How I Got There

In my last blog I detailed, briefly, how I hit a huge squat PR last November.

It occurred to me that probably no one will derive any real pleasure from walking around talking about how they know the guy who got a big PR, but there is a small though real chance some readers would like to do it themselves.

I had succeeded in August in overcoming the psychological block at the 400 pound level, and I did that simply by assiduously following a basic beginners' linear progression.  In theory I was not a beginner, but I had had a two month lay off due to injury, and I thought a linear progression would allow me to build both strength and confidence in my repaired body.  I suppose it's possible that it should not have worked, but it did.

Following a linear progression to near death allowed me to squat 407 in August, but I knew that my gains on simple programming had dried up.



Once you get past the bullshit, and the bullshit is the stuff promulgated by skinny-fat geeks asking primarily for money, there are two broad schools of lifting.

There is the Old School which has been around forever and has been deeply studied for over a century, and there is the Eastern Bloc School which has been around for decades and has been studied deeply enough to attract both geniuses and skinny jackasses whose main goal is to post to facebook about accommodating resistance and rate of force development.

Okay.  It's my blog so I'll admit that I have flashes of genius, but I can't sustain it.  I also hate facebook more everyday since it is mainly used by weak jackasses who post incessantly about their genius training.  They usually leave out any data about any results they might get though.



So, while having great respect for the few but brilliant Eastern Bloc guys, I decided to be an Old School guy.


I used an intelligently modified 5x5 program which is popular with the Old School guys at 70's Big.  As with most or all 5x5 programs, this one had a medium day, a light day, and a heavy day.  I simply worked this program so hard that within a few weeks I had a horrible day, a fun day, and a terrifying day.

The secret then was as any non-jackass will tell you, hard consistent work.  I worked through a revolving cast of characters and weather that varied from lake of sweat on the floor to hands frozen on bar.

And that was it.

One horrible day, one fun day, and one terrifying day made a week.  Four weeks made a month, and so on.

And I've seen that nobody likes the hard, sustained work secret.

So I have another secret.

I tried so hard to squat 440 when it was impossible that when it was possible it became easy.