Squat Articles

“Super Squats: Using Periodization”

By Ian Smalley

After 6 months or so of following the same Squat Routine, I began to notice my numbers startingto stagnate and was reminded that no matter how well thought out your workouts are the human body will adapt and the law of diminishing returns will set in. The idea of linear progression is alwayssomething that seems palpable at the beginning of any new training system. You will follow the routine and add 5 or 10lbs to each lift at certain interval of time and …presto, in 6 months you will lift 50 more lbs in every lift! Unfortunately this rarely if ever happens because what the body really requires is a “macro” approach to strength, not just a micro one. It’s easy to throw in some new exercises or repschemes to “fool” your body, but the fact is that over time your body will cease to be fooled by adding 5more reps or doing cable crossovers instead of bench press. This is why most powerlifters have a reallyhard time peaking for a meet. Westside programs have done well at creating consistent variance, butoften the volume of work can be overwhelming to some lifters and they can become burned out afterseveral months. Faced with my own dilemma as to how to jump start my squatting strength again I wentinto the annuls of the sport and pulled out Super Squats.

Super Squats is essentially this: You warm up and then hit one max effort set of 20, followedby three or 4 core upper body exercises of choosing, 3 days a week. These squats are slightly differentbecause they are called “breathing squats”. No belt. And done correctly the set looks like 20 singles. Somy 9 week routine looked like this:

Mon: (1x20) squats, bicep and wrist work ( I also compete in arm wrestling)

Wed: (1x20) squats, max effort bench work +tricep volume or heavy training (alternating weeks)

Fri: (1x20) squats, back work- three to four exercises

The catch here is that each workout you add 5 lbs to your squat, which equates to 15lbs a week.It doesn’t seem like much but over 9 weeks it adds up to 135lbs. So in this regard we have both linearprogression and periodization working to increase your squat max. If you did this for 16 weeks, even 5lbs a workout would become insurmountable. So, back to the workout…

When I began I had a 455 raw squat at 185, and had hit the wall. I started Super Squats with 185lbson my first workout, which was light, even for 20 reps, but I wanted to give my body a couple of weeksto get in the groove of that kind of volume. I think most powerlifters would gladly take 10 sets of 2 overone set of 20. So as I got going I began to notice a couple of things: One- I hadn’t squatted without a beltin a really long time, and 2- doing 20 singles in a row takes a while. Remember, to do these correctly youmust take a HUGE breath before each rep, then go down, come up, exhale completely, take anotherHUGE breath and continue. I think I took a minute and a half on week 1 with that 185. If you were to

simply bang these out bodybuilding style it would cheat the process. The breathing is really meant toincrease your time holding the weight on your back, force you to be completely pressurized for eachrep(because you have no belt), and increase your fiber recruitment as you fatigue.

….on the 9th week I ended with 315 for 20 @ 190lbs of bodyweight, (which took 2 and a half Minutes)

A final note on this regimen is that the Super Squat program detailed in the original publicationis marketed towards hard gainers and beginners. So it says you can put on 30 lbs of muscle doing thisprogram…and the way you’re supposed to do this is by drinking a gallon of milk a day in addition tofollowing the program. Now I’m a fan of the GOMAD diet as much as any powerlifter, in fact I drinkabout a half a gallon of milk a day at least. But while this may help a newbie to put on some weight ifthey’ve never worked out before, I don’t feel this is a requirement for the version of this that I havelaid out. If you’re a serious powerlifter then you already know how to eat. The bottom line is if yoursquat max hasn’t moved in a while and you want to change things up and experience some actual linearprogression that will lead to real progress where it matters then give Super Squats a try.