huntfullpac

• Smolov Squat Program

I used the smolov jr for the front squat. Works fine for 4 weeks. More weight every week. Followed by two weeks of heavy Singles almost every day. And then go right back to the jr. Smolov You get used to the volume very fast. The first week was hard (especially monday and wednesday ) because of the many sets and reps you did. But already week two and three were a lot easier. Week 4 was a killer. Just finished my first run at Smolov Jr. For bench and thought I'd share my results. My bench max has been stuck around 275-290 for years. I used 280 for my starting max and used the 4 day/week program. I didn't do much else besides a set of 5 pull-ups between each bench set. Did a little running on off days too.

BACKGROUND

Old Lifetime PR: 315 lbs in August 2017

Estimated max when starting program: 275 lbs

Stats: Male, 28, 6'0, 190 lbs

Been lifting for about 3 years now. In the beginning I started with programs like ICF 5x5 and Candito's 6 week Intermediate before moving on to 5/3/1 for a large portion of my lifting career. Other than 5/3/1, I've also done cycles of different GZCL programs (UHF, J&T 2.0) and Sheiko AML. At the end of my Sheiko AML cycle about 1 year ago, I hit 420/315/510 at 190 lbs in the gym, mock meet style. Before Sheiko, I was always a lower body dominant lifter. Sheiko helped me realize that my bench loves high volume, high frequency, low RPE work.

I've been completely slacking with my lifting for months now. I don't think I've hit a PR in ANY lift since about February or so. Hasn't been a programming or diet issue or anything like that, I just haven't been motivated and simply haven't been lifting much. From about March through the middle of July, I averaged about two 1hr workouts per week, just doing random stuff in the gym.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is part of the reason why I think I had such good results with this program is because I have hit decent numbers before, my bench was just extremely de-trained and out of practice.

Prior to starting Smolov Jr., I ran n-Suns for a few weeks. My last AMRAP before starting Smolov was 250x4 as a touch and go set. I entered 275 as my max when starting the program.

THE PROGRAM

There are a few different versions floating around. I ran the program here: http://www.smolovjr.com/smolov-squat-program/

3 Week Cycle

Day 1: 6x6 at 70%

Day 2: 7x5 at 75%

Day 3: 8x4 at 80%

Day 4: 10x3 at 85%

Progression: Depending on how previous week felt, add 0-10 pounds per week. I ended up adding 10 pounds to each day each week.

ADDITIONAL WORK

I did not do ANY other exercises using pressing muscles other than some high rep tricep band pushdowns, since they feel good on my elbows. No dumbbell pressing, no shoulder work (other than rear delt), flyes, or anything. On the 4 days of benching, I'd alternate between front squats and conventional deadlifts, so my frequency was 4xBench, 2xSquat, 2xDeadlift. Squat and deadlift programming was my own thing. I'd sometimes add a fifth day for extra back and bicep/forearms work, and jogged about twice per week. I did some sort of back exercise everyday, and some sort of curl everyday.

RESULTS

On Week 3, Day 4, 10x3 at 250 was programmed. I did the first 8 sets of 3, then combined the last two sets into a set of 6 and still had about 3 in the tank. This was last Friday. I took a few days off from benching, then yesterday I went for it. I knew I had at least 300 in me.

Lifetime PR of 320 lbs, paused.

So in about 3 weeks I went from a TnG estimated 1RM of 275 to a new lifetime paused 1RM of 320.

OBSERVATIONS

• My bench really likes lots of sets at a low RPE

• I hit 320 despite not benching a weight above 250 in months.

• Both of these observations are not consistent with my squat, historically. My squat needs both higher intensity work and higher RPEs where I have to practice grinding through the lift. Mostly just higher RPEs.

• My body can handle the high frequency, high volume benching as long as I scale back volume for other pressing work, at least in the short term. I did not have any shoulder or chest issues. My elbows are always cranky, they felt the same.

• This program is REALLY boring. 31 sets of competition bench per week with no variations. I do not think I could run this long term, just because of how repetitive it is.

• I also realize I only ran this for one 3-week cycle. 3 weeks is an extremely short amount of time.

RECOMMENDATIONS

My main recommendations are as follows: don't do any other pressing work besides your benching the first time through the program, and do not jump straight into a 4x/wk program with this high volume if you're not already used to high frequency and high volume. Even though I haven't always followed my own advice, I believe in making small changes to your programming. If you're not progressing but feeling recovered, add volume. If the volume becomes too much with your frequency, keep weekly volume the same, but split it up into more days. So on and so forth.

For people making an extreme jump in frequency or volume, I'd recommend probably reducing your max to a 90-95% training max.

MOVING FORWARD

I'll be joining in on the BtM program party next week, with an effort in trying to bring my other lifts back up to where they should be and focusing on my conditioning a little bit more. I'm planning on running an OCR in November and want to put up a decent time, then I'll be shifting back to a powerlifting focus, with plans on competing in a meet sometime in 2019.

