My Squat Experience on Smolov
Jan 28th, 2008 by Mehdi Tags: Squat, Strength Training
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This article was submitted by Victor, member of StrongLifts.com Forum. Victor did Smolov twice, bringing his Squat up to 240kg.
Gains. The first time I did Smolov, I increased my Squat from 180kg to 220kg. I Squatted 190kg in the Base Mesoycycle. Body-weight (BW) went from 86kg to 88kg. I got leaner and my glutes & legs got bigger.
The 2nd time I increased my Squat from 220kg to 240kg. I Squatted 230kg in the Base Mesocycle. In the Intense Mesocycle I failed with 250kg (could have done 245kg). My BW went from 93kg to 95kg, but I gained fat eating junk food.
Here’s a picture of my legs before & after I did the 2 Smolov cycles. December 30th 2006 vs. December 30th 2007.
Injuries. First time: pain in both arms between my shoulders and biceps from the low bar position. Pain in my upper quads at the end of the cycle. I couldn’t Squat for a month after that. I also had some knee pain.
Second time also pain in my both arms between shoulders and biceps. Torn abs & coccyx pain. I lost motivation. I had no energy left for other exercises. My knees felt sore when doing other sports like running.
Mistakes The First Time.
- I went from 2x to 4x Squatting/week
- I skipped the Introductory Mesocycle
- I filled in a weight too heavy in the Smolov Base Mesocycle sheet
- I tested my 1 repetition max (1RM) 2x during the Base Mesocycle
- I Deadlifted during Switching because I didn’t know what to do
- I didn’t always break parallel, because the weight was too heavy
- I Squatted while injured
- I skipped 4-5 workouts
Mistakes The Second Time.
- I went from 1x to 4x Squatting/week
- I skipped the Introductory Mesocycle
- I didn’t eat enough, because I wanted to lose weight
- Gained fat eating junk food trying to compensate the lack of calories
- I filled in a weight too heavy in the Smolov Intense Mesocycle sheet
- Didn’t know what to do during Switching, got injured doing Pin Squats
- I didn’t always break parallel, because the weight was too heavy
- I skipped sets sometimes, because the weight was too heavy
- I tested my 1RM too soon
- I used too many paused breathing style sets
- I did a heavy rep-out during Switching
My Advice. If you want to do Smolov, avoid the mistakes I made the first 2 times. Here’s what you need to pay attention to:
- Test your 1RM before doing Smolov. That way you don’t end up with weights which are too heavy.
- Stay away from exercises that hit your core, like Deadlifts. Do the Bench Press, Dips, Dumbbell Rows and Pull-ups.
- Don’t worry about your other lifts. Smolov is all about the Squat.
- The Intense Mesocycle is the hardest part of Smolov. Push hard.
I’ll do another Smolov cycle at the end of this year. This time I’ll Squat raw: without belt. Your core needs to adapt without support. And I’ll do full Squats instead of Powerlifting Squats. Wish me luck.
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Thanks Victor,
It’s always great to learn from others mistakes.
Victor I was thinking of doing smolov over summer break would you advise me to do this?
@ Alex
No problem.
@ Young Athlete
That’s a good question, first of all you should be lifting for minimal a year in my opinion, training experience is really important. If you think that your lowerbody is lacking strength after a year, you could try a smolov.
Victor, great post and insight. I will learn from this.
I’m currently doing the Smolov. My log is in the forum.
Hello Victor,
Could you please elaborate on what causes the bicep and shoulder pain when doing squats with the low bar position?
Last month, I switched to the low bar position after reading “Starting Strength”. I recently started feeling an acute pain in both my arms and elbows immediately after doing squats. This prevents me from doing bench press after squats. The pain typically lasts for a day or two.
I experimented with different grip widths. I now use a thumbless grip and maintain my wrists in line with the forearms so as to not lift any weight with my arms. However, none of these seems to help. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks.
@Novice Squatter
It’s because of the high reps coupled with the low bar position with narrow grip Victor used. Low bar ends up overstretching the biceps, starts hurting. You sometimes can feel it in shoulder/elbow/forearm too.
Stretch your upper-body, shoulder dislocations are one of the best for this. Some light biceps stretches (not too much), cut down high rep work. You can also widen your grip, but it’s harder to keep your upper-back tight that way. Or switch to a high bar squat.
True what Mehdi said, and the weights were heavy so my biceps couldn’t take the weights after such high frequency and volume.
Do you *really* need to test your 1RM or can you estimate it off exrx? I’m apprehensive about maxing out as I don’t have a spotter.
I also have a question which is probably due to my lack of familiarity with the Smolov routine. Why is it important to know what one’s 1RM is? Is this just a milestone marker, or is it critical to the success of the program?
It seems that we all suffer from basically the same disease….not knowing when to back off. It is very difficult to really know when one should set aside a set / exercise / day of training to provide that extra bit of time that the body may need to repair itself. This (at least for me) is what usually leads to sub-par performance during a workout, or injuries.
Also if I may…what is the benefit of the low bar position. It sounds like it is at least a part of the reason why some of the injuries are occurring.
I would def not recommend the Smolov experience to somebody that cant squat double his weight. It is too demanding, and will do more damage than good because of compromised form due to very high weights
@Scott
Accurate testing would be better from my experience. Next week it’s my turn, smolov for front squats, will explain you why. You can max out without spotter if you have a squat rack, check out this post.
@Michael
Weights on Smolov are a percentage of your 1RM. Download the excel sheet in the smolov articles. It’s true that you should know when to back off, but with smolov it’s a fixed program, it doesn’t work if you skip workouts/lower weights, etc. You need to apply it as such. Otherwise you just did it for nothing.
Low bar is more weight than high bar Squats. I prefer high bar for the record.
I’ve heard of smolov, but not exactly sure what it is. Can the training style be used with other lifts?
@Parth Shah
Smolov is for Squats. There’s a smolov junior you can use for the bench press/press.
I’m even more interested in starting this program now because my body weight and max squat are within a couple pounds of Victor’s when he did Smolov for the first time.
Well you should give it try
Good luck!
hi im doing smolov for plifting back squats now,m back squat max ive used is 170kg, ive changed belt to a bodybuilding old belt which doesnt offer much support, and trying to cut down (lost 7kg in last month) ive finished first week of the base cycle but found 10 x 3 reps on 145kg very tough!!!!! imlooking forward to tomorrow to 130 for 4 sets of 9reps, that should be easy now!!
im bit worried as i cut depth on few reps of the 145kg for 10 sets of 3, but i do squat deep anyway usually, think its harder because the day befroe I did 135kg for 7 sets of 5!
how come you only got 190kg in the base cycle thats a 10kg gain! i got 20kg gain last time i did this, but you gained 30kg in the intense cycle?
Well 190kg wasn’t my 1RM after the base mesocycle. I didn’t max but I made a heavy single of 90-95% instead. I probably could have lift 200kg, back then.