Written by Chad Wesley Smith
The other day I was texting with my good friend Max Aita and he voiced his frustration and confusion over some athlete’s and coach’s resistance towards high volume squat training:
If there is anyone who is well versed in High Intensity High Frequency, its benefits and downfalls, it is Max Aita who spent 13 years training in this style under Steve Gough and Ivan Abadjiev.
So if someone who Front Squatted over 600# and Back Squatted nearly 700# at about 220# bodyweight training in this style, still espouses the benefits of volume training, what does that tell you?
VOLUME IS REALLY IMPORTANT.
Squatting to a daily max, or weekly maxes in different exercise variations, is a great way to improve maximal strength through developing technical prowess (not so much this one with the different variations) and neural abilities but if that is all you’re doing, you’re missing out on important qualities that will contribute to your long term strength and success.
Training for hypertrophy by maximizing your weekly volume through sets of 6-12 reps at 60-75% intensity, is the best way to help your legs grow and then you can take those now bigger legs and teach them to produce more force during general strength training and then hone their technique and nerual abilities in a peaking phase.
It is also important to apply this idea of phase potentiation to your training to avoid staleness. The longer you train a certain movement or physical quality, the slower your gains will come. So while I’m not telling you to change exercises weekly by any means, it is important to have dedicated phases of at least 3 weeks in duration for the different qualities of hypertrophy, strength and peaking.
Learn more about these ideas here:
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