How to deal with the mental effort of squats?

[arbit]

I'm doing squats every workout. On the last rep or two of the last sets, as we all know, the mental effort to squeeze out those reps is beyond any of the other exercises. Its very taxing mentally. How do you deal with this?

Firstly why are you squatting every workout, I see the need to squat only once of twice in a week.
The mental issue is made up before you even start believe it or not, subliminaly yr mind has set the rep range and you will stop at that point.
To bypass this i tell myself hit 8 and i always do

[Merrida]

Bodyshop is correct. It's sort of a "trick" we learn as trainers as well. If you start out with a specific number in mind, that's what you'll perceive as failure. We'd "trick" our clients by "sneaking" on additional weight, or doing "timed sets" instead of rep counts. Goes to show just how much of working out is really in our head. Excellent point.

[arbit]

That last rep on the last set of squats is killing me. Its like 70% of my total mental effort for the entire workout of legs chest and back. Just that one rep.

What are timed sets?

arbit. Good for you. A workout without squats is not a workout.

Take a slightly longer break before your last set. When it's time to get that last squat, take a big breath, hold it, push your abdomen out like you are trying to pass gas...and squat.

Your legs will thank you...your back will thank you.

Doing rippetoe, you are NOT doing maximum effort every workout are you? You've got lighter days in there? What are your percentages throughout the week? If you are going too heavy on your recovery workout days, you won't be able to do your best on heavy day. Are you spending too much time and too many reps warming up, draining your energy? Oh yeah, and you aren't working out more than 3x a week are you?

[arbit]

Originally Posted by .V.

arbit. Good for you. A workout without squats is not a workout.

Take a slightly longer break before your last set. When it's time to get that last squat, take a big breath, hold it, push your abdomen out like you are trying to pass gas...and squat.

Your legs will thank you...your back will thank you.

That is how I do squats, or rather focus on my abs, breath in, core tight, as explained in Rippetoes book.

Originally Posted by .V.

Doing rippetoe, you are NOT doing maximum effort every workout are you? You've got lighter days in there? Are you spending too much time and too many reps warming up, draining your energy? Oh yeah, and you aren't working out more than 3x a week are you?

No (ie, I'm going max effort every workout), no, no, no

As I am close to hitting or have hit my PRs, maybe I should start have some light days.

Originally Posted by arbit

That is how I do squats, or rather focus on my abs, breath in, core tight, as explained in Rippetoes book.




No (ie, I'm going max effort every workout), no, no, no

As I am close to hitting or have hit my PRs, maybe I should start have some light days.

Maybe you should. You really should only squat heavy once a week, especially if you are near your limit. It just takes too much out of you. Repetition, frequency, and total volume for the week are good things. So is going heavy, but you've got to recover. Straight linear progression works, but only for so long. There comes a point where the body can only take so much and something's going to break... you will end up injuring yourself. Don't overtrain, there is no payoff in it, just injury.

Even with Starr's program, a slightly more improved methodology over the one you are using...which is very good but is really just a starting point... squatting has a heavy day, a light day, then a medium day...then two days off.

Want to know why the East Germans, Bulgarians, etc... were kicking serious western ass for so long when it came to the strength sports?

Well, Starr hit on it when he designed 5x5... The old adage "there is nothing new" rings true for weight lifting too.

And even with this... you can only go for so long before progress stops then you have to deload by doing even LESS work. The weight keeps going up but the volume is drastically decreased. Then when the time comes, you reset your numbers to something lighter and start all over and move forward to new PR's.

How are your other lifts doing? Still progressing or are they near a stalling point with progress too?

[arbit]

Originally Posted by .V.

How are your other lifts doing? Still progressing or are they near a stalling point with progress too?

Squat is still progressing, so are deadlift and pendlay rows. Bench and overhead press are close to stalling. My push chain sucks.

Good about the three still moving forward. But really, I do suggest that you stop going all out more than once a week. Eventually you are going to get hurt that way. Bench and OHP suck for me. I never could bench any real weight. Finally I scrapped it for dips to see if I could improve that way with dips being a more functional lift that is more useful to me in day to day life anyway. Interestingly enough, that improved my bench.

For my OHP, I switched to clean and jerk... it's improving now. Maybe try thrusters if you don't have someone to coach you on proper C&J form? Just a little different approach to reach the same result. Or, when you completely stall on them, deload and reset.

Good luck. It takes a long time and a lot of consistancy to get anywhere with the iron once you are past the newbie gains. Don't stress the numbers too much and push too far, too fast...that is the path to injury.

[pierini]

Originally Posted by arbit

Squat is still progressing, so are deadlift and pendlay rows. Bench and overhead press are close to stalling. My push chain sucks.

Are you doing Stronglifts?

Originally Posted by .V.

Good about the three still moving forward. But really, I do suggest that you stop going all out more than once a week. Eventually you are going to get hurt that way. Bench and OHP suck for me. I never could bench any real weight. Finally I scrapped it for dips to see if I could improve that way with dips being a more functional lift that is more useful to me in day to day life anyway. Interestingly enough, that improved my bench.

For my OHP, I switched to clean and jerk... it's improving now. Maybe try thrusters if you don't have someone to coach you on proper C&J form? Just a little different approach to reach the same result. Or, when you completely stall on them, deload and reset.

Good luck. It takes a long time and a lot of consistancy to get anywhere with the iron once you are past the newbie gains. Don't stress the numbers too much and push too far, too fast...that is the path to injury.

I personally like to switch to a different exercise if I'm not getting anywhere for awhile. It's simpler than trying to figure out deloading, etc.

[arbit]

Originally Posted by pierini

Are you doing Stronglifts?

Nope, starting strength, 3 sets of 5.

Originally Posted by .V.

Good luck. It takes a long time and a lot of consistancy to get anywhere with the iron once you are past the newbie gains. Don't stress the numbers too much and push too far, too fast...that is the path to injury.

Yup, I follow Rippetoes adage "the goal is to get stronger in gym, not lift more weight".

I dont know C&J so maybe I'll try thrusters, seems like a good excercise!

If you dont mind, could you write about what injuries you sustained due to overtraining, what were the warning signs etc?

That won't take me long. I have MS. Overtaxing my CNS led to new attacks. My recovery was weak, and I hurt my back over and over again.

[arbit]

Originally Posted by LiftGirl

I personally like to switch to a different exercise if I'm not getting anywhere for awhile. It's simpler than trying to figure out deloading, etc.

*Starts making a comment about girls and math*
*Notices that LiftGirl is the admin*
*Delete delete delete*

Actually, I'm not good at math I am good at science though.