Het 7 stappenplan naar een squat van 500 lb

It took me so many years to squat 500 lbs. It was extremely hard for me. In this video, I'm going to tell you everything that I've learned so that you can squat 500 lbs in half the time it took me. And if you want me to write the programming and everything for you to get there, top link in the description, you can book call with me and I'll do it all for you. So, step number one is to optimize your squat technique. Now, this is quite simple. You basically need to select first between the high bar and the low bar squat. Now, for most of you, would argue that the low bar squat is going to be the way to go because most guys are going to squat more with the low bar position. In very simple terms, basically, it shortens the segment length of your spine essentially, so the moment arm is bit shorter, and you hit the stretch reflex out of the bottom little bit sooner just because you're bit more bent over. And all of that basically just means that with low bar position, 90% of people are going to be able to lift more weight. Now, that's not to say that you can't do it with the high bar squat, but for the vast majority, you're going to do it with the low bar position. So, would use low bar squat, and you're going to position the bar directly under this bony ridge on the back of your shoulder. So, the way that like to find it typically is I'll take my grip. actually go all the way like past the bar, and then I'll basically slide myself down until feel the bar push up into that bony ridge. That's how determine that it's in the correct position. Then, because I'm pretty tall guy with long femurs, I'm 6 ft tall and my femurs are very, very long, have to bend over lot when squat. Because of that, the low bar position really helps me out because it's much easier to maintain balance while bending over at the hip. If try and do high bar squat, it's really difficult for me to maintain that upright torso. Plus, my quads are not my strongest muscle group. My back is by far stronger than my my legs. can deadlift 661 lbs, whereas can only squat 545. So, lean into that and use the low bar squat. So, I'd highly recommend that pick one of those, and just stick on it. Don't try and rotate back and forth between the two all the time. Just pick one, stick to it for the next 6 months or something, become really good at it, and that is going to improve your strength drastically more than keep chopping and changing your technique all of the time. Now, if you do settle on the low bar squat, I'm going to give you few pointers. So, in general, I've seen this amongst hundreds and hundreds of clients, for the low bar squat, usually you are going to do best with your feet approximately shoulder width apart, and then you want the toes flared out little bit, maybe around 30°, or straight ahead. For myself personally, prefer having the toes bit more straight. It just feels better on my knees, and get better stretch reflex out of the bottom. But, for you, you might find you need bit of toe flare. It makes it easier for you to hit depth. So, would go with that stance. As for your grip on the bar, you want to take the narrowest grip that your shoulder mobility allows. So, go as close as you possibly can without pain, without hurting your elbows too much. highly recommend that you throw on wrist wrap as well. That's going to allow you to get some wrist extension, take some stress off the shoulders without beating up your wrists. So, generally, that's going to be the best position for you. Then, you want nice efficient walkout. So, highly recommend that you take the bar out of the rack with some aggression, some force. Really take it out with with like some some hype. Don't just get under there really soft under the bar, and like wobble your way back taking five steps out of the rack. Attack the bar, take it out of the rack quite hard, and then have nice efficient walkout. Ideally, you just want two steps. One back with the left, one back with the right, and then any like adjustment of the feet, then you are good to go. Then, at the top, you want to take your breath and your brace. Very simple way to do that is to think about expanding your torso all the way around. So, using belt can really help with this. So, you wear the belt, and then basically, you cue yourself to take in big breath of air at the top when the bar is on the back. So, then you do the rep, you go down, you come back up, and you only exhale when you're back at the top of the rep, okay? That's called the Valsalva maneuver. It's going to increase the stiffness of your trunk and make sure that all of the force from your legs is going into the bar and this is going to be nice and rigid, okay? So, the best cue can give you is big breath in, hold it, exhale at the top, and think about expanding the torso all the way around. So, imagine your your torso is balloon and you want that to expand out as you take your breath. So, once you've got base level of technique in place, step number two to 500 lb squat is going to be choosing your squat frequency. How many times per week that you actually perform the squat. Now, this can take little bit of trial and error. do this with my clients. It can be bit of lengthy process. Even for myself, it took long time to figure this out, but I'll help you in the right direction. So, generally for most guys that work with, twice per week seems to be the sweet spot for squat frequency. But then you will have maybe 20 to 30% of guys will need three times week. I'm included in that. Now, the easy way