My BodyBlog

A couple of months ago I decided to start from scratch as far as my squatting was concerned.  I learned to squat basically on my own and although I could put up some good weight, I wasn’t going as deep as I knew I should and I wasn’t consistently comfortable under the bar.  I wanted better than that.  So I decided to forget about lifting heavy and just start doing strictly good form full squats.  I started with 135 on the bar, doing 3 sets of 10 each time out.  I added 5 or 10 pounds each week, getting up to 185 last time out.  I’m now very comfortable all the time, and the full squats are a great leg workout even with those relatively (for me) lower weights.

Last night I decided to test my improved squat form with some heavier weight and see how it would go.  I warmed up with 135×10, then did sets of 205×6, 225×4, and finally a heavy set of 275×2, all nice and deep.  I then tried 315×1 but it felt really heavy and I didn’t go very deep.  But that’s fine, I’m very happy with what I did, it’s great progress from a couple of months ago.

I’ve been reading lately about partial or rack squats, supposed to be a good training techinique to accustom the back to handling heavier weight.  I decided to try it for the first time last night.  I set the safety rods in the power rack to allow just a very shallow squat, then I put the bar on the rods and loaded up 8 plates for a total of 405.  I positioned myself underneath and once I was comfortable I ascended and had no trouble lifting the bar to a full standing position.  I lowered it and did another rep like this right away.  I then put on another 50 pounds and did 1 rep, although it was much harder.  To do these successfully you have to be positioned almost perfectly so your range of motion is just about completely vertical, there was no room for much horizontal movement back and forth.  I found that out when I went for the second rep at 455 and I started to tip ahead so I had to bail and there was a loud clang of iron meeting iron as the bar came down hard on the safety rods!  What fun!  I will do a couple of these lifts every time I squat - I can see myself having a go at 10 plates, 495, next time.

After squats did 5 sets of power cleans, 6 sets of leg extensions (2 drop sets included), 8 sets for calves, and 1 set of seated weighted cable crunches for abs.  This was a great lower body and core-strenghtening workout!  I hope everyone has a safe, fun and active weekend! 

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 8:16 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.