heavy squats all the time

lizafava2

I'm starting to feel like I just need more recovery from my heavier squats. When work or illness forces me to take a break, I feel way, way better coming back.

Does anyone squat lighter every other workout? Or do some other exercise instead?

I am coming up on 12 weeks I think so maybe its just time to switch to another program....?

girlie100

There does come a point in SL where the volume of squatting makes it hard to recover. You can switch to 3x5 or you can deload your squats every other session and work in speed squats, I would eek out as much as you can from SL before switching to another programme.

Remember if you are squatting 5x5 on a certain weight this isn't your max squat weight, use a calculator to find your 1 rep max from your 5x5 max and you can then look to do lighter explosive speed squats at about 65% of your 1RM, in 6-8 sets of 2 or you could switch up and do every other session as front squats.

chubby_checkers

There does come a point in SL where the volume of squatting makes it hard to recover. You can switch to 3x5 or you can deload your squats every other session and work in speed squats, I would eek out as much as you can from SL before switching to another programme.

Remember if you are squatting 5x5 on a certain weight this isn't your max squat weight, use a calculator to find your 1 rep max from your 5x5 max and you can then look to do lighter explosive speed squats at about 65% of your 1RM, in 6-8 sets of 2 or you could switch up and do every other session as front squats.

All of this.

krokador

Yeah, heavy squats 3 times a week were sort of burying me and I only ran the 5x5 program for a month! lol ( I was at 165 at the end tho).

Along the lines of what girlie said, I'd say 1 workout a week do lighter squats. Front, pause, speed, pick your poison and stick to it. But don't stop squatting! And try to alternate which workout day you throw the lighter work on to give your BP and OHP (or deadlift depending what order you do the lifts in) equal opportunity

lizafava2

wow thank you! Glad to hear this is a commonish concern. I would love to throw in some front squats - it gives whatever tendon in my thigh that bugs me a break.

Lighter speed squats sound super fun too. I can't find a good way to calculate my 1rm from 5x5 - from just 5 its 204 (!!) so that would be about 130 for speed squats. 6-8 sets of two? Huh.

girlie100

6-8 sets of two? Huh.

yeah rather than your 5x5 for speed do 6x2 or 8x2 with little rest, like 30secs. These will be fast.

With front squats I would keep your 5x5 or 3x5, pick a weight to start and then add weight each time like you do with 5x5 back squat.

LadyDeadlift

Agree with all of the above. I was getting very 'broke down' feeling and was actually having fear going into my work weight squats; I was unhappy.

Life has thrown some things at me this month and I'm basically hitting a 2xweek frequency now - also, I deloaded a few weeks ago after coming back from a week of spring break. I think the break and lowering my work weight has helped tremendously; I also had hip/tendon/piriformis pain.

I'm still basically a noob so I won't give you technical advice. But - last night I didn't really want to hit my actually work weight (tired and lazy day yesterday) so I warmed up, then dialed it back about 20 pounds and did my 5x5.

I felt so fresh and warmed up after that so I decided to see how much weight I could lift and did 2 rep sets adding 10 or 5 pounds each time.... Until I found a new personal one-rep best! (180#)

After that I was still feeling good, so after a short break doing some upper body accessory work I went back in at a much lower weight, 95#, and did 10 rep sets until I had 100 total squats for the day.

I went from feeling like I just wanted to watch TV to having a pretty cool workout!

There's a neat nerd fitness blog posting about "leveling up" and how there are so many ways to level up - it's not always more weight. I could be more reps, or the same reps faster, or the same reps with a shorter break....

I can't find the link -- but when I find myself getting stressed that I can't work the program exactly perfectly, I remind myself that there are other ways to find your way to 'awesome.'

Heh... Rambling barely on-topic reply. But hey - hi! I hope you find an approach that works well for you.