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OK, I'll very very soon (in a week or two) switch my squat to squat maintenance mode (1 workout of 3x3@80% (so 3x3 with 120 kg)) per week or every two weeks.

absolutely HORRIBLe...

The question is - how much time "can" I stay this, in your experience, without having my squat regress. I feel like I have serious untapped strength reserves at this point so I'm going with explosive stuff and mostly bodyweight stuff like sprints that I have in mind, depth jumps and KB swings for more hip focus AND fat loss. My conditioning is EXTREMELY low at this moment so I need work on that and work on making my quads react explosively and being able to cope with actually moving my body instead of a barbell that sits on my back.

So, in your experience, how much can I stay in maintenance mode without losing squat strength (muscle strength basically), considering I'll also be doing plyo and explosive work that should count in a way or two as strength factors as well?

you could do something like 5/3/1 where you squat and deadlift once a week and increase slowly. It's a bad idea to just stop trying to progress and use a constant weight for a long period of time at low frequency and volume, imho.

Also i think that you would benefit much more from more strength than plyo work

I don't know what your squat was 2 years ago, but if you trained mostly for strength the last 2 years and your max squat is only 140kg something seems to be wrong.

Why don't you try Smolov Jr for 3 weeks? I'm not saying that Smolov Jr is the answer to everything, but it might teach you what high volume+intensity really means and if not you only "lose" 3 weeks.
I don't see how you could benefit from MSEM that you currently do. The weight just seems too low for you - you're using 130kg which you used for a triple months ago!

I think Smolov Jr and getting your squat up to 150-160kg and after that doing some high intensity MSEM while doing plyos and speed work might work pretty good!

My recommendation for squat maintenance while dieting would be to keep the set 'difficulty' high, but do fewer sets (i.e. 2x5 @ 82+% or 2-3x3 @ 87+%).  I've tried the whole 3x3 @ 80% (pretty easy) and the like, but I found my body would just adapt (detrain) to that weaker stimulus until 3x3 at that weight was difficult.  Even though 80% is technically pretty high intensity, the stimulus from those kinds of far sub-maximal sets just isn't enough for your body to hang on to the muscle it needed to handle the difficult sets you were doing during your strength building phase.   

My recommendation for squat maintenance while dieting would be to keep the set 'difficulty' high, but do fewer sets (i.e. 2x5 @ 82+% or 2-3x3 @ 87+%).  I've tried the whole 3x3 @ 80% (pretty easy) and the like, but I found my body would just adapt (detrain) to that weaker stimulus until 3x3 at that weight was difficult.  Even though 80% is technically pretty high intensity, the stimulus from those kinds of far sub-maximal sets just isn't enough for your body to hang on to the muscle it needed to handle the difficult sets you were doing during your strength building phase.   

x2 ^^^^^^^^^

3x3 @ 80% is just way too submax, detraining will occur.. 3x3 @ 80% is seriously like, why even squat in the first place, might as well not even squat if that's the percentage you're 3x3'n at.

regardless of what you choose, you need some HEAVY lifting in there, low set volume (reps can be anywhere from 1-10), and something that forces you to recruit all MU's.. so whatever you decide on, fitting that criteria, it'll be ok.. 3x3 @ 80% is just not going to challenge the highest threshold motor units so it becomes futile..

it has to be challenging or you will detrain.. 3x3 @ 80 % = guaranteed detraining.

so don't settle on a set/rep scheme as of now, just settle on the criteria.. regardless of what you do it has to be moving weight at a high percentage of your 1RM until ALMOST-failure or non-psyched failure.

peace

I could recruit more MUs by having less time between sets. Heck, I could probably do Lance's method but using lower body for it. 45s breaks in between sets, 3 sets of maximal correct, explosive reps with a weight that I can do a good amount of reps and that's it.

Don't know - like I said, maybe if I ditch the strength assistance work and just do squats, and replace the strength assistance with plyos, sprints etc, then I'd be better off than right now.

What I meant by Lance's method was to choose a weight (say 100 kg) and start doing reps with that, for 3 sets, as many as I can with good form and good bar speed.

So I could get 100x9, 100x7, 100x5. Once I get a total set1+set2+set3 of 20+ I can increase the weight. If I keep the rest periods low, then the body can't help but reach for maximal MU recruitment, since it's needed because the other motor units that you use regularly are fatigued so the body needs to taper into the reserves to get the job done.

I'm basing this on his recent article on myoreps, like here:

For example:
Quote:
I've implemented a fatigue-stop method akin to Mike T in his RTS system (he uses a % table) where you use RPE and rep speed to determine how to continue the set. So for example:

10 reps (activation) + 10sec rest, 3 reps + 10 sec rest, 3 reps (third rep slow and grindy) this is Fatigue Stop 1 (FS1)

now... + 20sec rest, 2 reps (so - longer rest and less reps) + 20sec rest, 2 reps etc until 2nd rep slow and grindy - you've reached Fatigue Stop 2 (FS2) so STOP.

At heavier loads, you switch to lighter loads at FS1, as mentioned.

This will auto-regulate your volume, moreso limiting it when your recuperative abilities are limited as I do not recommend going beyond a pre-determined volume by more than 40-50%.
Heavier loads require fewer reps after the activation set because you are close to maximum fiber recruitment from the first rep. Lighter loads require more reps, because the actual tension per fiber unit is lower, and you must let the load "work" on the muscle longer to compensate. At the same time you must consider that it will be beneficial to get more recovery early in the training phase so that you'll be able to push heavy in the end, so you should aim to keep the number of reps after the activation set pretty much in the same area throughout the whole training phase.

What's your opinion on this kind of training at my current level adarqui and Lance? I'm not trying to overcomplicate or anything, I really am not, but this could work well if I really have good untapped strength (especially explosive) potential like I believe I do.

Should I go with myoreps or should I stick to a more fundamental approach. If I go with fundamental, what's the volume that you think I should start with? Do you think plyo work earlier in the day and then squats 5x5 for 2 days per week is cool enough?

If I do good plyos early in the day and squats later at night (like I do at the moment, at ~21:45 hour, then I'll probably use a small weight (say 100 kg) in my squats workouts if I do such a high volume (5x5 work sets across)). If that's true, then that's a small stimulus. Instead I could go with 3x5x110 for using a heavier weight with less volume.

What would you choose? (I know, there are so many posibilities exposed in here)

1) Plyos + Lance's method
2) Plyos + Myoreps
3) Plyos + 3x5 with a heavier weight (more intense, less volume)
4) Plyos + 5x5 with a lighter weight (less intense, more volume)