Quick Training Update

The week has come and gone. Some things to put in writing lest I forget.

Training This Week

Found a gym at Braddell Heights CC to train at. Ended up training there all week. Did week 5 for 531 to get back into the groove of things. Also added in DE squats. Starting next week I’ll run the full 531 cycle 1 beginning from week 3 together with DE bench and DE squat. Basically this will be a 6 day training week as follows. Hopefully things will work out.

Monday: 531 OHP

Tuesday: DE bench

Wednesday: 531 deadlift

Thursday: DE squat

Friday: 531 bench

Saturday: 531 squat

531 top sets will be pushed hard. Singles won’t be taken. Heavier assistance work will be done. Less volume per session due to time constraint but frequency will be increased.

Diet this week has settled down somewhat. Sleep even though slightly less still appears to be ok. Recovery overall is satisfactory. Will see how things go in the coming week when the intensity is ramped up.  

Another thing to note is the lack of caffeine before training. Since training is now in the evening, I avoid taking caffeine beforehand because I want to sleep after training. And normally it takes close to 6 hours before the effects of caffeine wears off for me. And I don’t have 6 hours to spare because training is at 1900hrs and sleep at 2200hrs. Unless I take caffeine at 1700hrs but then it becomes rather pointless because the full effects kick in approximately 30 minutes after ingestion. At the 2 hour mark, I’ll be stimulated no doubt, but not enough to train hard. So ironically, training has been hard because without any stimulants even the warm up is a bitch to do. But it’s good because I get to better gauge my training intensity and I can fall asleep when I get home.  

Smolov Evaluation

Tested squats on Saturday, 19/1/13, at Bishan gym in the morning. Took 4 scoops of ON amino energy and creatine prior to squatting. This was taken at 0945hrs, roughly 2 hours after breakfast which was at 0800hrs. Breakfast consisted of 2 scoops protein, 2 slices wholemeal bread, 1 slice cheese and 1 slice ham. Decided to skip the 4 eggs because I wanted quicker digestion so the stomach will be better able to absorb the PWO supplement whilst still having sufficient energy to train.

Did the shoulder savers warm up as usual followed by warming up on squats using 531 squats week 5. Belted for the set of 130kg for 5 reps and for the 3 singles taken at 140kg, 150kg and 160kg. Thanks to my training partner for pointing out my form on the 140kg single, which led to a fantastic 150kg and that gave me the confidence to take 160kg. Basically, I focused on controlling the weight even more on the way down (descending even slower than usual), getting tighter and tighter until I hit depth and then exploding right up. 160kg was a real grinder but I’m not complaining man. That was a solid 10kg PR with 3 weeks of smolov. And a span of only 5 weeks between my 150kg PR and this.

A few more points about smolov. It’s not for beginners, definitely, or anyone who is not proficient or confident in his/her squat.

 A minimum squat max of 150kg should be possessed because the base mesocycle calls for an increase of 15kg over the course of 3 weeks and if your squat 1RM is too low, the increase becomes too significant relative to your 1RM. Because bear in mind that all loads are taken as percentages of your 1RM but the 15kg increase is not. That one is an absolute value so relative to your 1RM it had better not be too large a percentage.

Another reason why it’s not for beginners is because the frequent squatting will probably lead to some injuries or strains here and there. And as a beginner, one might not have sufficient experience troubleshooting these issues. Of course, with the help of the internet and or other more experienced lifters, this problem can be negated.

The next point has to do with work capacity and recovery. Squatting 4 times a week is not joke. It is best to have prior experience with high frequency training.  

Smolov is a squat program and it has served its purpose in my opinion. However, this will come at the expense of your other lifts. For the upper body lifts, it is possible to train them in conjunction with smolov. This is important because your strength won’t decline and your technique will be further improved. Only trade-off I found with smolov was with my deadlift. Not deadlifting for 3 weeks left my deadlifting technique all rusty. But not to worry because now I’ll be tackling it head on again.

3 Things I've Learnt From Smolov

I’m worse at counting than I thought. I can only count up to 4 and this isn’t helpful on smolov because the reps range from 3 to 9. So I’ve learnt how to count in sets of 4. For example, 9 reps would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 1. Previously, I would have went, “1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, shit how many reps was that man? I think I’ve just one more rep.” Clearly, this manner of counting was not conducive for achieving the desired training effect.    

Smolov is good for people of all attention spans. For those with a short attention span, smolov is excellent because you work for a little while, rest for a long time and repeat. For those with a long attention span, smolov works equally well too because you’re gonna be in the gym for a long, long time and you’re really going to need to focus because it’s depressing to share the power cage with 3 groups of people, one after another.

Smolov is really excellent programming. Whoever thought of squatting 4 times a week and even throwing in back to back sessions? Also, it’s really easy to follow smolov because you only need to perform a single movement and even the reps and loading parameters for the day’s session are fixed. How easy is that? 

My Smolov Experience

Recovery is the name of the game. Smolov is essentially high frequency training and this only works if you’re recovered enough for the next session. Perhaps one of the goals of smolov is accumulative fatigue followed by super compensation but I believe that if I didn’t take care of my recovery, I wouldn’t even be able to finish the cycle much less reap any of its benefits. This is an important takeaway for me because I love training. And to be able to train frequently and intensely, I need to recover fully between training sessions. Now, I look at my training program by first determining how much resources I have for recovery then working out how many training sessions I should have. The resources include diet and sleep. Diet meaning how often can I eat and what foods are available to me? Knowing this helps me to make adjustments and this is something that can be easily accounted for. Sleep is trickier because we all only have 24 hours a day and ideally I would require 9 hours of sleep at night and an hour for my afternoon nap. Obviously, this has little workaround and so once sleep is compromised, the training program needs to account for this.

Visualization is important when approaching work sets. Going through the verbal cues in my head, visualizing the lift beforehand, looking out for parts of the lift where I might run into problems and reinforcing the solutions. All these build technique, which makes me a better, stronger and safer lifter. On the other hand, this does not apply to accessory work. For example with curls, raises, rows, etc, I prefer to actively engage the target muscle and feel it working. Actually, if you need to visualize your accessory work, something is very wrong with your training program.

Stretching, foam rolling, prehab and rehab. This ties in with recovery and ensures that I am able to perform at my best at each training session. Stretching and foam rolling makes a positive difference for me and so I’ll continue to do them diligently. Prehab and rehab are slightly trickier. As a lifter, injuries are bound to occur and I have to troubleshoot them as they come. Most of the time, it’s just a strain and these are easy to rehab. Also, if I start to feel some pain in an area, before another major happens, I’d kick in prehab for that area. This was the case for my delts and forearms. For my delts, the shoulder savers warm up was a boon. For my forearms, change in form and exercises helped alleviate the pain somewhat.

Looking ahead, I probably won’t be revisiting smolov anytime soon. Rather, it’s back to 531 but now I’m all the wiser for it.