Cole Gorton

If the goal is to get a stronger squat, a simple approach would be to squat more. Specifically, increase the load on the squat each time. The best way to squat is the low bar squat, because its more bent over pattern uses the more of the hip extensor muscles and posterior muscles than any other type of squatting, and these are the strongest muscles in the body.

That being said, all lifts have a breaking point where the load is too high and the lifter fails. A failed lift is likely due to the weakest link not being able to contribute enough force. The low bar squatters weakest link is likely his knee extensors, since his hips and posterior have been the primary muscles targeted in all his/her training, and the quads are generally not as strong as the hips. It makes sense that during training (say a 5x5 squat session) the knee extensor muscles will fatigue prior to the hip extensors, giving the majority of the load to the hips. Ive noticed this in my own training, the day after a volume day squat session my glutes and low-mid back erectors will feel like they were worked and perhaps be a bit sore, but my quads never are.

Therefor, does it make sense that the lifter who is trying to get a stronger squat should target the weakest link (in this case the knee extensors/quads) so that they can get more of a training stimulus specific to the quad muscles, thereby increasing the weak links max force production? And would a good way to do this be by including some squat pattern movements that more specifically target the knee extensors (ie:high bar, SSB bar.) even though these variants do not allow as much weight to be lifted? This question pertains to intermediates and advanced lifters.

Frankie

Rip and others have written books about this topic, books I have read cover to cover multiple times. I have heard some advanced strong lifters say things like 'I focus on training my weak muscles', but not many - and not many modern ones come to mind. I have heard influencers and bodybuilders say stuff like this, I have heard 17 year old skinny kids and fat old people say things like this in my gym every week.

I am going to speak now purely anecdotally and using the logic I have deduced from my 2 decades of strength training. Perhaps if you are an elite lifter these don't apply, or someone who can dedicate 6 hours a day to training. Perhaps if you are taking PEDs or particularly gifted the rules change.

The easiest way to get stronger is by moving the maximum load over the longest useful range of motion, and doing so at a volume and repeatability that is sustainable.

I am no longer particularly interested in the why, only that I know it works. I am content to partially attribute it to magic. If there is a better way I don't particularly care anymore either. If there is a better path I suspect it will be fraught with pitfalls and opportunities to mess up to such an extent that they are not worth pursuing on average, other than for novelty.

You simply cannot inflict enough stress by doing reverse incline flys in a manner that will meaningfully carry over to your bench press. Your arms might get sore, so much that you will not be able to lift them, but you will not get stronger because your body will not respond to moving 40KG the same way it responds to moving 140KG. Furthermore you will waste precious time and energy that could be better spent benching. You cannot bench well if your rear delts are wrecked.

Without referencing any studies or literature I could take a guess at the phenomena behind this, but I am not convinced has been sufficiently studied on paper, and elaborating might only serve to embarrass myself. It's a synergy of things happening to produce a biological adaptation to stress. Strength acquisition is a resource intensive adaptation, so bodies have evolved not to respond to anything less than a maximal application of stress.

Concrete example:

If you have a 200KG max Low Bar squat on a Monday, let's say you decided on doing a max 120KG Front Squat on Wednesday and a max 160KG High Bar squat on Friday. This will not cause an adaptation to your Low Bar. You will fail 202.5KG next Monday most likely.

The squat variations will not 'shore up' any weak muscles or ligaments or reinforce motor patterns required for muscular recruitment or efficiency required enough to help your LBBS because the stress is insufficient, furthermore you will have detrained your LBBS in the 6 days that passed.

You might get better at those squat variations in the short term, but that's it. Long term, you would not progress much on any lift if you only did them once a week.

Your time would be better spent doing heavy volume LBBS on Monday, the same but less on Weds, and a low volume high intensity set on the Friday. Then adding 2.5KG the next week. Doing this will bring every lift up, and every muscle group.

We use the LBBS because it enables us to move the most weight, and apply the most stress. We do it repeatedly so we get better at the motor pattern. We modulate the dosage of training to accommodate our biological stress, recovery and adaptation cycles. We can apply this same logic to every lift. And use this same dosage template around whichever timescale is appropriate to the trainee's level of performance.

If I fail a lift, I couldn't care less about why, or which body part is letting me down. Assuming technique is correct on average, all those problems are solved with repetition.

It might even still be true that a given trainee's knee extensors become stronger if they start messing about with High Bar squats, but this will be at the sacrifice of effort that could go into Low Bar. They will be unable to apply the maximal amount of stress to the LBBS -- the superior exercise -- and they will get weaker.

If one wants to make an argument that they want to do high bar because they 'want to be awesome' 'have jacked knee extensors for summer' 'be a rounded athlete' 'enjoy high bar' 'it has a carry over effect to x hobby' there will be absolutely no argument from me. But I don't think it's an optimal path to strength acquisition.

I can absolutely see the logical benefit in an exercise variation that uses the exact same motor patterns as the primary lift but only across partial range. Halting deads, rack pulls. Board presses, pin presses. They allow for a large amount of volume that you can spread over a week of training without overwhelming yourself with stress and can also be useful in case of injury. It's just been my experience that they have not worked as well as doing more volume with the primary lifts and are prone to misadventure.

Mark Rippetoe

Masterful, Frankie. Thanks for this very excellent post.

Waschechterwiener

how do I increase weight on my power cleans? I just put them in my program recently and started to work on my form and not bending my arms while cleaning. Nonetheless i feel like my Cleans are weak compared to my Deadlifts. Can you just increase the load by a certain amount of kgs per week? I couldn't find the answer in the book. I really enjoy doing those and wanna get stronger but i noticed they don't work like the other movements - they got ridiculously heavy just by increasing 2kgs.

Mark Rippetoe

Which book could you not find the answer in?

Waschechterwiener

practical programming, there was an example by a former D1 student who executed the program with no problems and he increased the load by 5 lbs per workout, where he power cleaned. Well, unfortunately I can't do that and my power clean is not remarkable by any means - I power clean 70kgs for 5x3 but couldn't increase the load the next workout for a decent amount of time now. My deadlift is still going up every time i deadlift though. Would you switch to 5x2? What would you do sir?

Mark Rippetoe

Use your brain: take smaller jumps.