to determine this is would run block at two times per week frequency and if your squat goes up and it feels good and it feels well practiced, then great. Two times per week is probably appropriate for you. However, if you squat twice week and you're anything like me and you often feel quite detrained, the squat feels bit sloppy, like the the technique just feels different each session, basically. It feels quite like understimulated. You'll You'll know what mean if you're experiencing it. Things will feel quite rusty. That might suggest that you might need three times per week squat setup. fell into that category. My coach has me do the low bar squat twice week and then do the high bar squat on third day and we chose high bar for two reasons. One, because it's lighter and two, because because I'm long femur guy and bend over lot when squat, high bar really encourages me to be little bit more upright and to use my quads more. So, that's been very beneficial for me. Now, in terms of the slots that you're actually going to use, let's say you're squatting twice week, generally, would just do the competition squat twice week. The first day would do with heavy top set back off approach, so heavy double single or triple followed by some back offs in the 60 to 75% range. And then would replicate that on day two, but just make it little bit lighter. So, the top set might be set of four to six reps. The back offs might be little bit lighter than day one. would experiment with variation on day two if you feel like you need it. So, if you're doing fine on twice week low bar squat, just stick with that. But, on the secondary day, if you identify that maybe something needs work, maybe you struggle to hit depth consistently, you might want to try pause squat or pin squat. And similarly, if you struggle with your positioning in the bottom position, you might also want to put in something like pause squat just to reinforce that balance and positioning at the bottom. So, start with twice week low bar. If you identify technique flaw, use variation to challenge it. And then if you feel bit detrained, you still feel like under stimulated, consider adding in third squat. Just make it nice and light. Think of it as just skill practice to grease the groove and to kind of bridge the gap between the two heavier squats. So, step number three is to identify your bottlenecks. So, by this point you should have your squat technique dialed in and you should know your frequency roughly. Now, would have look at what are the things that hold back your squat progress, your bottlenecks. So, for me personally, had two main bottlenecks. Number one was the frequency, so wasn't good squatter technically. just wasn't very good at the movement. Like said, twice week squatting would have me feeling really sloppy, really detrained. So, we added in third to combat that, to work on my skill, on my technique. The second bottleneck that had was my quads just were not very big and not very strong at that time. Now, was stuck around like 455 to 475 squat for long time. And the main thing holding me back was just my legs were not big enough. had quite big lats. My forearms and stuff like that were decent size, so was good deadlifter. was already pulling like 280 kilos, but couldn't translate that strength to the squat because simply did not have enough muscle mass in my legs. Now, first tried to combat that by doing like started doing some front squats. was doing safety squat bar squats and stuff like that, even split squats, but the problem always ran into was would either get knee pain or would have low back pain because of all the heavy deadlifting plus all of this heavy squatting. So, with my coach worked out that we needed to use supplemental squat exercises that really trained my quads without taxing my lower back. So, things like the belt squat machine, leg extensions, those were really like instrumental in my squat progress. really hammered those for like two or three sets of four to eight reps RPE nine to really bring up my quads whilst keeping my lower back fresh for the squat. So, the most common bottleneck that I'll see in guys squat progress is typically technique, the size of the quads. sometimes it can be things like balance or the the kind of strength of the core as well. Balance is very common one that see that guys just like they cannot hit depth at all. They're always on their toes, they're really getting shoved forward. So, use variations strategically to combat that. Like all the time I'm programming pull squats, pin squats, and stuff like that. So, those would be the big the big three bottlenecks that usually look at. Overall technique, balance, and then the size of the quads without having the low back as limiting factor. Step number four would be to choose your squat variations. Now, made the mistake for many many years of just doing squat variations that saw on templates online or other coaches spoke about or other people just said were like key to really big squat. So, did lot of squat with bands, with chains. did bunch of front squats, did safety squat bar squats. And always was thinking like I'm doing this variation, it doesn't really feel like it's doing whole lot for me. And now that look back, honestly think that front squats are useless for lot of raw powerlifters or just guys who want big low bar squat. don't think you can load them heavy enough to to have the training effect you want for most guys because they take so long to learn and lot of guys are limited by the rack position. Same with the other variations