No matter what your goals are having a bigger squat is always helpful..
Want to be faster.. Athletes who squat more relative to their body weight have better 40m sprint times.
Want to do weightlifting or crossfit.. It’s a no brainer, yesterday I watched a chinese weightlifter out front squatting my PR and making it look easy. You don’t get good at these things without being great at squatting.
Or what if you want to lose a few kegs?
High rep squats with heavy loads stimulates hormones that drive fat loss like growth hormone and testosterone.
Basically squatting more is a win for everyone and a few years ago I was training for my first powerlifting meet and created a plan that gave me results in my squat I hadn’t had since I was a beginner.
What made this program successful?
One it focused on things I hadn’t focused on in a while but also the program was built on two ideas that have a simple but effective impact on strength
Triphasic training (tempo training) and high volume training on an alternative day.
Using these I added 15kg to my 5RM in 8 weeks.
The program looked like this:
Session 1 – Repetition Focus
- Wk 1 4×8 (~65%)
- Wk 2 4×8 beating last week
- Wk 3 Build Up To 8RM
- Wk 4 Deload 3×5 @ 60-70%
- Wk 5 5×5 (~75%)
- Wk 6 5×5 beating last week
- Wk 7 Build Up To 5RM
- Wk 8 Deload 3×5% 70%
- Wk 9 6×3 (~82-85%)
- Wk 10 6×3 beating last week
- Wk 11 Build Up To 3RM
- Wk 12 2×2 (80-85%)
- Wk 13 Test 1RM
Session 2 – Tempo Focus
- Wk 1 3×5 w/ 6s eccentric
- Wk 2 3×5 w/ 6s eccentric beating last weeks
- Wk 3 3×5 w/ 6s eccentric building to a top set
- Wk 4 3×3 w/ 6s eccentric RPE7
- Wk 5 5×3 w/ 3s pause
- Wk 6 5×3 w/ 3s pause beating late weeks
- Wk 7 Build to 3RM 3s pause squat
- Wk 8 3×3 w/ 1s pause RPE7
- Wk 9 8×2 (75-80% focus on bar speed)
- Wk 10 8×2 heavier than last weeks
- Wk 11 10×1 90-95% of 3RM
- Wk 12 Build Up To Heavy Paused Single
- Wk 13 Take the day off
Now when I went through this cycle I unfortunately finished on the 8th week as we began setting up the NS facility however I was still able to achieve great results in a short time frame following this method.
I’ve since ran the same program with multiple clients with variation for their own goals and assistance lifts with similar results.
So if you need a boost in your squat try out this plan.
Just remember to pick the right assistance movements to complement your weak points. For me that’s RDL’s, Bulgarians or another form of split squat, Glute Ham Raises and Core work like Rollouts.
If you’re not sure how touch base with us and we can take you through a consultation to find out what you need to drive better results in your training.