Yup... it's the glutes for the BSS.
Quite so. But I think in hindsight I was too forward from the bench, so I made it glute dominant? I'll experiment with positioning and try to nail down. I did find as the day went on there was some slight, very faint quad doms too. I never get quad fatigue from gym work - only from sprinting so that's still a good sign i'm on the right track.
Oh and the other thing I wanna make a note of. The left side of my abs are very sore. Like painfully, not doms maybe like a strain or something. I like this cause I always knew my left side of abs are very weak for some reason. So BSS might cure that imbalance too. Fucking A - that's not a bad thing at all if it fixes all these symmetry problems I have.
Listen, if I were you I'd do something like a 3x5 back squat (full) and then finish up with a 2x20 quarter squat for the quads. I'm actually doing that (+these in the video) in my volume day, but I'm using 8x5 + 2x20 partial leg presses for quad development.
I can't BS though otherwise i'd go for it. BS shows up a horrible bilateral imbalance. FS don't that's why I'm going to keep focusing on FS. Hopefully BSS will cure my (leg) imbalance so I can use BS later though? But supposing BSS makes my leg stronger then why the fuck would I even bother with BS then lol. And i'm not going to risk my knees by doing heavy partial squats right now while cutting because I already push them too much as it is with all the front squats and heavy partials will punish my knees even more than they already are.
If you have a slope (a hill or whatever) near you you could also do backward sprints uphill... or even pull your car going backwards (or a sled or something).
This I can try and I will give it a shot as a conditioning thing as well. Thanks for the ideas.
So today i'll try the TKEs (thanks lbss), closer hopefully quad dominant BSSs and some conditioning work incorporating some extra quad work. lets see how it goes.
i'm almost considering going full adarqui mode and embracing reverse hypertrophy ideals. I hate that bileteral exercises haven't done much for me at all and im close to doing walking lunges with 30lb weights while holding a knife btw my teeth.
Back Squat ×
Front Squat ✓
BSS ✓
Pendlay Rows ✓
Good mornings ✓
I shied away from rows because I was told they fatigue the lower back too much esp if you're backsquatting & deadlifting. And since i'm not backsquatting or deadlifting, rows are good because they will strengthen my back and make be a better bencher, chinuper etc. Ditto with good mornings - i was a hell of a good morning'er thanks to all the squat mornings ive done in the past. Time to get all that back strength back. I want a big solid lower back and GMs and PRs is the way i'll retrain and build back strength.
BSS for fixing my strength imbalance. This one is a no brainer. Legs are unilteral, why persist with the bilateral exercise which has clearly not done the job - out go backsquats into the bin.
Front squats i still like as a squat for aesthetic reasons but I dont know how useful this exercise is anymore. It has no doubt helped me to correct squatmorningness but since i'm not backsquatting that's not a huge plus. I wanted to use it to build big strong legs and i'm sure that front squats do that so long as you do them right. But mine aren't leg dominant and there isn't much more to say about it. If my legs are stronger I can front squat more. But the converse doesn't seem to have happened - being able to front squat more hasnt made my legs stronger. I might push my FS up to 120kg and then just go on maintenance mode while focusing on bss.
So going forward - more unilateral work for legs using bss. More back specific work using gms and pendlay rows. maintain fs and bs. Give it a few months, see what happens. Hopefully good things.