Finisher: What to finish your smolov squat day with?

Welcome back,

As if squatting 4 days a week with super heavy loads wasn’t enough; Here is a simple, fun? , lower body finisher to wrap up your Smolov jr program with. If you’re wondering what the heck Smolov jr is, here is a brief depiction of the training protocol before we get to the finisher…

The training protocol “Smolov”, comes from a russian squat routine, which for many can add a substantial amount of weight onto your one rep max. As stated in previous posts, I am training for my first powerlifting meet (now less than a month away). After crushing a 5-3-1 training program for the past few months, my lifting partner Justin and I decided to go after some big numbers on our squat. Where did we turn? Smolov jr.

The difference between a regular Smolov program and the jr program, is simply the length of the program. As we are drawing closer to the meet, a full Smolov program would prove overly taxing on our body, not to mention there is just not enough time. The program can be used for any one of the big three lifts (Bench, Dead Lift, Squat). We chose squat; one because our deadlift numbers were pretty solid in our previous program, two the pause squat we are working with still provides some posterior chain crossover, and three we just wanted to crush some heavy weights on the squat!

Our Smolov jr program is as follows,

* 3 week program

** “squatting” (again can be used for bench or deadlift)

WEEK ONE: Day 1- 70% 1RM, Day 2- 75% 1RM, Day 3- 80% 1RM, Day 4- 85% 1RM

– Day 1 scheme: 6 sets of 6 reps 70% 1RM

– Day 2 scheme: 7 sets of 5 reps 75% 1RM

– Day 3 scheme: 8 sets of 4 reps 80% 1RM

– Day 4 scheme: 10 sets of 3 reps 85% 1RM

WEEK TWO: (add 10-20 lbs to the previous week)

– Day 1: 6×6 70% +10-20 lbs

– Day 2: 7×5 75% +10-20 lbs

– Day 3: 8×4 80% +10-20 lbs

– Day 3: 10×3 80% +10-20 lbs

WEEK THREE: (add 15-20 lbs to weights from week one)

– Day 1: 6×6 70% +15-20 lbs

– Day 2: 7×5 75% +15-20 lbs

– Day 3: 8×4 80% +15-20 lbs

– Day 4: 10×3 85% +15-20 lbs

WEEK FOUR: (MUCH DESERVED DELOAD!)

*The key is appropriate progression. after week one I thought to myself “what the hell did get yourself into?”. However, when week two rolled around the weights felt light and I was able to progress quite easily. The purpose of the increased load is to allow for what is called “supercompensation”, in short the repetitive movement pattern at high load allows the body to adapt quickly. This in turn allows for the substantial increases in weight over a short period of time.

This week will wrap up the second of the program; week one was hell! Week two was much easier, so we’ll see what week three brings.

So, now that you have a taste of what I do before I get after the finisher developed, here is the finisher of the day. As you see my training program focuses primarily on squat, yet squat is not the only lift for the coming competition. therefore I try to incorporate some sort of posterior chain movements as our lovely finishers. As always get after the heavy lifting first then throw these gems in at the end. ENJOY!