Smolov Jr. requirements?

[Technick]

Hey S&C,
I'm on my 4th month of 5/3/1 and plan on sticking to it for a good while (as long as progress continues), but I have another Smolov question. The Smolov Jr. 3-4 week cycle looks like it would well with the structure of 5/3/1 (not at the same time of course), so one could take a month "off" of 5/3/1 and run Smolov Jr. in the same amount of time as one of the "waves" of 5/3/1 and then pick 5/3/1 back up after the Jr. cycle. I have already asked what the baseline requirement (squat 1rm in lbs) to run the full Smolov cycle and the response was this: if you can squat 1.5xBW or 300 lbs AND have solid form then you should be able to complete the cycle (barring injury, which seems to be common). So are these requirements the same for the 3 week "Jr" program as well? I have looked through STTD's log and noticed that he has run multiple Jr cycles, just wondering when would be a good time to ad this into the mix.
Thanks.

 

[Tosa]

At a time when stress from other parts of your life is low, you expect you'll be able to get plenty of sleep, and eat plenty of good food. Also, you should already be used to training with decent volumes and have good work capacity.

 

[Technick]

So, do you think you could run a cycle of Jr. with my weak 230ish lb back squat?

 

[Technick]

Or continue to wait until my Squat hits the 300lb mark?

 

[SlaveToTheDark]

Smolov Jr. is for the bench press

you do the regular Smolov for the squat, but i recommend that you do just the base cycle (those 3 weeks)

and don't run it yet
you can make a lot more progress before

 

[belph]

Smolov Jr. is for the bench press

you do the regular Smolov for the squat, but i recommend that you do just the base cycle (those 3 weeks)

and don't run it yet
you can make a lot more progress before

if i ever feel like doing zercher squats again my PR is around 300 can i do smolov ?

 

[Tosa]

Smolov Jr. works for any compound lift.

 

[SlaveToTheDark]

if i ever feel like doing zercher squats again my PR is around 300 can i do smolov ?

why would you do a special program for zercher squats?

 

[SlaveToTheDark]

Smolov Jr. works for any compound lift.

i like the rep/set scheme of the regular Smolov's base cycle better for the squat

 

[Technick]

Smolov Jr. is for the bench press

you do the regular Smolov for the squat, but i recommend that you do just the base cycle (those 3 weeks)

and don't run it yet
you can make a lot more progress before

Thanks for the responses. Sorry STTD, I misunderstood and thought Jr. and Base (mesocycle?) were the same things! I was talking about the base cycle then. I was looking at running it towards the end of summer as I have to take all of the summer off of BJJ and figure this would be a good time d/t recovery. Just thought it would be impossible to attempt this along with BJJ, but I appriciate your input and will tuck this routine away for later when it is more appropriate.

 

[SlaveToTheDark]

yeah, it's pretty hard
so you shouldn't do like anything besides that
but if you find 3 weeks for that, you won't regret it!

 

[LitteringAnd]

Smolov Jr. works for any compound lift.

What about deadlift? I know you said any compound lift so I'm lead to believe that the answer is yes, but I see alot of people doing deadlift with lower volume and longer recovery.

 

[SlaveToTheDark]

What about deadlift? I know you said any compound lift so I'm lead to believe that the answer is yes, but I see alot of people doing deadlift with lower volume and longer recovery.

i was thinking of trying it for the dl, but i'm still not sure...

the numbers don't look really difficult, but the deadlift is pretty hard on the cns

so i have no idea how would 4 times of deadlifting per week look like...

 

[Tosa]

i like the rep/set scheme of the regular Smolov's base cycle better for the squat

Fair enough. The point was the Smolov Jr. isn't just for bench, not to compare Smolov Jr. with regular Smolov for squats. I think Smolov Jr. for squats would be a good idea if someone wasn't sure they were up to full smolov. Plenty of people don't complete smolov, and it would be better to do Smolov Jr. and complete it, rather than do regular Smolov and not finish.

What about deadlift? I know you said any compound lift so I'm lead to believe that the answer is yes, but I see alot of people doing deadlift with lower volume and longer recovery.

Smolov Jr. can be done for any compound lift, including deadlifts. That doesn't mean that any, or even most people, can do Smolov Jr. for any compound lift. I think if someone had great leverages, technique and recovery, and used a modest training max, that they could do smolov Jr. for deadlifts. Especially if they pulled sumo.

 

[SlaveToTheDark]

Fair enough. The point was the Smolov Jr. isn't just for bench, not to compare Smolov Jr. with regular Smolov for squats. I think Smolov Jr. for squats would be a good idea if someone wasn't sure they were up to full smolov. Plenty of people don't complete smolov, and it would be better to do Smolov Jr. and complete it, rather than do regular Smolov and not finish.

i just call the Smolov Jr. the bench routine since i always do it for the bench

but the reason why people don't do the full smolov is the risk/profit ratio...
you usually gain much less from the intense phase than from the base cycle and the intense phase is much, much harder...
a lot of people get injured during it and it's just not worth the risk...


the reason i wouldn't do the smolov jr. for the squat is coz there isn't a real hypertrophy day
4x9 in the base cycle is much harder than the 6x6 in the smolov jr. imo

i mean, 9 reps with 70% of your max is way more difficult than 6
nevermind the sets since you can rest all you want...

 

[belph]

why would you do a special program for zercher squats?

anything to make that lift go up,essentially i love zercher squats almost as much as the snatch :icon_twis pun intended. it will be another month till i get a squat rack too. another reason would be i believe zerchers are the main reason i back squatted 225 on my first try.

 

[SlaveToTheDark]

anything to make that lift go up,essentially i love zercher squats almost as much as the snatch :icon_twis pun intended. it will be another month till i get a squat rack too. another reason would be i believe zerchers are the main reason i back squatted 225 on my first try.

oooh
i didn't know that you don't have a squat rack
in that case, why not...

 

[belph]

oooh
i didn't know that you don't have a squat rack
in that case, why not...

yeah it sucks ass. i'l be reading on smolov later and hopfully start soon, i feel like crying.

 

[chia]

I would never do it for the deadlift but for squat, bench or press I think it would work great.

I'm running it right now for both squat and bench. I wouldn't say there's really any requirements other than a big set of balls. But I'm only one week in so I may eat my words later. We'll see.

Either program is probably more difficult for an advanced lifter.

 

[Jake Pudenz]

I know a guy who ran it for the deadlift and I am pretty sure he ended up tearing his hamstring pretty badly. He told me that all of his gains that we made were very short term.