• Keep up to date with Ausbb via Twitter and Facebook. Please add us!
  • Join the Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

    The Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum is dedicated to no nonsense muscle and strength building. If you need advice that works, you have come to the right place. This forum focuses on building strength and muscle using the basics. You will also find that the Ausbb- Australian Bodybuilding Forum stresses encouragement and respect. Trolls and name calling are not allowed here. No matter what your personal goals are, you will be given effective advice that produces results.

    Please consider registering. It takes 30 seconds, and will allow you to get the most out of the forum.

Rastis

New member
G'day all, long time lurker very rare poster however have come across a mental block...

Basically I feel like I'm not squatting enough. I'm following the beginner strength programme as best I can (not really good at consistent frequency of training, I'll have a great week the. Go on day shift and get 1 session in on top of rugby training) and I do a fair amount of cardio with rugby.

So whilst I except that I'm far from perfect in terms of achieving good progression I still think my squat is weak.

I manage my 3x10 work sets at 80kg all the time. Some days I can do 2 of those sets at 90kg.

As a reference my bench sets (3x8) are achieved fairly comfortably at 70kg and my dead lift sets are currently 115kg.

I'm making good traceable progression on all lifts except the squat.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Or am I way over thinking things?
 
I wouldn't get bogged down in how much you are lifting - as long as you are consistently increasing weight*, I wouldn't worry.



*(or I suppose you could increase volume, or decrease the rest between sets - all of which are an 'increase' in weight lifted in a certain amount of time),
 
Last edited:
Sorry probably didn't make that clear in the op - I'm pretty much making zero gain in squats. Especially compared to all the other lifts.
 
The fact that you're jumping around between 80 and 90kg sounds off to me. Do your 3x10 at 80kg. Next time, do 3x10 at 82.5kg. Keep adding in tiny increments. If 2.5kg/session is too much, increase in even smaller increments than that (if possible).

I'll note, though, that the program is mostly intended for people whose max squat/bench/dead is under 140/100/180, and (in theory, not necessarily in practice) a 100kg squat for 10 reps should roughly carry over to a 140kg 1RM. So you're coming close to the goal point of the program anyway, and it may be nearing a time when some more adjustments in programming are needed.
 
First of all, what is your weight?

Also if you can't go up in weight, you could go from 80 to 82.5 and drop reps from 10 to either 8 or 6. Then build up your reps over the next few weeks back up to 10.

Another thing, did you have someone check your form? If your form isn't right, it can be hard to make progress...
 
What Ryan suggests is key to any productive exercise, it ain't rocket surgery folks.

"The fact that you're jumping around between 80 and 90kg sounds off to me. Do your 3x10 at 80kg. Next time, do 3x10 at 82.5kg. Keep adding in tiny increments. If 2.5kg/session is too much, increase in even smaller increments than that (if possible)."
 
With squats you generally have to grab it by the throat and face fuck it into submission
 
I see lifters making excuses all the time and a lot of the time its just a weak mind that holds them back. They just need to man up and do the job and stop whining. That's what I tell them lol

Squatting isnt easy.... its not supposed to be.
 
You are not going to make much progress on your squat training inconsistently AND doing heaps of running/rubgy. Pretty simple, if you want a big squat, train squat frequently, consistently and heavy. Decide what your priorities are and make it happen no excuses.

While still playing regular comp soccer/futsal my squat pretty much took a year to progress from 100 to 110 x 5 x 5, and then for the next year did not progress...At that point I decided what was more important to me.

With diet and sleep nailed there's no reason why you can't build up to squatting fairly heavy 3x a week. I just started Bulgarian Method programming and will work up to squatting 4 x per week minimum.
 
Last edited:
Work with different rep ranges instead of doing 10's all the time.

One session you might do 95kg 5x5.

Next session you might do 70kg 2x20.

Next session you might do 90kg 3x10.

As mentioned above you should be trying to add either weight or reps every session. So if you do 90kg 3x8 then next session you should either do 92.5kg 3x8 or 90kg 3x10.

Progressive Overload is key. You dont want to do the same thing over and over again.

Also try doing other lifts that will assist you in squatting. Front Squats, Lunges, Box Squats etc.

Squats are something you have to keep on pushing yourself on to progress.

Hope this helps.
 
G'day all, long time lurker very rare poster however have come across a mental block...

Basically I feel like I'm not squatting enough. I'm following the beginner strength programme as best I can (not really good at consistent frequency of training, I'll have a great week the. Go on day shift and get 1 session in on top of rugby training) and I do a fair amount of cardio with rugby.

So whilst I except that I'm far from perfect in terms of achieving good progression I still think my squat is weak.

I manage my 3x10 work sets at 80kg all the time. Some days I can do 2 of those sets at 90kg.

As a reference my bench sets (3x8) are achieved fairly comfortably at 70kg and my dead lift sets are currently 115kg.

I'm making good traceable progression on all lifts except the squat.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Or am I way over thinking things?

Please check this high frequency yet low volume to squatting here and see if you can follow solidly for only 3 weeks!

Here it is: Fadi’s corner… let’s have some fun!

Please fast forward to page #39 and reply #385 to see what I'm referring to above.

All the best.

PS: I've decided to copy paste it for you here below:

Meso#1.....Tues............... Wed............Thurs............Fri..............Sat...............Sun.......

Week 1......5x2 80%.........5x3 80%..... 5x2 80%...... 5x4 80%....5x2 80%..... 5x5 80%

Week 2..... 5x2 80%......... 6x5 80%..... 5x2 80%...... 5x5 85%... 5x2 80%..... 5x3 90%

Week 3..... 3x3 95%.........Rest............. 2x2 97.5%... Rest.......... Rest.............1x105%+

Results: went from a 115kg to a 140kg squats after finishing the above cycle.


Fadi.
 
Last edited:
Work with different rep ranges instead of doing 10's all the time.

One session you might do 95kg 5x5.

Next session you might do 70kg 2x20.

Next session you might do 90kg 3x10.

As mentioned above you should be trying to add either weight or reps every session. So if you do 90kg 3x8 then next session you should either do 92.5kg 3x8 or 90kg 3x10.

Progressive Overload is key. You dont want to do the same thing over and over again.

Also try doing other lifts that will assist you in squatting. Front Squats, Lunges, Box Squats etc.

Squats are something you have to keep on pushing yourself on to progress.

Hope this helps.

How do you guys workout what no. of sets to use when doing this. I mean, if you're doing 5 reps... generally the go is to do 5 sets, right? 5 by 5. What about 2s, 3s, 10s, etc? I've seen 'prelepins table' but it doesnt look totally right to me.
 
How do you guys workout what no. of sets to use when doing this. I mean, if you're doing 5 reps... generally the go is to do 5 sets, right? 5 by 5. What about 2s, 3s, 10s, etc? I've seen 'prelepins table' but it doesnt look totally right to me.

Don't overcomplicate it, just get some work in. Look at total number of reps, eg 5x5=25. Do 25-50 reps a session and see if one's squat is still stuck.
 
Top