like bands and chains and stuff like that. didn't get anything unique from doing those. So, it wasn't until worked with coach and he helped me to figure out variations that actually improved me as an individual. So, do the low bar squat twice week. Again, because I'm not very good squatter, so need very specific work. don't need variations. need the squat pattern multiple times week so that can get good at that specific lift. Even adding pause or pin or something, it changes the lift too much for me personally that don't get the intended effect. just need to do the low bar squat. Then we identified the high bar squat, which was the real difference maker for me because can tell when dropped that high bar squat out, straight away become really hingy again. I'm almost like folded in half at the bottom. My squat just becomes terrible. struggle to hit depth. So, high bar squat has been like massive game changer for my squat. So, it's really important that you figure out the variations that you need as an individual. So, you can probably take some examples from what just said. If you struggle to hit depth, would recommend pin squat where you place the pins just below parallel so you are forced to squat to depth. If you have poor balance in the bottom position, love to use pause squat. You squat down, pause in the bottom, and come back up. If you're very hingy squatter who bends over ton when you squat, high bar is going to be great. If you are the opposite of that and you are like quite upright, but your back isn't very strong, you might benefit from doing safety squat bar squat because it's very hingy. It's going to involve more of the lower back and stuff like that. So, really have think about this. Sit down, analyze your squat, see what your bottlenecks are, and see which variations you need to add in for you as an individual, not what you're just told in these random YouTube videos because chances are they're not going to be tailored to you. Now, the next step is to choose your squat accessories. So, we've just chose our variations. Variations are like bit more specific to the main lift, whereas accessories are going to be your bodybuilding movements. Now, touched on this briefly before when discussed the bottlenecks, but accessories are going to be the things that are growing the muscles responsible for your squat performance. So, you can view variations as like strength focused, accessories are more as like bodybuilding hypertrophy muscle size focused. So, generally for the guys that coach, will typically always include at least one squat supplemental movement. So, usually that's hack squat, pendulum squat, belt squat, something like that. always add in hamstring curls as well once or twice week. They guess indirectly benefit the squat if you if you want to say that. I'll often do some calf work as well twice week typically like straight-leg calf raise, two or three sets of four to eight reps again or maybe five to 10 reps. That is like my default. actually don't do too many accessories generally. think guys way overdo that because if you're already squatting twice per week plus deadlifting twice per week and then squat supplemental exercise, those lifts are very compound, very efficient. So, they're already covering the whole lower body and think adding in too much extra typically holds guys back because lot of times intermediate guys will come to me on the calls. They tell me they're squatting twice, deadlifting twice, hamstring curls, calves. Then they're also doing leg press, leg extension, split squat, all these different exercises. It's just way too much. So, typically strip it all the way back, only squat twice week, deadlift twice week, hamstring curls, squat supplemental exercise, maybe some calf raises. Then we can start to work from there. If quads are really limiting factor for you as they were for me, we might add in some leg extensions. Maybe if you need some more kind of specific accessory work, it might do something like split squat or something like that. But generally, think less is more here, and guys are doing way too much. So, strip it back to what recommended, and then start to slowly build up based on your weak points. Now, lot of guys will diagnose these like weak points too early, and I'll tell you if you if you take something from this video, if you only squat like, let's say 315 or below, or I'd even argue 405 or below, you probably don't have too many weak points. Just you are kind of weak overall, and don't mean that like disrespectfully that you're weak or something. just mean that like your squat is not yet at the point where you really need to like hyper-specialize down on this very specific accessory or something. You just need to keep getting stronger until you're up to like 405, 455, 500. Then we can start to really look at like targeted accessories, okay? So, try not to overthink it before you get to that kind of level. Just do base of accessories recommended, squatting twice week, squat supplemental exercise, and then maybe sprinkle in some hamstrings and calves as well, okay? Step number six, and this one is very, very important, but you need to find your golden microcycle. Now, this is kind of comprised of all the points I've just gone through. So, your frequency, your bottlenecks, your variations, your accessories, all of this forms what call your golden microcycle. Now, to put it very simply, and I've touched on this in other videos, the golden microcycle is basically block of training that we know works for you as an individual. So, it would basically