Whether something is stupid is a matter of success

What on Earth is this?

This is a discussion of my experience working around an injury. I’ll argue that partial squats have a lot of value. I don’t believe they can replace full ROM entirely, but I do believe they’re a viable alternative if you for whatever reason have issues squatting heavy to depth.

After a couple of years of being stuck with my squat, I did back to back runs of Russian Squat Routine for front squat, RSR for high bar squat, and Smolov Jr. for high bar squat. I went from a beltless high bar single at 145 and belted at 150 to beltless 140 for 7, 155 for 3 and a beltless single at 160.

Since I’d just done a heavy 10x3 during Smolov Jr., I got a bit silly and started doing the GZCLP T1 progression 3+/week. By workout 6 I failed to get a single rep with 150kg, and ended up with an adductor injury.

The thing about adductors is that they’re heavily involved in squatting, especially if you like squatting deep.

So what to do? My threshold for squatting deep was 75kg for a single; anything beyond that, and my adductor started screaming. But it only became a problem below parallel.

Quarter squats to safeties and ROM progressions

Partial squats were the solution. To keep the ROM constant so I’d progressively get stronger, rather than squatting with a progressively shallower ROM, I’d use a pair of safeties.

Since RSR had previously done me good, and partial ROM squats were essentially another variation that I just hadn’t explored and should have plenty room for improvement, I went back to that well again.

During my initial runs of RSR and Smolov Jr. I’d also done some heavy partials at the end of my warmups, just for fun. I’d gone from barely being able to unrack 180kg to quarter squatting 190. I set the safeties at the same height and did quarter squats with that as my training max.

I ended up beating the expectations and went from 1@190 to 3@200. For my next cycle I lowered the safeties a notch, 3.5cm, and repeated that feast: 1@190 to 3@200. During this cycle I also deadlifted 200kg, a 10kg PR. However, unlike my previous deadlift PR I didn’t have to uncurl my back at the end. This one is 100% on the improved bracing ability from the partial squats, and nobody can convince me otherwise.

In the meantime my full ROM squat had recovered from a mildly painful 75kg to barely a twinge at 130 and a moderately painful 140. Still nowhere near enough to actually get some quality training done at full ROM, but a very good improvement.

During this block I reintroduced some full ROM high bar squat volume work, 5x5 done EMOM. I made sure to only progress the weight if it felt good and ended up at 85kg.

For my third block I once again lowered the safeties a notch and went with Smolov Jr. for some variation.

Half squats to pins, and combining ROMs

By half squats I mean I’m like 3-5cm short of parallel. It was great to finally be close to parallel.

I decided to switch it up and run Smolov Jr. Once again I started with a training max of 190kg, and went with aggressive 10kg jumps. I went for an AMRAP on the very last set, and ended up squatting 182kg for 9x3, 1x5 on W4D3.

I’d seen multiple people discussing the idea of combining lifts you can go heavy on with harder variations that are there to build muscle. I decided to follow each partial squat session up with some 1.5 rep front squats, alternating between GZCLP T1 and T2 progressions.

Putting it all together

The squat portion of a workout would look like this:

• (Optional) machine work: abductor, adductor, leg extension, seated leg curl. My gym only has one of each, so I’d skip whatever of these machines were taken, rather than waiting for 15 minutes while someone is doing their 3rd to 11th set on the abductor machine.
• Full ROM high bar squat warmup
• Heavy partials up to some heavy top sets, increasing weight and reducing ROM until I reached my current working ROM.
  • (Optional) go for a rep or weight PR at one or more safety heights
• (Optional) heavier partials with shorter ROM. For example, a 250kg token ROM squat, nor than 1.5 times my then full ROM squat PR.
• Partial squat main work, following a program like Smolov Jr. Russian Squat Routine or RSR+
• (Optional) full ROM squat volume, for example 5x5 EMOM or 1.5 rep front squats at a weight that didn’t bother my adductor

Post-partial training, and lessons learned

After 4 months of heavy partials my adductor was almost feeling normal again, with 140kg (20 below my all time PR) consistently feeling good.

