30 May Zane Geeting, More off season squat training

I’m currently in an off-season training cycle, focusing on improving work capacity and bringing up some weak areas. This block of training will continue through the summer, before I pick a late fall/early winter meet. From there it will be the XPC finals at the Arnold Classic again.

This week my deadlift session didn’t go as planned, so I shut it down early and decided to focus the energy on my squat training. The main reason for this is that my squat is weak right now. I’ve lost some weight for the summer, in an effort to feel healthy and more athletic, which I do. The downside is that my leverages have changed slightly due to my waist shrinking. This doesn’t effect my bench or pull, but does wreak havoc on my squat. The main thing at this point is keeping the volume high enough to make gains, and finding the right position for my current leverages. Here’s what I did:

Warm up

BW squat, Bird dogs, McGill’s, Cat/Camel, Fat man rows and push ups

Raw squat

Warm ups, then… 420×5 and 460×5

Wider stance raw squat

330×5, 380×5, and 420×3 paused.

– This wider stance is going to work better for me at this point in time. This is fine since it will carry-over more efficiently to my geared squat.

SS bar, 5 sec pause squat

245x5x2 sets

Reverse hyper

300x15x3 sets

JL planks

30 sec. x2 sets

Side bends

90 lb DB x15x2 sets ea side

Calves on squat machine

3 high rep sets (20+)

– That was the end of it. I kept the focus on the core to make up for the thinner waist. If its thinner, it needs to be stronger. Something for you skinnier/lighter lifters to remember.

– I won’t be back in the gym until Tuesday (unless it rains Sunday morning) I’ll be benching this week. In the next few weeks I’m thinking I’ll be changing my split so that I squat and pull on one day, and bench the other. On the weeks that I can get in my third day, it will be a full body accessory day to address my weak points. At this time, this split just seems to make the most sense for me, and I’ve already started playing around with a cycle, I just need to make sure all the volume/intensity calculations are right.

On to the next one.

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Zane Geeting

Zane Geeting is a pro multi-ply powerlifter with best lifts of a 935 squat, 625 bench, and 765 deadlift. He is coming back to competitive PL after a year and a half layoff that was a result of several serious injuries including a severe rupture of the right pec that could not be repaired. Zane has an extremely busy schedule that would make most people quit before Friday. He works 55+ hours a week as a finance manager. As a renaissance man, he is also currently restoring a 140 year-old farmhouse and maintaining a hobby farm. Despite all this, Zane still finds time to train 2-3 times per week, as well as coach other lifters.  

Latest posts by Zane Geeting (see all)

• Zane Geeting, Training Update 1/15/2019 - January 15, 2019
• Zane Geeting, Off Season Training Update - January 7, 2019
• Zane Geeting, Last 3 Off Season Training Sessions - November 6, 2018