My wife, Jess, is a legend.
She, like me, used to be very fat indeed but managed to lose it all through sheer hard work and determination.
I know I’m biased but her discipline is remarkable. To wit, she was back in the gym lifting weights nary two weeks after the birth of our second child.
Speaking of the birth of our second child, she had him at home and the Tesco delivery came part-way through her labour. Naturally, I cannot be trusted to put the groceries away correctly so I stacked them neatly in the kitchen with a view to having Jess supervise after she’d, you know, had the baby and stuff.
Anyway, after our son Marcus arrived and the midwives had left, I went out for a little walk. And when I came back, guess who was putting away the shopping?
That’s right. Jess.
Superwoman indeed.
Forgive me, I digress. Despite Jess returning to the gym in double-quick time, things haven’t been plain sailing. Well, actually, that’s not strictly true. She continued making great progress in all of her lifts bar one…
… the squat.
Since Jess had Marcus her squat has been in the gutter. So, a few months ago, she asked me to come to the gym with her to see what was up. (My parents looked after the kiddos).
Initially, I suspected she was struggling due to hip and lower back pain. Both are common during and after pregnancy due to the ligament-relaxing effect of the aptly named hormone, relaxin, and the way the growing baby forces the woman’s lower back to hyperextend. (This is properly called lumbar lordosis).
On observation, it was immediately apparent that her issue had nothing to do with pain because she wasn’t in any pain.
However, it was clear that she’d developed a mental block around squatting for some reason. Likely due to the fact she hadn’t squatted with gusto in a long while. See, Jess is a hard worker and training is very important to her, but she’d never do something as stupid as maxing her squat in the third trimester of pregnancy.
Add to that the fact the squat is her least favourite of all the lifts, and you have a perfect storm for stalled progress.
So what did I suggest she do?
Squat to a heavy single until squatting stopped being such a big deal.
For the avoidance of doubt, I did not tell her to squat to a one rep max every workout. That would be silly. Instead, I told her to go for something I like to call an “every day max”. This is a weight you know you could lift for a single even if you had a bad night’s sleep, crap day at work, hadn’t eaten, and a pesky cold to boot.
In other words, if you’re grinding, it’s too heavy. If the bar slows down even a little bit, it’s too heavy.
The weight should move smooth and fast. In other words, it shouldn’t feel “hard” in any way.
Once she’d done that, I told her to do five sets of ten with a light weight – around 40% of her five rep max.
The result?
In just three weeks, she put 20kg on her squat and set a lifetime personal best.
Oh, and that “lifetime personal best” was done as an every day max per the above description, so her true one rep max is almost certainly considerably higher.
Anyway, if you’re interested in working with me to achieve similar, email me at phil@philtyreman.co.uk, and we’ll take it from there.
When you email, be sure to include a brief outline of your fitness goals, and the problems/challenges you believe are preventing you from reaching them.
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman
P.S. I used the same approach as the one I described in this article to break the 200kg squat barrier for the first time at a bodyweight of around 80kg after being stuck at 190kg for the better part of a year.
Bottom line: If you’re stuck, I’ll get you unstuck. But first, we gotta talk.
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