Shit that dirty Russian Smolov is teaching me.

Russia is an evil place.

Its cold, the weather sucks, its dark, dank, corrupt… shit, its like Cleveland…. well… except they probably have better food in Russia.

Most of all, for us strength enthusiasts, Russia is like the motherlode of psychotic strength programs.

Sheiko, Smolov, etc.

Conjugate method came from some crazy Russian shit.

Supertraining (the book) was written by another Russian who basically lived, breathed, ate and shit training; Verkhoshansky. Go ahead, read the book.. if you are a novice trainer your mind will explode.

By now, all 3 of you who read this blog know that I am running Smolov.

At the peak of this program you are squatting four times a week. Not 2 heavy, 2 light… 4 goddamn loaded up to the gills with volume and weight times per week.

This isn’t for someone who espouses lower volume, they will bleed internally with fear.

Now I am used to hammering my legs like an aged porn star trying to make one last buck, but 4 times a week?

This week I squatted 4 times. My usual Sunday and started Smolov on Tuesday.

That is 3 days in a row of deep knee bends below parallel.

What have I learned so far about this type of program after just one week:

1. I am ravenous. I am talking kill a village just to steal their food ravenous. Tonight I just ate a pound of meat, grilled cheese and am trying to find remnants of peanut butter in the bottom of the jar before I start eating the plastic.
2. I am not as sore as I thought. Which leads to my theory that it is HARD AS HELL to overtrain the legs. If you are squatting once a week, or doing legs once a week, you are a raging pussy. I don’t care WHO you are… if your lower body isn’t getting hit at least twice per week, you should leave the gym and throw yourself in front of a bus.
3. If your form sucks, doing multiple sets of squats WILL fix it. Unless you want an injury or want to suck… repeating the same motion over and over and over again will make sure your form is solid.
4. People look at you like a maniac when you are in the squat rack for over an hour. And if you think doing a sequence of: warming up, 3×8, 5, 2×2, 2×1 isn’t going to take you an hour almost (or more) you are either going too light or you have the recovery of a superhero… or you are full of shit.
5. Upper body lifting, deadlifting, glute ham raises, other stuff? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… no. Upper body yes, some… stick to the basics, but this is a very intensive squat program and if you want to recover without looking like an alcoholic waiting for the first drink of the day, don’t try to volume up the upper body as well.

There you have it, what I have noticed with just one week of this.. I’m a quick learner so I pass my extensive amount of knowledge onto you, the reader, free of charge.

Savor it, enjoy it, share it…

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