Squats - How to improve

K09

Hi all,

I've been consistently doing squats 1 day a week for a year now.

However, I'm really struggling to increase weight or reps. Currently at 4reps for 70kg. I weigh78kg some squat is dismal.

Do ineed to up to 2 days per week? Or any advice on how to break the barrier?

Current program is:

Back squat 4 sets 4reps 70kg

Front squat 4 sets 5reps 45kg

Dumbell split 4 sets 20reps

Black Sheep

At a bodyweight of 78kg I agree you have progress left on the table if you are currently 'stuck' at 70kg x 4 (You don't mention your age but it would make a little more sense if you were on the older side btw).

I am assuming you have been following a progression on the squat where maybe you did 4x4 at 60kg, 62.5kg, 65kg etc all the way up to 70kg where you've failed to progress for several workouts. If you started with a slightly different rep scheme, but have gone down to 4x4, then to be honest my advice will remain the same.

Programming. 4x4 on the squat is an ok set and rep scheme for progressing on a squat, but you likely need to hit it more than once per week as a novice. Many programmes like Starting Strength would have you squatting three times per week, adding weight each time, but I think two is usually even better, especially towards the final months of the programming when the weight on the bar starts to get relatively heavy.

The front squats in your workout are a little bit redundant, I would replace them with a posterior chain / glute movement like a leg curl or RDL. The split squats are fine, but personally 20 reps is a bit high unless you're shooting for 10 per leg.

I'm not sure what you're doing for your upper body, but if you were to do two lower body days going forward you could either do 1-2 dedicated upper body days OR rejig things so that you're doing three full body days, which is a very common beginner strength progression (Again, Starting Strength and similar). You might squat, bench on Monday and Friday and do overhead press, deadlift on Wednesdays, for example. Just an example.

Diet. 4X4 should be enough volume to drive progress and cause adaptation, as a novice or relatively untrained person, but as the weights get heavier you do need to ensure that you're eating adequately. You don't need to be eating in a massive calorie surplus, but if your goals are to squat 1.25 or 1.5 BW for reps then you do need to make sure you're getting adequate calories. 2g of protein per kg of bodyweight is a commonly target to aim for. On training days make sure you're getting adequate carbohydrates. Don't lift fasted. Make sure you're adequately hydrated on lifting days.

Form. It's possible that you have an error in your form which is hobbling your ability to progress. There's no point in trying to diagnose all the possibilities over a forum, but I have seen people who were doing things like folding themselves in half when the weight got heavy, almost a good morning rather than a squat. Or people who place their feet in such a way that they could not possibly break parallel and get down into the bottom position. Breathing is another one to look at - are you trying to breathe through the entire squat, rather than bracing? Your options here are to either pay an in person coach for a session to look at your squat, or you could video yourself and upload a form check to one of the many communities on Facebook or Reddit where people will do a free form check. If there's something egregious going on they will tell you.

External factors. There are a myriad of things outside training that could be sabotaging you. If you're running several dozen km per week, or are doing a bunch of conditioning workouts on top of a strength progression, that will interfere. If you're particularly stressed out or have some other physical or mental demands on you that could affect training as well.

There are lots of ways to eke out the last bit of progress on a strength progression, you could go from 4x4 to a top set of 4 and back offs, or then a top set of 3 and back offs, and so on, but to be honest I don't think you're a candidate for that yet.

I'm not a fan of deloading in situations like this necessarily, but in your case I would deload by 10-15%, try to correct for whatever you think could be the issue from the list above, and go up again and see if the next time is any different.

Mr. CooL ICE

Form is key and with any compound, there are many areas where form could break down. Do you video yourself? Watching what you are doing from a recording can easily highlight faults you wouldn't have known of by just feel.

By in terms of frequency/overall volume, it does look like you're not doing enough reps per week. But I'd ensure the form is as close to 100% as possible before adding in frequency/volume, so look at that first.

Mellor

What happen if you try to do a 5th rep at 70kg?

What happens is you load up 75kg?

Cill94

Two squat days a week drives better progress for just about everyone in my experience.

Second day should be less weight, higher volumes e.g. 50kg 3-4 x 5-10.

Eat more protein, sleep better, etc.

silverharp

Including box squats, pause squats might help too

WalterDMason

Lots of guys have the basics of squatting down. But if you want to improve to an elite level, you’ll need to dial in your technique first. If your technique is poor, don’t add more weight you’ll just hurt yourself.