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So if you have a 7RM of 100 kg and you get that 7RM to 120 kg you get weaker? Interesting.

You might as well do forced reps then with a 1RM+ weight, so you can get stronger.

If I take weight off the bar and do more reps I'll get weaker. Yup. I believe that completely. If I want to maintain or improve my strength I have to maintain or add weight to the bar. I can't see a way to circumvent this :/

what the...who the...how did you...what...fuck...what??!?!

if training with a set stimulus stops working, you change the stimulus. in what universe does that make you weaker?



the way i see it, this post has a few possible explanations:

1. a sudden and unexpected switch to active trolling
2. a sudden and unexplained amnesia regarding everything you've read in your own log and on the forum more generally
3. a sudden and unwelcome descent into hyperdunk-level stupidity

dropping weight and training in higher rep ranges for a little while could be exactly the stimulus you need to break through current plateaus. you cannot possibly be ignorant of that.

   
  Yea raptor and lbss are right on man, it gets addictive to come in and squat for a heavy pr each time you train but you have to understand that it doesnt work like that for very long.

 A while back there was a program going through its circles from david woodhouse called the "syyystem" where lifters train only twice a week, and do one max triple on the front squat each session, going for a new 3rm every session.  It worked well for some fairly advanced guys, and they went around forums preaching it as the the second coming of Christ.  If you look now, not a single one of them is still using it, and they started to regress or stayed stagnant once they adapted to the program. 

This is kind of where you are now, youve pushed your neural adaptations to that rep range/load near the max, and to continue to progress you need to either a.) get on gas, that will allow further progression of neural progress with increased rate coding 2.) increase work in a lower percentage of max to allow some hypertrophy of the relevant musculature, then switch back to the way youre training now to peak out those gains. 

Its addictive to go in and squat your max every session, or every day.  You can adapt to that and its no longer much of a training stimulus, its going in and testing your max.  Lots of guys going in on the everyday squats fall into that, they are addicted to the squatting itself and fear losing strength, rather than pushing for progress, even though that will mean a temporary loss in the ability to DISPLAY high percentage max strength. 

When I suggested paused front squats to you, this is what I was hoping you would do with them, which would allow you some lower end rep work and volume, and you could still have a neural/high percentage max front squat day with the traditional fronts.  Using squats on top of those variations is too many exercises though, and will make that progression take much longer.  Longer is not always wronge though, you have to plan on it so it doesnt frustrate you though.

the purpose of the heavy top set for improved athletic performance is to prepare the big muscles for productive sub-max volumes that follow. easier said than done sometimes. submax volumes are so much more fatiguing.

  Kingfish I wish I could find this long write up on max aitas squatting from Glenn, the short version is, he had gone and trained with ivan A. in bulgaria, with a premium on pushing his squat up since he was hurt/wrist pain.  He improved quickly at first, then stalled for around a year if i recall correctly.  Still squatting daily, he returned to cal strength and pendlay got him to go into a 5 x 5 squat program, with the exception he could continue his daily squatting.  This gave him one volume day, which was all he needed and likely could handle with his daily squatting on other days. 

after a few months he destroyed his previous pr's, I want to say it was by well over 100 pounds.  The videos of those squats can be seen on the cal strength channel, the story leading up to them is golden though.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO3rv5vHy00" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO3rv5vHy00</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0piKrM3dimc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0piKrM3dimc</a>

Much has been said above and I'm not going to try reply to all of it, no one would care to read it and I'll save myself the trouble. A lot of what Lance has written has resonated deeply with me though. I was going into the gym every session and busting out a new 3RM or 4RM or 5RM. And i could even do that every workout, even adding 2kg at a time for a while. Not even talking about when I started but as recently as 3-4 weeks ago. But then you hit the wall and it's not working and you're dreading walking up to the bar knowing exactly what you are demanding from your body and mind to get that new PR which you want so bad. And yes PRs are important even to guys like us - not just for powerlifters, a bigger max is more strength and more strength helps with athleticism even if the chain of causation is quite long and the carryover isn't 1 to 1.

I stand by comments that if i'm using 4s a lot and find my 4RM has gone down then i'm weaker. That doesn't mean I can't switch to using 5s and using a lighter weight than what I was using with the 4s while pushing that up. I do that all the time. My point was if I do what raptor suggested (taking weight off, eg 7RM but only doing 5 reps and keeping the same rep range) i'll def get weak. And i'm not even going to debate that because to me that's the most trivial truth I know from my experience in the gym.

