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Training (rehab day 1)
FS 5x40, 5x50, 5x60, 5x70, 5x75, 5x77.5
BS 6x60, 6x80

FS notes:
Real slow, controlled, tight reps, effectictively paused ones. Did not affect pain.

BS notes:
More uncomfortable than FS for some reason, form was immaculate here too.

Training (Rehab day 3)
FS 3x90, 2x110, 1x120, 1x127.5
BS 3x110, 6x120, 1x130, 6x115
BP 1x87.5, 3x90, 6x80
WCU 7x91.6, 2x3x96, 1x100

FS notes:
After the 127.5kg set I had half a mind to do 130kg for a single next but somehow I couldn't go thru with it. I felt as though in the best case I get it, and I feel good that a week after my back injury i am on track. But in the worst case, i re-injure myself and set recovery/training back even further. So common sense won out and I decided to save it for next week!

BS notes:
Hmmm.

BP notes:
Benching heavy after 2 weeks since my last heavy set of 5x90kg, sucked, thanks injuries. Worked so hard to get my bench somewhere decent only have it dashed the following week I would have liked to put bp on mainteance but now i have to work back to 5x90 first. oh well.

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coach told me something that I now think was full of shit. He talked about having a minimal amount of tension in the body on a squat but i think that mindset might have contributed to my injury since i wasn't working super hard on having a very rigid upper body and this lack of tightness eventually caught up to me. All I had to do today was look at the image joe put up in the beast thread to see how wrong it is



So i tried that today, to tense my traps and lats to get that sort of hulk effect, and where I should have done like a double or a triple with 120kg i was able to do 6 reps, albeit with nonperfect form. pretty interesting. this way of squatting is way more exhausting though, i struggled to rep 90kg warmups. I dunno, maybe i'll get used to it and then it will be effortless.

This week i've been off caffeine, last time i had some was on last friday when I got injured. Today i wished to remain caffeine free but i needed a carby preworkout and went for a coffee. suprising to find even just one cup got me buzzed. i guess my tolerance dissipated quite some. that's pretty cool. they say it takes about 10 days to return to baseline, i was 7 days in. But this is good, i'll keep this going for another few weeks while i rehab and prepare myself for what's to come after that. it was getting ridiculous the last few months i was taking 200mg caffeine tablet + 1 teaspoon preworkout powder + can of coke. Kingfisher quantities of caffeine there, not good. So i'm diallign it back, i reckon i can go about 3 weeks squatting 115kg for various sets and reps while on minimum caffeine.

He said i look too serious, i'm too emotionally involved in the lift, describing my facial expressions etc, that i should be more relaxed. relaxed is good he said. i've got a lot of that mindset so i'm not questioning it at all, feel like ive done the majority of my training this past year without needing to psyche myself up which is a good thing because it's not sustainable going balls to the wall hardcore chaos and pain style very often. re the tension/tighness, they want like 3/4 or 2/3 tension or something like that, not 100%, that's what i meant by minimal, it deosn't mean literally no tension of course.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFSzleg6vM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFSzleg6vM</a>

coach wu kinda goes thru it in this video but i dont agree wit hit anymore

He said i look too serious, i'm too emotionally involved in the lift, describing my facial expressions etc, that i should be more relaxed. relaxed is good he said. i've got a lot of that mindset so i'm not questioning it at all, feel like ive done the majority of my training this past year without needing to psyche myself up which is a good thing because it's not sustainable going balls to the wall hardcore chaos and pain style very often. re the tension/tighness, they want like 3/4 or 2/3 tension or something like that, not 100%, that's what i meant by minimal, it deosn't mean literally no tension of course.

I could be wrong but I don't think the advice has anything to do with percentage of tension.  The same advice is given to beginning sprinters and wildly misinterpreted.  I can't tell you how many sprinters have been given advice to "relax" and then they run like rag dolls and run really slow.  At high speed sprinting you NEED to have a lot of muscles isometrically turned on - almost every non-prime mover is isometrically active at high speeds otherwise you fall over or collapse on footstrike.   If you ever try to run after an abdominal strain you realize this instantly.  I imagine squatting is similar. 

