blevunly's unconventional training routine idea for increasing his squat numbers

[blevunly]

I play between 20 and 25 hours of basketball a week, usually in five hour intervals. This high volume work catabolizes muscle and converts fast twitch to slow twitch. I have always felt that work sets are overrated and have never really used them. In other words I only warm up before completely a set of max reps with a given weight. The reps being 7 or less.

Anyways, my new training routine will take place every other day some times two days in a row. I will lift for max reps with a given weight until I reach 5 reps with that weight then I will progress 5lbs. I will only do one set a day. This allows me to use two methods of progression, weight and reps and hopefully should halt the plateauing effect.

Yesterday I did 170lbs for 5 reps for squat. So tomorrow I will do 175lbs for max reps. I'm so weak that I see gains very quickly before I tweaked my back I was increasing 5lbs a workout with this method I expect to increase strength faster. Because of the lower volume of work and the higher rest periods.

[kronker]

Right now I'm attempting to do a one legged squat. I'm 270 lbs so its hard but its fun when you get something on either side of you to support you so that you don't fall down and blow your knee out, and then you go as far as you think you can and PUSH YOUR FUCKING BODY UP!!!

Crazy fucking hard but also fun. I growl like a grizzly.

I'm also gaining awesome power in pushups by doing five at a time with different speeds, and leaving myself tons of time to recover. Over the course of a day I do about 50 pushups but they're becoming really easy.

I've never done true squats but I might try your system once I get into better shape.

[deegs]

this should work well, blev. it's a similar concept to 20 rep squats except you're using your 5 rep max so the lower volume will be easier to deal with. hey, as long as you're progressing, you'll get stronger.

let us know how your maxes look like when you finish the program.

[blevunly]

So I've been lazy and haven't worked out since last thursday and so I did my one set today and did 175lbs 5 times so atleast my strength is increasing. It should go faster as I get on schedule.

[blevunly]

It's my third workout and I just did 180 for 5 reps so far it's going pretty well. I'm starting to really feel all those other sets I used to do (usually 2 sets and then 1 swet for max weight on given reps) were pretty pointless. Probably because time under tension is more important when looking to put on mass than when you're trying to gain maximal strength.

[blevunly]

I completed my fourth workout yesterday and mangaed to only get 185lbs for 3 reps. I'm a little dissapointed with not setting a new max, but after taking today completely off I think I'll hit 185lbs for 5 reps tomorrow.