SESSION NOTES: Squat Strength and Stamina (611)

This session takes advantage of three training methodologies, all designed to improve squat strength.

Part A is called ‘dynamic effort’ and it improves your ability to move a weight fast. The weight is intentionally low, as this allows the optimal combination of weight and speed, to maximise power. Any heavier and speed would be compromised.

Part B takes advantage of the benefits of eccentric training. ‘Eccentric’ refers to the type of contraction your muscle does as it is lengthening – yielding to gravity. This is a form of training where the load lowered is more than the load lifted. This adds positive stress on the body in the phase of the lift that will give us the most benefit.

Eccentric training delivers superior results to strength, power and hypertrophy (muscle size) over any other resistance based training method studied.

Part C is a form of ‘drop sets’ or stripping. In the first minute, at 80%, a certain percentage of muscle fibres must be able to be activated to lift this load. Once there are no longer enough fibres to complete the contraction, the weight is reduced to allow the fatiguing of more muscle fibres. In the third minute, the process is repeated to ensure the greatest possible percentage of muscle fibres have been fatigued.

Eccentric training has wide reaching benefits to your health and body composition – with the benefits even broader than standard resistance training.

Eccentric training results in stronger connective tissue (ligaments and tendons) and increased flexibility by changing the mechanics of a muscle (increasing the sarcomeres in series).

These changes in the mechanics and organisation of muscle fibres, also mean eccentric training is a great rehabilitation tool – not only to help promote the repair and recovery of soft tissue (particularly tendon) injury, but also to reduce the risk of future injury.

Resistance training (using your muscles to lift heavy weights, either external weights or yourself) makes you stronger. Strength is one of the greatest predictors of both your lifespan (how long you live) and your healthspan (how long you live in a healthy state).

Resistance training like this will also improve your flexibility (by going through a full range of motion), posture and coordination. It will also build stability around your joints and spine to give you a healthy musculo-skeletal system and reduce joint and back pain.

The session will minimise losses in bone mineral density and will improve your balance. Strength and balance are the two strongest predictors of falls later in life, so this is an effective way to train fall prevention, and ensure your independence into old age.

As a result of this style of session, you will experience changes in blood chemistry, including favourable effects on cholesterol, blood glucose, triglyceride and lipid levels.

This session increases your lean muscle mass and muscle fibre size. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, so increasing it will maximise how much energy your body burns at rest. This makes it an effective session to reach healthy levels of body fat, both visceral fat (around the organs) and subcutaneous fat (under your skin). After this session, your body will go through a prolonged state of ‘EPOC’ (excess post- exercise oxygen consumption), meaning you’ll continue burning energy long after you finish training – further aiding healthy body composition.

From a health perspective, the squat is perhaps the most important movement to increase longevity and health later in life.

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The heavy levels of resistance in this session are designed to increase your strength – increasing both your one rep max, and your ability to lift submaximal weights. By being stronger, you can lift more weight, and you will be able to lift submaximal weights faster and for higher reps because they’ll be at a lower percentage of your max.

As strength is an element of power, getting stronger will also improve your ability to move faster – beneficial for more power-based, explosive movements (like Olympic lifting).

This session will also improve the efficiency of your fast-twitch muscle fibres (those responsible for lifting heavy and fast), and will improve your neuromuscular efficiency (your ability to turn on a very high percentage of your muscle fibres).

Part A should feel very fast, like you’re not limited by the weight. Part B should be very difficult, to the point where you can only just maintain the tempo through all reps. It should feel like you’re having to fight gravity to control the speed of descent and maintain the five second lower. In part C, the aim should be to last the full minute at each weight, so you may have to pace the reps, particularly in the first and second minutes.

Part A should feel very fast, like you’re not limited by the weight. Part B should be very difficult, to the point where you can only just maintain the tempo through all reps. It should feel like you’re having to fight gravity to control the speed of descent and maintain the five second lower. Part C should be extremely difficult and uncomfortable, and will be in equal parts limited by strength, stamina and cardiorespiratory endurance.

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The preference with scaling for this is to keep the range of motion and reduce weight. Modify around injuries with exercises as close as possible to the stimulus of the movement you’re modifying.

Going too heavy in part A, or not using bands (when indicated).

In the tempo work, the most common mistake is counting the seconds instead of using a timer. Always use a timer for tempo work.

​In part C, the most common mistake is resting too long between weights. The weight change should be very fast, ideally, with the weights being changed by a spotter.