However, there is this feeling when you run a really really good pickup in the 100m the same feeling you get when you hit a home run and perfectly knuckle kick a soccer ball to top netting... This feeling of ease from perfect execution.  IMO that's what your coach is trying to get for you.  It's not 2/3 tension, it's 100 % tension coupled with 100% relaxation/100% anxiety.    It's really hard to describe but think about how if any of your strength, any of your brain is wasted on the anxiety of the difficultly of the feat and becomes weak and choppy.  That's what you are going for.  You don't actively loosen your muscles, but you relax and let your self unconsciously  break through barriers.  If it sounds like BS it's because it's 50% bs 50% just really hard to explain.   

Yeah some of my best jumps came when I was "relaxed", but it's easy to confound "relaxed" with "weak".

For example, if I am to really relax when doing stuff I'd become like jelly, and crumble down into horrible posture. I think being relaxed is all about having the tension in the RIGHT muscles while being able to call upon relaxing and contracting at the right times vs. staying stiff for the entire duration of that movement.

^I think in the case of squats, it's not wasted energy when it controls the rigidity of the body which determines form? I dunno. I'll explore it.

So just an update to say I will be doing the Russian Squat Routine for the next 6 weeks after all. I don't have the time to do it, but I'll make it work, by adding in running, jumping and skill work. This means by the end of the 6 weeks i'll have a beast squat, strong and powerful and i will be fast an athletic. And fat. But 4 months to lose 10-15kg is def doable if i'm perfectly disciplined. I'm going to keep my bodyweight around 88-92kg.

The way RSR is setup, there is a kind of deload day after every significant lifting day. This bodes well for adding other athletic shit in. And it's perfect because i'm trying to peak not just my squat, but my overall systematic organism strength across the board. I should be maximally powerful too.

The max i'm plugign in is 150kg. Lets get this done.

Training
FS 1x122.5, 1x130
BS 6x122.5, 6x120, 4x2x120
BP 6x50, 6x60, 6x70, 6x85

BS notes:
RSR-RX - 6 sets x 2 x 120kg - That didn't appeal to me, did 2x6x120+ instead and then a coupla doubles to finish off. I'll work up to 6x6x120 on my own terms so i can nail the 3rd week's hardest set, indeed the hardest set of the first half of this program. I didn't use romaleos for these. I backsquat better with a smaller heel.

I guess this was supposed to be a nice and easy beginning to the routine but I struggled with it. That's good, i need to toughen up.

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Hey man, good luck, but speaking from experience I'd just be VERY careful with adding in too much run/jump/ground contact stuff when you're squatting 3x/week and more than a few kgs over your natural body weight. If you're managing fatigue properly then you'll no doubt be fine (and I know you're good at listening to your body in that regard), just a heads up. You gonna be playing competitive bball during the 6w?

Thanks. It's one of the reasons I found the Russian Squat Routine appealing because it has that 6x2 workout alternated with every other workout. 6x2x120kg is something I can do even if i'm fatigued/tired/etc, as a way to dissipate fatigue. But I don't know how exactly to fit in other stuff although I think that's very important, i'll explain why. Last time I did one of these fancy squat programs, smolov jnr, i got good results on my squat but my vertical went down, paradoxically. I don't want that to happen this time and I think i have the solution, something todday said about Kingfisher's approach to training -- squat -- and practice SVJ -- makes both things go up. I didn't practice jumping when i did smolov, so perhaps that's one thing I can learn from that experience and improve on this time around with the RSR is to keep some athletic work in so that squat gains are converted into athletic gains as I go along. 6 weeks is a long time especially with my limited timeframe to get in shape for basketball in march, so i'd like to be steadily working on getting into basketball shape as I go along on the squat program. But i will take your advice and watch I don't over-reach and dig a recovery hole I can't get out of. Nope I won't be playing any ball while on this program, I don't think I want to over-extend myself with actual gametime, especially being so out of form as I am right now.

My idea was to do a few 200m sprints per week, in the first 3 weeks. As I go into the 2nd half of the program, i'll transition into shorter sprints, 30-60m. Does this sound ok? My jumping will be done 1x a week, fridays after lifting, should be re-coverable if i keep it brief (10-15 jumps total).