TL;DR 13 weeks of hell in the squat rack yields 60lb increase to my 1 rep max.

Seriously I feel like I need a shirt saying 'I survived Smolov'.

I feel like this might should go to /r/powerlifting but there are a lot more subscribers here and I would probably be preaching to the choir over there.

[M], [32yrs old], [5'9', 170lbs body weight] (158lbs at start of program)

270lb 1rm squat at beginning of program, 330lb 1rm at end.

EDIT: I also realized that it has officially put me exactly at 1000lbs for my 3 lifts!

EDIT 2: Holy shit my deadlift 1 rep max PR went from 365 (on a good day) to tonight pulling 420. A 55lb increase without ever having touched the bar

Backstory: Severe tendenitis in one of my hands - doc says no upper body lifting for 6~8 weeks. FUUUUUU.jpg Excellent time to start focusing on my legs for a while.

I had been listening to Layne Norton's muscle college radio podcasts

Smolov Squat Program

And on one, he mentioned how brutal (but effective) smolov's program was. 13 weeks of hell. Challenge accepted!

After doing some research on what the program was and what to expect, I found this site

and a very useful spreadsheet that calculates all your lifts and days to perform those lifts automatically. I printed it out and pretty much stuck with it the entire time.

It was brutally difficult. there is no getting around that... especially those days where you're expected to move 80%+ of your 1RM 3 or 4 sets @ 5reps. I had good days where my lifts were pretty easy and I did a bit more afterwards and other days where I had to drop 5~10 lbs to get my reps.

The entire program is based on your 1 rep max and most sites explaining smolov say to use a 1RM that you are comfortable doing. Not that freak lift you manage to do 1 time when all the stars align. That would be setting yourself up for failure. They mean 1 rep max that you can consistently hit regardless of if your eating/sleep/etc wasn't perfect that day.

I kept notes though for a lot of days (mostly days where lifts were very easy or very hard) noting things like how much sleep I got the night before, how was my eating (did I miss a meal?) water intake? Was I mentally in it or not, how was my day at work? Etc.. ALL of that can/will affect you when your body is being demanded to perform incredibly difficult lifting.

In terms of upper body work, for that first 8 weeks, I didn't do anything extra but abs and calves. Besides a 5~10 minute warm up on the stationary bike to get some blood flowing to my legs, I did little to no post workout cardio and after 8 weeks, I started to slowly incorporate upper body days back into my routine (staying away from dumbbell workouts that articulate the wrists) until I felt like I was comfortable going full weight on the upper body compounds.

Never deadlifted though. That's one thing every smolov guide says. Deadlifts will tax your lower body to the point where it will hinder recovery on squat days and to be honest, despite me actually trying to do romanian DL's one day, my glutes/hams were so sore from squats, I had to quit before I was even done with my warm up weight.

My eating was relatively clean but as most smolov guides will tell you, you will be burning insane calories during this so you can probably get away with relaxing your diet. I know I did. I started losing weight at first so I slowly started eating more and more clean calories and eventually said to hell with it and ate whatever I felt like eating and when I did that, I noticed a bit more strength and very very little weight gain (roughly 1 lb a week). I had just finished a big cut so I was perfectly comfortable gaining 1lb a week under the assumption that I would be squatting more each week.

I have heard that you CAN do smolov on a cut but I imagine that the gains would be much less significant on a calorie deficit. On the other hand, if you really don't mind not adding much to your squat, you can burn HELLA calories with this program to get shredded in a hurry.

A couple of tips that helped me quite a bit are equipment related. I found GREAT help from a pair of the Rehband knee sleeves. I had to take 1 week off lifting due to what I assume to be some type of tendinitis in my knee or something. It went away after a week and these sleeves helped seem to keep it away for good.

They are sold INDIVIDUALLY so you have to order 2. I made that mistake of just buying one not knowing that : They aren't cheap but they are world renowned for a good reason and from what I gather, you can still wear these and compete in the raw lifting class as they aren't techincally considered wraps.

I also found that a high quality lifting belt helped tremendously with core stabilization. I ended up buying an Inzer lever belt which I absolutely LOVE.

Lastly, shoes. I used to squat in vibrams which I liked because there was no sole to them but in the latter half of the program, I started squatting in my chuck taylors and it seemed to help quiet a bit. I didn't have the cash to buy a pair of the Adidias shoes, which a few of my friends rave about. There are several powerlifting competitors in the gyms I lift at who wear chucks so I didn't worry about it.

So yeah, that's more or less how it went.

If you want a real challenge and want to put on serious size/strength to your squat (pro tip: all your lifts will increase while you're on this program) I highly recommend giving it a shot. Even if you only do the first half of the program, you will see big gains.

One warning though, Please please please make sure your form is perfect on squats or you will risk injury. I've read starting strength cover to cover a couple of times and really hammered away on my form before starting this program and I encourage those considering it to do the same as well.

Questions and comments are welcome.