Having said that. I am leaning towards minimisng CNS intensive workouts. Maybe only 1x a week where I use stimulants and heavy weights to set a 1-5RM or whatever and the rest of the time i'll not use abuse heavy weights or stimulants and let my CNS get back to normal. What lance described is something I was familiar with - my test levels were evidently lowered when I was training hard for months at a time  going heavy every workout. I can't keep that up, nor do I want to. I want to progress but not at the cost of being fucked up. And there is probably a better way to structure workouts around volume instead of intensity. But intensity is so sexy and i've fallen in the trap of focusing on it too much. I also found when I was trying to keep basketball in the mix, I couldn't do too much volume so intensity become more attractive.

Also paused squats were fine for the purpose of progressing another lift. The problem I found was in that deep stretched position at the bottom it bothers my hip flexors (?) and that's why i'm avoiding them right now since my right hip flexor still hasn't healed.

To be honest I haven't read your log.

I saw Lance's post and wanted to piggyback off of  some of the ideas Lance talked about.  (Maxing out every day, I have been Deadlifting 3x/week along with squatting).  My deadlift cycle went like this (Each row is a workout):

65%x15x1
70%x15x1
75%x12x1
80%x8x1
85%x6x1

I basically lifted MWF.  At the end of the cycle you add 10lbs to each workout and start over.  Once that starts grinding the recommendation was to test a new sorta max.

Instead I moved to the following cycle

70%x2x5
70%x5, 75%x3, 80%x2
80%x5x2
85%x6x1

Add 10lbs rinse and repeat.

It is a slow cook it approach, longer term thinking like Lance was talking about.  My deadlifts have gone through the roof.  I think a similar approach would be effective for the squat.  BTW squatting and deadlifting 3x/week at my stage is pretty high frequency (Squats were heavy n the beginning but now more of a DE type squat).  Today I pulled 250kilos for my 5x2.   Pretty much my previous PL'ing max from my 20's only instead of a single I hit 5x2.  And it was pretty easy.  And I am getting OLD.  The hard part is being patient and not pushing the pedal to the metal.  It's a mind fuck to stay comfortably within yourself.  Knowing if you need a day off it's OK.  Or resisting the urge to "Just see what you can lift".  I am sure it will slow down eventually (hence the switch I made to a lower volume approach).  Every 3 weeks or so I get the urge to change but then I think I am stronger than ever so keep going.  Or as Dan John says "It was so effective I stopped doing it!"  So I always need to remind myself of this too.  It is also hard getting used to the idea that you shouldn't feel smashed after every workout.  Cool thing about a cycle like this is that it won't really interfere with your other training. 

What's next?  I may try deadlifting every day 70x%3x3, 75%4x2, 80%5x1.  I know much lower volume than before but frequency will be doubled.  I would probably take this to I start grinding and then take 2-3 days "off" and max out.

If training for a sport, I would do a warm up with whatever correctives you need.  Do 2 plyo exercises for your goal (hip for speed, squat for jump), hit the squats with the %'s and reps listed, add in some glute hams or single leg deads (not both).  Stretch and call it a workout.  Play your sport for conditioning, or if you are old like me do a bunch of swings, ropes, etc... 2-3x/week.

Intensities and volumes are manageable enough for you to practice your sport/goal so we don't get distracted from the prize (on the field of play, not the weight room)

Just something to think about

To be honest I haven't read your log.

I saw Lance's post and wanted to piggyback off of  some of the ideas Lance talked about.  (Maxing out every day, I have been Deadlifting 3x/week along with squatting).  My deadlift cycle went like this (Each row is a workout):

65%x15x1
70%x15x1
75%x12x1
80%x8x1
85%x6x1

I basically lifted MWF.  At the end of the cycle you add 10lbs to each workout and start over.  Once that starts grinding the recommendation was to test a new sorta max.

Instead I moved to the following cycle

70%x2x5
70%x5, 75%x3, 80%x2
80%x5x2
85%x6x1

Add 10lbs rinse and repeat.

It is a slow cook it approach, longer term thinking like Lance was talking about.  My deadlifts have gone through the roof.  I think a similar approach would be effective for the squat.  BTW squatting and deadlifting 3x/week at my stage is pretty high frequency (Squats were heavy n the beginning but now more of a DE type squat).  Today I pulled 250kilos for my 5x2.   Pretty much my previous PL'ing max from my 20's only instead of a single I hit 5x2.  And it was pretty easy.  And I am getting OLD.  The hard part is being patient and not pushing the pedal to the metal.  It's a mind fuck to stay comfortably within yourself.  Knowing if you need a day off it's OK.  Or resisting the urge to "Just see what you can lift".  I am sure it will slow down eventually (hence the switch I made to a lower volume approach).  Every 3 weeks or so I get the urge to change but then I think I am stronger than ever so keep going.  Or as Dan John says "It was so effective I stopped doing it!"  So I always need to remind myself of this too.  It is also hard getting used to the idea that you shouldn't feel smashed after every workout.  Cool thing about a cycle like this is that it won't really interfere with your other training. 