I kind of needed a mental break after 3 months of heavy squats, so I ended up lowering the safeties another notch and pushing sets of 10-15 for 4 weeks. Towards the end of that I maxed out at 155 for a single, after which I ran Soju and Tuba with 140 as my training weight - and ended up squatting 160 for a new beltless 3RM, and a belted single.

So there’s the proof. Within 6 weeks of resuming full ROM squatting, I added two reps to my all time best, and during the partial training my deadlift PR suddenly moved from 190 to 205.

Would I have gotten there at least fast squatting full ROM all the way? Probably, but a) I’m definitely better at bracing than I was back then, and b) it was definitely a good use of time where the alternative was being salty about the injury.

I believe there are two major benefits to super heavy partial squats: They force you to brace better, and you get used to the feeling of having heavy weight on top of you. The latter is kind of an extension of the old ideas of super heavy unracks and walkouts, which are sometimes employed for powerlifting and weightlifting.

Should you do it? Maybe try some heavy partials for a couple of months. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. If you’re good at bracing you probably won’t get as much out of them as I did, but at the very least it’s an option if for whatever reason you can’t squat to full depth.

I’ve always been a big believer in full range of motion; I still believe it should make up the majority of your training, but now it’s more like at least half, rather than at least 95%.

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These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
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For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

MAKING A TOP-LEVEL COMMENT WITHOUT CREDENTIALS WILL EARN A TEMPORARY BAN

Welcome to our monthly focused improvement post. Here we have a distilled discussion on a particular aspect of kettlebell training. We try to go over various techniques of kettlebells, how to program kettlebells, and how to incorporate kettlebells into other modalities of training. 

***

This month’s topic of discussion: Racking and the Rack Position

• Describe your training history and provide credentials
• What specific programming did you employ for this technique?
• What went right/wrong?
• Do you have any recommendations for someone starting out?
• What have you done to improve when you felt you were lagging?
• Where are/were you stalling?
• What did you do to break the plateau?
• What sort of trainee or individual would benefit from using the/this technique/program style?
• How do you manage recovery/fatigue/deloads while following the method/program style?
• Share any interesting facts or applications you have seen/done
• Looking back, what would you have done differently?

***

These threads are used as a reference. As such, we ask that you provide credentials of your lifting history and that you are an intermediate and above. For beginners we ask that you use this thread to enrich yourself by reading what others before you have done. If you are a beginner or have not posted credentials you will have a temporary ban if you make a top level comment.

Previous Monthly Focused Improvement Threads can be found here.

The mod team thanks you :)

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

What is Soju and Tuba?

S&T is originally a single kettlebell press program. It’s made to be run either 3x/week or every other day, depending on what you think you can recover from.

It’s a fixed-load program, where you use a kettlebell one size (4kg) below your max, or a 2-3RM.

It has 3 waves of 6 days each: One wave of single, one wave of doubles, and one wave of triples culminating with an AMRAP at the training weight:

* 4x1, 6x1, 8x1, 10x1, 12x1, 14x1

* 3x2, 4x2, 5x2, 6x2, 7x2, 8x2

* 2x3, 3x3, 4x3, 5x3, 6x3, AMRAP

As you can see you’re expected to lift a 2-3RM for multiple sets of 3 after just 4 weeks. This is obviously unfeasible in many instances, but works well if there’s some technical inefficiency on your part, which is often the case with heavy kettlebell presses. You get a lot of heavy practice this way, which will often clean up your technique.

I’ll do a little discussion on how to adapt the program in general towards the end.

Applying the program to the strict barbell press

I’d been stuck at an 87kg belted press for a while, and then switched gears entirely. I did [back to back runs](https://www.reddit.com/r/Kettleballs/comments/14as67q/program\_review\_the\_giant/) of The Giant, an excellent double kettlebell clean & press program, with a pair of 28kgs and 32kgs. Then I got a finger infection and switched gears again, with concurrent runs of Russian Squat Routine for front squats and pause bench press, and S&T for strict press.

