Appropriate system response?

[Stevo]

Coach Rip,

Have carefully & thoroughly gone through SS & all the squat videos posted. After 4 weeks of practicing & reviewing, I think my form is good. I'm 5'10, 175 & haven't lifted seriously in nearly 20 years since playing football in high school & at this point am using 135 as the weight for the last 3x5 sets after 4 warm-up sets. To me, this seems too low but after each of the last 3 sets, my heart is pounding so hard & my breathing is so hard that I literally hang on to the bar after racking it, hang my head & slam my eyes shut for a bit while things slow down. My guess is that the muscles in the posterior chain are screaming "what the hell are you doing to us??? Give us oxygen!" Is this OK or should I deload? I have a similar response after deadlifts.
Thanks again for these incredibly useful contributions...it has literally changed my life.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Seems like you're really, really out of shape. So it seems that barbell training can function as metcon for some people. Keep at it, you're doing fine.

[tscw1]

Hi

I have a similiar issue, I'm now squatting my weight (100Kg) and using Valsalva method, however now the weight is heavy (for me anyway) it feels like my head is going to explode together with my teeth, then when I've finished it takes a few minutes to recover. Should I be expecting this?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Not at all. You're probably holding your breath for multiple reps, and you can't do this when you squat.

[tscw1]

Thanks for your reply,
but I wasn't holding my breath for multiple reps, I was breathing out at the top, but when I was at the gym today it didn't re-occur in the same extreme, there was some pressure, but not too much and I was 2.5kg heavier this time.

I videotaped myself again and still at the bottom my knees ar moving, although they are going out rather than forward and when I push up with my arse there is no pressure on the knees at all. But how do you stop them moving? It's pissing me off now.

I got delivery of 0.5kg plates today just in time as now I'm starting to struggle I can go up in smaller quantities to keep progressing

[s3project]

My experience is actually quite similar with heavy worksets, with reps #4 and 5 being quite metabolically demanding due to the Valsalva manuever, and requiring a lengthy recovery.

I was not in bad cardiovascular shape prior to starting SS, having done CF and other forms of GPP/HIIT for a year.

And, after a six month block of dedicated strength training and no "metcon," I found that my metcon did not decay as drastically as I expected.

So either my metcon just really sucks or 5-rep squats can be useful for maintaining metabolic conditioning. One or the other.

-D

[Mark Rippetoe]

Well, the exploding head part is not a normal feature of a correctly performed Valsalva, and usually occurs only when the pressure is not released between reps. Can't help you from here other than that.