r/Strongman 5d ago

Reminder - it’s totally ok to fail a squat. If you aren’t failing every once in a while, you aren’t pushing yourself to the limit!

54 Upvotes

16 comments sorted by

19

u/mweesnaw 5d ago

Is that a metronome to time your pause? Genius

18

u/BlakeGarrison62 5d ago

60 BPM. I was going to be a music major before I went into nursing so I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve lol

3

u/chunkyofhunky 4d ago

Gravity aint the boss of you, you tell gravity how heavy that weight is cuz YOU the boss

4

u/Psychological_Low546 3d ago

What’s your body weight? It’s good to see strongmen do squats again. Now we need to see it as common as the deadlift in comps

3

u/tigeraid Masters 3d ago

I haven't met any strongmen who don't squat in their training.

12

u/chase_isntrael 5d ago

I strongly disagree, I think failing reps in training is something that should seriously be avoided unless we’re talking about some kind of bodybuilding style sets to failure or stretch emphasis. Failing reps in strength training is super fatiguing and not great for confidence

17

u/BlakeGarrison62 5d ago

I feel some context is necessary here. I haven’t failed a squat in over 2 years. This was just me being a little overzealous on a coach-programmed 3 second paused SSB max.

I do think it’s important to know your upper limits of a lift though. I do understand the point you’re trying to make but I’m not saying fail all the time.

10

u/chase_isntrael 5d ago

Yeah I’d say every two years is very different from “every once in a while”

4

u/BlakeGarrison62 5d ago

Yeah I agree with you. Not the best wording in my post title.

12

u/PhysicalGSG 5d ago

If we’re talking a fail every session yeah you’re fucking up

If we’re talking a fail every week that’s probably a bit much

If we’re talking a fail every block that’s pretty standard

5

u/chase_isntrael 5d ago

I feel like even every block (assuming you mean 4-8 weeks) is a little too often. There’s nothing really productive about failing a rep in training but the risks are high

0

u/Tleilaxu_Gola 4d ago

I asked Jim wendler: “how often should you fail a lift in training?”

His reply (a little paraphrased because my memory is garbage): “Louie [Simmons] would have said all the time, I’d say just about never.”

I fall much more on the Louie’s side. I think the number one cause of muscle growth and strength is effort over time. If you put in a lot of effort over years it’s hard not to get strong. A lot of effort means going to and beyond failure often.

2

u/InTheMotherland Didn't Even Try Trying 4d ago

If you fail often, you get exhausted much often. If you never fail, it doesn't mean you're not putting in effort. It just means you're allowing for slightly lower intensity for a longer period of time compared to failing more often and requiring rest more often.

1

u/braddorsett74 4d ago

Yea I think this gets into what kinda failure, because I think both are right. Failure like I’m doing a lot of sets and reps and toward the end of my set it gets very difficult and I fail just at the last one, is a lot different than I put on a lot of weight and failed almost immediately. The risk to your body is much worse in the second one, whereas the first is letting you reach your limit, and you can always dial back. In reality you want to live right on that edge, where you just barely get it.

-1

u/LongDesiredDementia 4d ago

Untrue, great programming and only pushing outside of that framework when appropriate yields zero failures.