Topic: Another one for you great minds on this forum

[Andy Dick]

I have found this very interesting conundrum with my squats that I cannot seem to answer.  I recently have been playing around with throwing a set of heavy quarter squats at the end of my squats to help my body get used to the feeling of heavy weights on my shoulders. 

A little back story - right now I have no access to bumpers since I primarily work at a fitness club (although they claim they are about to order me some, we will see).  So I decided that I will just get my squat strength high and then focus on the olympic lifts when I get bumpers.

So, the squat program I have been on is the russian squat program every odd set is 6x2 at 80%, then every even set is 6x3 80%, 6x4 80% until you reach 6x6 80% then it slowly decreases volume but increases intensity, so even sets will be 5x5 85%, 4x4 90% ect.  Well, upon doing the 6x6 80% my quads are dead and on fire.  No as I stated I have ben throwing the quarter squats in so I rested a bit then put 100 lbs heavier than my max of weight on the bear and did 10 quarter squats.  Immediately afterwards my quads and legs felt like 100 bucks I felt like I could do the whole workout over again they felt so good and then the next day I had only a little soreness.  This is the second time this has happened to me the other time was after the 6x5 at 80% (the only other time I have done the quarter squats afterwards).

I cannot seem to find an explaination on why my legs feel so good afterwards, does anyone have any idea, or has had similar experience.  Plus, if this is the case could there be tremendous implications on squatting (I would play around with squatting with 6x6s again throwing the quarter squats in the middle and seeing what that does but being sick I am not going to push anything right now, plus as week as it has been making me I dont know if I would get as accurate a read on results).  Let me know what you think on this.

[Michael Kirkland]

    Hey Andy.  I might be able to answer this one, provided I know what you're talking about, I think I do.  You say that your legs feel like " a hundred bucks " after the partial squats.  This sounds like a neurological adaptation from "feeling" all that heavy weight.  I just did a powerlifting meet ( raw ), and I included partials for some of my squat workouts.  Usually I did all of my warm up sets, did a couple of partials with a ton of weight, then did my work sets.
    This usually made my working sets feel pretty light.  Sometimes it didn't seem to help.  This was probably a fatigue issue.  It seems like we need to do more experimenting to figure out when this practice is optimal.  I hope all of my rambling helped some.

[Andy Dick]

That made a lot of sense...I was thinking that as well.  That I tricked my body into feeling less fatigued and better cause it was so used to feeling the heavy loads.  The elimination of the load made by body feel like it was lifting almost nothing.  I was also thinking that the decrease in the soreness was a result to pumping fresh blood to the muscles while at the same time not fatigueing it as with a full squat.  I actually have a friend that is a grad student looking into what they can find from some of the researcher they are around.

[Matt Rupiper]

Andy,

I actually have a colleuge (past professor) that did his thesis on this very issue.  He didn't see significant results in his study.  For the life of me i cannot remember the actual name of this training method .  I have used it during training when i plateaud in the powerlifting lifts (bench,squat).  I found my RM's went way up.  1RM increased a little but my 5-6 rep maxes went through the roof.  I've got his study and results at home.  I'll let you know

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

It is possible you could be thinking of research into potentiation. This article below might be of interest. On a side note, Dragomir Cioroslan would often have us to 90 or 95% single squat efforts in the middle of multiple sets of 3-5 reps.

Postactivation Potentiation Response in Athletic and Recreationally Trained Individuals.
Chiu ZF, Weiss LW, Schilling BK, Smith SL, and Brown LE.
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2003, 17(4): 671-677. 

[Matt Rupiper]

The method is wave loading (don't know why i couldn't remember).  Anyway the bare bones of it is fluctuating the load used from set to set, but you end up doing up to three max efforts each training session.  After each max effort the load is dropped back to a submaximal load.  You basically trick your CNS into performing at a higher level (like swinging the heavy bat on deck, making the normal one feel lighter).  I must say, the first time I tried it, it was an impressive feeling.  I only did it with bench and squats and saw impressive gains (again, mostly in submax loads/5-6RM).  The first time i tried it, my RM in bench for 225 was 6.  My first day after my first wave I hit 10.  I did a rep of 275 and followed it with a set at 225.  It does take a toll on the body so i would use it sparingly (3-5 max efforts/training day with a decent volume is nasty).  I don't really see it being used for the classic lifts though.  Some may disagree.  Maybe during periods of high volume, etc

A basic wave would look like this

70%x3  80%x3  90%x2  100%x1  80%x3

This can be repeated 3-5x per session depending on level.  If looking to increase RM's the final set would be a max effort of reps.  It is understandable if you do a set of 160kilos followed by a set with 120k.  It would feel light as a feather.     

Chris,  Any more input on OTC training methods would be awesome.  I couldn't get enough of the bulgarian topic

Thanks

[Myles Astor]

It is possible you could be thinking of research into potentiation. This article below might be of interest. On a side note, Dragomir Cioroslan would often have us to 90 or 95% single squat efforts in the middle of multiple sets of 3-5 reps.

Postactivation Potentiation Response in Athletic and Recreationally Trained Individuals.
Chiu ZF, Weiss LW, Schilling BK, Smith SL, and Brown LE.
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2003, 17(4): 671-677. 

Chris,

I'm not sure how 90-95% 1 RM qualifies as postactivation potentiation. As I understand it from talking and hearing Loren talk about the subject, the key ingredient is a sub-maximal/fatiguing effort.

On the same subject. I think some of what is happening is CNS system arousal too. One can get the same effects say when using chains for benching, shoulder presses, etc when working either for maximal or acceleration goals. The middle sets of the scheme usually tend to be the best. The first two sets really warm up the CNS, the middle sets are usually optimal and then fatigue enters the equation.

Myles B. Astor, PhD

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

I'm not sure how 90-95% 1 RM qualifies as postactivation potentiation. As I understand it from talking and hearing Loren talk about the subject, the key ingredient is a sub-maximal/fatiguing effort.

Yes, that is true. I was just guessing about what he might be talking about. I wasn't claiming the squat workouts mentioned doing under Dragomir were an effort to utilize potentiation.

Waves, or segments, is a very useful training method in my view and is especially good at preparing a lifter for having to warmup more than once, which happens on occasion like when there are many attempts between your own.

Cheers