone ican squat 235x20 is impressive(imo) but my max numbers are s**t..so this at least makes me proud of my squat in some respect.
i used to love conventional pulls but then i switched to sumo,and still back was acting up. hernations never heal. i used to think sumo was kind of gay but hey, a dl is a dl man lol. I think lifting suits are gay .
despite having bad bench genes(couldnt bench the bar for 1 when i started lol) i can do around 315 now..so im good there.
22 Nov 2012, 1:59 am
