Anyone switch to 1x5 squats?

[wobbles]

Some interesting discussion -- thanks for the comments. I've definitely been warming up with too much volume. I was doing sets of 5 in 10KG increments starting at 40KG all the way up to my working weight. I'm going to take some bigger jumps with the warm-up weights and only do 1 or 2 reps on my last warm-up set. I'm also going to take more time in between warm-up sets, as I've had a tendency to rush through them.

Should this approach not work however, I will try 1x5 for a few weeks. My pressing strength is severely lacking and I feel it would really benefit. My lifts are bizarrely imbalanced. For example, two weeks ago I tried a deadlift 1RM (something I pretty much never do) and easily picked 165KG off the floor. My powerclean is at 90KG and I can do quite a few pull-ups. My press however... is 51KG and my bench is at 62.5KG... Of course this is due to how I'm built and what I'm naturally better at, but I want to work on my weaknesses more than my strengths -- which is what reducing squat volume would allow me to do better. Maybe I should look into a more pressing based program?

[eLvarouza]

I don't see how doing fewer squats will effect your press and your bench. Sure you may be fatigued in general after squats but that should go away by the time you start your work sets.

[LiftingNerd]

I'm not exactly familiar with what his advanced novice program entails, but I will venture a guess that it has some form of linear weight increase (either session to session or week to week). Are you still making these increases for the press and bench press? At this stage of the game don't sacrifice gains you could be making on squats just to add a pound or two on bench.

[somebody]

Re: Wendler -

Not only do you rep out on your top set - you ramp to that across three sets. And there is a *lot* of other volume, including both a *lot* of warmup reps and an *enormous* amount of assistance work - he advises your default assistance by 5x10 of the same movement at 50-60%. Nothing at all like 1x5.

[Baker]

fwiw bill starr liked doing one top set of 5 for beginners (his 5x5 was ramping 5's).

[Portillo]

The part of the program you're at, when squats are getting really heavy and you're still doing them 3 times / wk, is what turns boys into men. Just suck it up and do your squats.

I agree but boy o boy is it hard.

[Rugger]

Wobbles, two things:

1.) With what you're squatting, you should be able to handle 3x5 three times a week, assuming you're eating enough. The weight never really gets easier to move, it just gets heavier, you need to learn how to grind out those ball busting sets sometimes. If you aren't eating something in the realm of 4000kcal a day, I suggest you start doing that.

2.) That being said, you might be a good candidate for the Bill Starr novice program, which IIRC involves ramping to a top set of 5.