be block of squat programming that we know for fact with with higher degree of certainty is going to make your squat one rep max go up. So, have ran the same block for my squat maybe 6 to 12 months in row, and consistently PR over like two or three blocks. So, just keep going up and up and up. got to 545 lb squat. Now, I'm on bodybuilding block, but when want to go back to strength, have that golden microcycle there. It's already laid out, has me squat three times week, very specific volumes, intensities, and frequencies that I've developed over many years of training, and know that's going to get me stronger. And when it does stop working, know what to change to get progress moving again. Again, this is what do with my clients. Top link in the description if you want to book call with me, and I'll set this up for you. But essentially, work with my clients, write them one week of programming, so this would include the squat, bench, deadlift, and the accessories, but in this video I'm just going to focus on the squat. And basically, would work with you to find out the appropriate frequency, volume, and intensity for your squat. So, could look at one of my lifters right now without even seeing their program, and could tell you exactly how much squatting they need to do to make progress. So, as an example, Darius, one of my 83 kilo international level powerlifters, know that he needs to squat twice week to make progress. He needs to be doing squat supplemental exercise, and some light leg extensions. His two squat exposures, know that he needs to be doing top set back off on his primary day. It needs to be paced at about 10 kilos added per week, with sometimes 12.5 to 15 kilos in the final weeks of the block. His secondary squat, we always do safety squat bar squat because his elbows get beat up if he low bar squats twice week, and that safety squat bar squat cannot be too heavy. So, often we don't exceed like 180 kilos, even though Darius is 300 kilo squatter. We've just determined together that this is his golden microcycle, okay? So, you need to figure this out yourself. The way that you do that is go through all of the steps that just gave you, run that for block, each block make couple of small changes, don't change the whole thing, so just run block, couple small changes, do block two, and each block just keep changing things slowly, slowly until you get closer to like the bull's-eye, okay? To to your golden microcycle. Step number seven is to fix your pacing, because lot of guys mess this up drastically. So, once you have your golden microcycle, and you've got all these variables dialed in that gave you, pacing basically means the rate at which you add weight to the bar each week. So, lot of guys do this on quite random basis, okay? So, right now you might just like maybe on week one you add like, don't know, 10 lbs, then 5 lbs, then 7.5, then 10. And it's quite random. There's no method to it. You just add weight like based on feels and and just on chance. Now, people are able to add weight to the bar at different rates. It can differ quite drastically. So, for example, Darius that just mentioned, on his squat, he's he's genetic freak. He's very strong squatter. So, typically he can add like 10 kilos, 10 kilos, then 15, 15. That works really, really well for him. If some of my other lifters tried that, they would be overshooting and failing by like week two or week three. So, for them, they might only add 2.5 or maybe 5 kilo per week. For myself, on my squat, typically can add about 10, 10, 10, and then 15 to the final two weeks. have quite good response on the squat. That might not be true for you, or you might be able to add even more, but you need to figure that out. You need to run few blocks, and you need to kind of determine how much weight you can add to the bar each week whilst hitting the target RPE and not overshooting and grinding reps, because if your program uses an ascending RPE scheme, meaning on week one you do RPE five, week two RPE six, week three RPE seven, and it goes up like that, the weight that you add should place you on that RPE target. So, if you start with 140 kilos, next week 150 kilos, the RPE shouldn't shoot up to like RPE nine. If it did, you've added too much weight according to your individual rate of adaptation. So, you're going to have to figure that out and then pace your blocks accordingly. And then would suggest that you have fixed amount of weight that you add to the bar each week. You can have bit of range, but generally it should be pretty consistent. Like, if run three strength blocks right now, can tell you with almost 90% certainty that I'm going to add 10 kilos, 10 kilos, 10 kilos for the first 3 weeks and then I'll add 15, 15 because just know that's what always happens. know that's the rate at which my body adapts. Therefore, don't under dose or over dose myself, okay? So, highly recommend that you figure that out. So, that is the seven steps would recommend to get you to 500 lb squat as soon as possible. If you need starting point, take my free intermediate program. Literally, just go run that. That can be your starting point. Then you can start to individualize that over time. If you need bit of help, I've literally coached hundreds and hundreds of guys to get stronger on the squat. Top link in the description, book call with me. I'll review your current squat programming. We'll put plan in place together and I'll get you there as fast as possibly can. Thank you so much for watching. Until next time, I'll catch you in the next video.