I tested my max and it came out to 89kg beltless, so a 2kg PR without the belt. One kettlebell size down is 4kg, or 8kg for a bilateral version, so I decided to go with 80kg as my initial training weight. It was probably around a 3-4RM, so it seemed like a reasonable training weight, and if I could press that for 6x3 there was no way I wouldn’t be stronger.

I introduced a density progression on top of the program. For day 1 I’d do a set every 2 minutes, day 2 every 1m55s, etc. For the second wave it was 3m, 2m55s, etc., and for the triples I went 5m, 4m50s, and so on.

So days 6, 12 and 17 were 14x1@80 E1M35S, 8x2@80 E2M35S, and 6x3 E4M20S. On the test day I got 80 for 6 and 85 for 4.

For my second and third run I reduced the initial timers by 5, 10 and 15 seconds.

On my second run I bumped the training weight up to 82kg. Not much of an increase, but whatever - I figured if I could do ~10 cycles of this in a year that’d be 20kg, so 2kg for 6 weeks was very reasonable. I ended up getting 6@82, 4@87 and 2@92 - another successful run. On a day where I felt great I also hit a bodyweight single at 96kg during my warmup.

I took a few weeks off the program and applied Greg Nuckols’ free 3x/week beginner bench program to strict press, before jumping back in with a training weight of 84kg. The third time around I started turning the last set into an AMRAP when I felt like it, and would often hit a set of 4-5 this way. I ended up with 6@84, 5@89, 2@94 and 1@99 on test day, with a random single at 100kg partway through the program on a day where I felt absolutely amazing.

Heavy warmups

I really like to work up to a heavy low-rep set before my volume work for the day. On the third run of S&T that meant I was very used to upwards of 90kg, which probably helped with test day.

Often I'd end up doing 5-15 reps of decently heavy work (75-95kg) before moving on to the volume work.

Applying it to other lifts

I’ve also used this program for high bar squat, deadlift, bench and pause dips, and I’m currently going through it with chinups.

I think training weights anywhere in the 80-90% range, or with a 3-7RM weight, is very reasonable. I’ve used:

* On pause dips I did a soft test and got +15 and +20 for 3 reps each. After a run with +15 (realistically probably a 5RM), I got that for 8 reps, and +20 for 7.

* A 3RM for bench press, pushing it to a 5RM. Not the biggest result, and maybe I could’ve benefited from setting the training weight lower.

* 90% for high bar squats with great effect, going from a max of 155 for 1 to 150 for 7 and 160 for 3

* 85% for deadlifts with kind of meh results (probably due to all the other concurrent training, and not the program per se)

So that’s 5 times it’s worked out great (3 x press, squat, pause dips), a decent one (bench), and a meh one (deadlift). I’m pretty happy with this, and I’ll start doing it for strict press again soon.

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

MAKING A TOP-LEVEL COMMENT WITHOUT CREDENTIALS WILL EARN A TEMPORARY BAN

Welcome to our monthly focused improvement post. Here we have a distilled discussion on a particular aspect of kettlebell training. We try to go over various techniques of kettlebells, how to program kettlebells, and how to incorporate kettlebells into other modalities of training. 

***

This month’s topic of discussion: Turkish Get-up

• Describe your training history and provide credentials
• What specific programming did you employ for this technique?
• What went right/wrong?
• Do you have any recommendations for someone starting out?
• What have you done to improve when you felt you were lagging?
• Where are/were you stalling?
• What did you do to break the plateau?
• What sort of trainee or individual would benefit from using the/this technique/program style?
• How do you manage recovery/fatigue/deloads while following the method/program style?
• Share any interesting facts or applications you have seen/done
• Looking back, what would you have done differently?

***

These threads are used as a reference. As such, we ask that you provide credentials of your lifting history and that you are an intermediate and above. For beginners we ask that you use this thread to enrich yourself by reading what others before you have done. If you are a beginner or have not posted credentials you will have a temporary ban if you make a top level comment.

Previous Monthly Focused Improvement Threads can be found here.

The mod team thanks you :)