A nice, intuitive squat combo

[Steve Shafley]

A Highland Games thrower by the name of Sean Langford, aka Frozenkilt, turned me on to this combo.

I decided to give it a shot today.

Front Squat x2 then Back Squat x 5 with the same bar, no rest.

Worked up pretty heavy, at least for the front squat, and I was pleased. I think I need to work a bit more on the squat to get my form back where it should be.

No music, no intro, just lifting.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJrvMWxmyFE

[Mike ODonnell]

Nice work!

So is the theroy that the FS going first leads to a better/"lighter feel" Back Squat due to increased initial CNS activation, therefore increasing the work load capability? Or did I just use way too many big words for one sentence?

[Elliot Royce]

This may be standard practice but Coach Valentine had me do a clean, front squat & jerk progression, and it was very beneficial. You clean, recover (i.e., stand up and adjust your feet), then front squat, recover, then jerk, then recover. Amazingly tiring but I found that it helped emphasize the squat portion of the clean where I tend not to squat very much. As Coach said, "if you're not going to squat on the clean, you're going to squat on the squat!"

[Dave Van Skike]

Unlike about 90% of the cyberpopulation you don't lie on the internets and walk your talk with the vids. Impressive work that.

[Steve Liberati]

Yeah good work Shaf. Might try that one on Sunday morning if I don't take my quad out for ride.

[Robb Wolf]

Nice work Steve! I suspect that could lay a person out! I love complexes, good stuff.

[Scott Kustes]

Nice work! I can't back squat more than 300...you just back squatted 405 five times. Damn!

[Jonathan Reik]

Strong work! I like the idea of 2 in front and then 5 on the back... wait, that didn't come out right. What I meant to say was that it was cool to set it up with 2 reps on the front squat and then 5 on back squat... intuitive perhaps, but I dunno that I would have thought of it on my own. Thanks!

[Pierre Auge]

Dude,
this particular video wouldn't load for me oh well sounds interesting.

I very much enjoyed the Staley Rippetoe interview as well and your application of the clean-highpull-deadlift progression, very cool.

[Steve Shafley]

Thanks.

I've got a mix of glute and quad soreness from that. Generally it's one or the other.

My other squat workout this week was OHS to FS to BS with a rising bar. That was fun too.

[Steve Shafley]

Some other comments on comments:

Mike: I'm not sure if I noticed that while doing it, but on reflection, I think there might have been something like that going on.

Elliot: It's very cool to have Gary as a coach...invaluable. Good stuff from him.

Johnathan: I'm always looking at combos and complexes, both to increase the density of the workout, and to intensify it, but this was something I'd never thought of. Once I heard about it, it sounded great. Sean Langford does straight sets of the complex at a certain weight, I just kept bumping the weight up to find my limits for the day.

Dave: Thanks. I try not to say I can do something unless I can offer either witnesses, competition results, or video. The videos (and there are around 11 up of assorted things) help motivate me and keep me honest.

Pierre: I'm not sure why it won't load for you. Youtube is goofy sometimes.