You're Not An Elite Athlete

[BendtheBar]

From the article:

But you take a guy that squats even 500 lbs and have him try to knock off a 5×5 squat workout, and you’re looking at some serious poundage for that session, and with a fairly substantial weight to boot. Obviously this will get worse the stronger you get, too; anecdotally you’ll see guys working down the percentages with their lighter work as they get stronger.

That may sound odd, but consider 60% of an 800 lb squat – that’s still 480 lbs. Even though it’s “just” 60%, it’s still a heavy enough weight in absolute terms that it can be a stimulus.

I think that as you get stronger, the need to “widen the gap” becomes more important. You need heavy work at the top-end – singles, doubles, and triples with pretty heavy weight.

Not to derail the thread but I would add that I fail at most percentage based systems. I'll see things like 80% on squats for 3x8 reps and I'll choke on my coffee. With a 500 raw squat, I can only do about 6 safe reps with 405. Instead I often have used things like 8x2 or 6x3 with 80%.

I also tend to see greater benefit from lower percentages and higher reps. Last year I trained deadlifts at about 55% for 20 reps sets and saw a 20 pound PR.

I've never met a percentage system that would work for me personally. The rep sets between 5-10 are always beyond my personal capabilities on all 3 major lifts.

Simply stated, I really despise most work between 5-12 reps right now. I can't train like I did 10 years ago, and I wouldn't advise younger lifters to train like me.

[IronManlet]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

From the article:

I disagree entirely with that snippet. Absolute terms don't mean anything on an individual basis. 400lbs is nothing to someone who squats 800, just like 250lbs is nothing to a 500lb squatter. Obviously if your top weight is 250 it will seem like a lot of weight, but when you become stronger weights that used to feel heavy and tax you feel lighter and are not as hard.

Unless you argue that 500lbs taxes every lifter in the same way, which is preposterous.

[Abaddon]

Good reading.

[BendtheBar]

Just because the weight gets heavier doesn't mean that 50% feels the same as it did when you were lifting a 200 pound lighter 1RM.

When my deadlift was 375 I couldn't get a decent workout with 185 for reps. Now that my deadlift is near 600 I can easily get a great workout in with 315 if I wanted to - and I do from time to time.

Same for squats, bench, and every other heavy lift. You're thinking that things stay relatively the same, but they don't. The curve doesn't work like that.

The heavier the lift gets, the more and more I lose my middle ranges. The heavier the lift gets, the harder it becomes for me to do things like 5x5s. When my squat max was 275 I could have done a 5x5 with 225. Now that my squat is 500, there's no way I can do 405x5x5. I know this from years of experience and trying.

I spent an entire year trying to bump my reps on 405 over 5. Never happened for one set. No way I could hit a 5x5. But, I could also easily knock out 405 x 8 x 2 and did this for months on end. I handled lower reps much easier than ranges just a few notches up.

With each pound the relative middle of the curve becomes more difficult. 50% at 275 is much easier than 50% at 500. With each pound the middle rep ranges become harder for me to progress in, but I still can make solid progression on lower and higher rep sets. Losing the middle.

[Abaddon]

Increases in heavy weight are like exponential growth in terms of how they impact the body.

[kitarpyar]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

The eccentric aspects of lifts are the most taxing part of training, and as it has been mentioned here several times before, there isn't a lot of eccentric work in Olympic training.

With that said, they still squat which is Herculean.

Agreed. With squats, even if you squat olympic style, there is only so much of an eccentric component that you can take out of the lift.

[Fazc]

Originally Posted by IronManlet

Obviously if your top weight is 250 it will seem like a lot of weight, but when you become stronger weights that used to feel heavy and tax you feel lighter and are not as hard.

The problem with what you're saying is it just isn't true in practice.

I've been upto 500lbs squats, as has BtB. After a certain point most weights just feel the same... heavy! Even when I was squatting 500lbs I would limit my work at 400-450 to singles for warm-ups because they definitely taxed me. Where you're making the mistake is, assuming that recovery ability increases linearly with strength. It does not.

It is quite well accepted that as the body progresses our strength may increase but our recovery doesn't expand much if at all. Don't agree? This is why we need periodisation, cycling, light days, deload weeks, off weeks, H/L/M and all other types of intensity/volume cycling because of precisely that issue. If we didn't then we would all continue to train the big lifts 3 days a week as we got stronger, obviously nonsense.

400lbs is nothing to someone who squats 800, just like 250lbs is nothing to a 500lb squatter

This is talking in absolutes, and it just isn't true.

[BendtheBar]

It is quite well accepted that as the body progresses our strength may increase but our recovery doesn't expand much if at all.

I completely agree with this.

To add to what Fazc just said, 80% of my squat max feels (most times) extremely heavy to me. 80% of my 300 and 400 pound max didn't feel any where near as heavy or intimidating.

This might make me seem weak minded, but there is a certain fear I have getting under 400+ weight. The eccentrics are always hard, and no matter how gradually I ramp my warmup sets to prime my CNS - and I do ramp them slowly - 400 pounds feels different to me.

When I am under that kind of weight the first thought that crosses my mind in nearly every case is holy crap this is heavy.

I have had at least 50 -75 squat workouts with reps at 405 or more in the last several years, and 400 always givings me that holy crap feeling.

[LtL]

I agree with you Steve. Once you get above a certain weight, it all feels heavy. Mostly because it is

LtL

[Off Road]

I've had the same experience. At 75% of my 1RM, it is easy to get tons of reps. But reps fall sharply as I get above 80%.