Jump 10 pounds till I fail, or jump less and fail later? And some other stuff too...

[Brodie Butland]

I hit 275 today on squat, but it was gut wrenching...I was wrong on my bench. it was 190...today I failed at 195. I hit 5,4,3 . For power cleans I started with 95 so that I could work on form. I slept like crap last night and was dog tired this morning. I will not lift again until monday morning... I may drop down to 5 lb increases. I will be reading thru the book again. The reason I am not getting to parallel is mobility. I have to do about 30 minutes of cycling and stretching to limber up my back and knee and hips. My repaired knee is still a little tight...doesn't have quite the same bend as the other one. I took some video this week. I will figure out how to post it.

Can you crouch down into the air squat position shown in the book?

[PizzaDad]

I can't imagine my body goin 8 inches lower

[PizzaDad]

I think I can. I can get my hip crease below the patella after a good warm up but there is a lot of stress on this small of my back. It is probably just a matter of strengthening that area more and increasing range of motion. I'll video my air squats and off they are good,I'll drop the weights in half and start working on depth

[m_sporkboy]

I can't imagine my body goin 8 inches lower

If you really can't get to parallel, you should probably stop squatting. Quarter squats are much harder on the knees than proper squats.

But you probably can. The SSCs on this board have frequently said that they never actually see anyone too immobile to squat; it's always because they're just weak. There was a guy a few weeks ago with an 1100 pound leg press who was struggling to squat at 135.

Maybe try squatting to a series of progressively shorter boxes, following Rip's recent video on the box squat.

Get some safety bars for your rack, too. It'll give you some extra confidence. Sturdy height-adjustable sawhorses can serve.

[PizzaDad]

Crazy thing is that I thought I was going to parallel until I videoed it. And even then I thought that I was close

[Andy Maddison]

Don't take 10 lbs jumps until you fail...switch to 5 lbs jumps when 10 lbs jumps start getting really taxing.

Just want to ask something related:

If you increase the weight by 5 lbs but you could have actually managed 10 lbs (although you wouldn't know this) do you still cause enough stress for adaptation to occur?

[Brodie Butland]

Just want to ask something related:

If you increase the weight by 5 lbs but you could have actually managed 10 lbs (although you wouldn't know this) do you still cause enough stress for adaptation to occur?

Yes. If you're detrained enough that you can make 10 lbs jumps three times a week, then practically anything will cause sufficient stress for adaptation to occur.

[Brodie Butland]

I can't imagine my body goin 8 inches lower

Don't rely on what you can imagine or feel...rely on what you can or can't physically do.

I think I can. I can get my hip crease below the patella after a good warm up but there is a lot of stress on this small of my back. It is probably just a matter of strengthening that area more and increasing range of motion. I'll video my air squats and off they are good,I'll drop the weights in half and start working on depth

If you can get your hip crease below the top of your patella after a good warm up, then you are physically capable of reaching depth...just not with your current worksets. So I think you have the right idea...big deload, squat to depth, don't accept anything higher from now on. You'll notice over time that as you train the full ROM, depth becomes easier to attain.

[PizzaDad]

Do my feet need to go wider?

[David Geiger]

Do my feet need to go wider?

Yes, probably, based on the video you posted. But that angle is not the best to determine stance width. Go see Cassie and she'll get you sorted out. These types of things are corrected so much faster in real time, because she can have you adjust your stance from rep to rep if necessary to find what is going to work for you.