I like the new squat routine, but it will need some adjustment

“Week 1”

• “5 reps” – Squat (working max: 250#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x100
  • 1x5x125
  • 1x3x150
  • 1x5x165 (work)
  • 1x5x190
  • 1x6x215
• Asst. #1 – Leg Press
  • 5 x 10 x 225
• Asst. #2 – Leg Curls
  • 5 x 10 x 70
• GPP – Stationary Bike
  • Tabata style – 20 sec. fast (85-ish RPM), 10 sec. slow (60-ish RPM)
  • 2 minutes slow (warmup)
  • 8 “reps” (8 reps is one Tabata set)
  • 2 minutes slow (cooldown)
• DeFranco Agile 8

I’m seriously wanting to improve my squat. So the change up is to try leg press as an assistance exercise. This layout is right out of Wendler’s “triumvirate” template. We’ll see if it helps boost my squat — I hope so. If not, I’ll reassess the weak points and go from there.

Squat itself was good. Mentally I was nowhere, which was good. No focusing on success or possible failure, just a clear head and moving the weight. Last cycle I did 5 reps so I figured if today I got at least 6 I’d be happy. I got 6 and 7 seemed like it would have been a struggle so I left it in the tank. I wish I did get 7 or 8, but I’ll take what I can in my progress.

On leg press, I think the last time I leg pressed was in high school. I had no idea how much weight I could move, but I knew it wouldn’t be like the guys I see that put a zillion plates on the thing and move it just a few inches. I’m doing this to help my squat, so I want to mimic that as much as I can. Foot position and angle is the same, get as full range of motion as possible going to “parallel” with my thighs and so on. I do think my feet were a little low on the platform, heels almost at the bottom edge of the platform; there’s a big circle in the middle of the platform mat for a logo and next time I’ll try putting the back edge of my heels inline with the bottom edge of that circle. Push it all the way through. 225 seemed like a reasonable place to start, and my thighs were sure asking me “what the hell are you doing?” afterwards. I think next time I’ll go to 275 and see how that goes.

Curls are fine, tho I may also bump that to 75 since I’m not getting as much hamstring work with assistance 1 now being leg press instead of more squats.

As for the GPP. Today I started at “resistance 7” and while doing the warmup just jacked it up to 10 (no, this one doesn’t go to 11). In the original Tabata study they worked at a rate of 85 RPM (don’t know what the “resting” rate was) so I thought to try that: full resistance that the machine can do, 85-ish during the work part, and 60-ish during the rest/warmup/cooldown part. It didn’t feel like much of anything, even after all that leg work I did. Hrm. Part of me thinks I should do then at least 2 Tabata sets, but that seems counterproductive. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do. One thought is to try another model of bike at the gym in case that can do more resistance. However, the gym owner just bought some new treadmills and elliptical machines. The elliptical’s intrigue me because they are high-end models, they can simulate some rather steep inclines. Makes me wonder if I could simulate hill sprints! So I may give that a whirl and see how it goes.