What's next?  I may try deadlifting every day 70x%3x3, 75%4x2, 80%5x1.  I know much lower volume than before but frequency will be doubled.  I would probably take this to I start grinding and then take 2-3 days "off" and max out.

If training for a sport, I would do a warm up with whatever correctives you need.  Do 2 plyo exercises for your goal (hip for speed, squat for jump), hit the squats with the %'s and reps listed, add in some glute hams or single leg deads (not both).  Stretch and call it a workout.  Play your sport for conditioning, or if you are old like me do a bunch of swings, ropes, etc... 2-3x/week.

Intensities and volumes are manageable enough for you to practice your sport/goal so we don't get distracted from the prize (on the field of play, not the weight room)

Just something to think about

 Excellent post Alex, thats great work on the deadlift too man, congrats!

Entropy, whatever you choose I hope for the absolute best for you bud, I hope you dont take any of this as negativity towards you at all, we want to see you keep progressing like a bosshawg like you have in the past.  Dont get frustrated, plan smart and then kill it like you have been.

Thanks AlexV, lovely detailed post. I think you are right that it would work for (front) squats well because it doesn't call for high reps. It reminds me of something I read last year on charles poliquin site:

Q. What are the best sets and reps to increase the front squat?
A. This is one of my favorite questions to ask my most successful colleagues, as there are many training protocols that will improve your front squat. Whereas higher rep ranges are preferred in the back squat, most experts prefer to train the front squat in a lower rep range, and frequently endorse doing singles in that lift. Every expert agrees that doing more than 6 reps in that lift is a complete waste of time, as the scapulae retractors cannot hold the proper position isometrically when the duration of the set is too long.

The following are set-rep protocols recommended by weightlifting coaches of multiple Olympic medalists. (To avoid confusion, recognize that sets always come before reps, so that 2 x 5 means 2 sets of 5 reps, not 5 sets of 2 reps.)

Wave-Like Pattern 1
With this protocol, the trainee should be able to use more weight during each successive “wave” as the nervous system adapts to the workout. For example, a lifter might squat 150 kilos for 3 on the first wave, 160 kilos for 3 on the second, and 170 kilos for 3 on the third.
 
1 x 7, 1 x 5, 1 x 3, 1 x 7 , 1 x 5, 1 x 3, 1 x 7 , 1 x 5, 1 x 3
 
Wave-Like Pattern 2
This is simply a variation of the previous workout, but it’s designed for a more advanced athlete who is striving for maximal strength, especially relative strength.
 
1 x 5, 1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 5, 1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 5, 1 x 3, 1 x 2

Wave-Like Pattern 3
Among all the loading parameters patterns recommended, this is the one recommended most often by elite weightlifting coaches. It does require you to do 12 sets of work.

1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 1
1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 1
1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 1
1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 1
 
Patient System 1
Choose a weight that is very challenging (but possible) to lift for 8 sets of 2. In every workout try to get to 8 sets of 3. Once you can do 8 sets of 3, increase the weight.
 
East German Stair-Step System
5 x 2 followed by a decrease in load of 7 percent, then 5 sets of 3 at the new step load.

Modified Hepburn Method I
8 sets of singles followed by 5 x 3-5

In this approach, I advise performing the first 8 sets of singles with a regular stance, then the 5 x 3-5 with the heels elevated by 2-2.5 cm.

Modified Hepburn Method II
8 sets of singles @ 50X0 tempo, followed 5 x 3-5 @ 32X0 tempo
 
To learn more about this system, check out the following article, Training Heavy Comes First.

In this approach, I advise performing the first 8 sets of singles with a regular stance, then the 5 x 3-5 with the heels elevated by 2-2.5 cm.
http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/677/My_Best_Tips_for_Increasing_the_Front_Squat.aspx

I think eventually i'll have to use something like these advanced programs but while i'm a ~130kg front squatter wanting to be a ~140kg squatter they're probably overkill. You're pulling 250kg for a double, that's amazing. My goals currently are modest in comparison. I'm looking to add 7.5-15kg to my front squat in the next 12 weeks, albeit without gaining weight. I could probably do with the discipline of a written out program though. I dunno. I tend to prefer freestyle my workouts but then fall into the trap of wanting too much every workout.