has anyone here trained Smolov?

Words like "progressive" and "deficit" are considered technical?

Enjoy learning from Insanity

The point Richie is making which is 100% correct is that a slow weight loss with a decent diet / excercise routine will make you lose weight and more likely to maintain it.

Insanity is good but it is unlikely to be something you will keep up with after your 72 days or whatever it is.

Insanity is just the excercise equivalent of a fad diet. Starts off really well and then it will fall by the wayside.

It might be great for 22 year olds who want to lose some weight have no stressful jobs, kids or other commitments but is useless for those who are middle aged with dodgy knees and a stressful daily life.

......and of course it will work, but in an untrained individual, anything will work.......for a while.

Just eat cals 20% below your TDEE and lift heavy stuff to maintain/increase muscle mass. Or watch DVDs you saw on an infomercial

the cal train wrote:has anyone here trained Smolov? It's a bit extreme! I think you can squat more often than people think though, and recover faster than upper body work enables. My squat strength has really progressed since I added a third day a week of "practice" squats: just 60kg (my 1RM would be >160kg) for sets of 10, sitting right down into them lower than a normal squat. My other days involve working at 10-12 and 4-8 rep ranges by the way. If you're interested in something that involves that kind of volume, have a read of this http://rugbystrengthcoach.com/front-squat/

the cal train wrote:has anyone here trained Smolov? It's a bit extreme! I think you can squat more often than people think though, and recover faster than upper body work enables. My squat strength has really progressed since I added a third day a week of "practice" squats: just 60kg (my 1RM would be >160kg) for sets of 10, sitting right down into them lower than a normal squat. My other days involve working at 10-12 and 4-8 rep ranges by the way. If you're interested in something that involves that kind of volume, have a read of this http://rugbystrengthcoach.com/front-squat/

Thanks so much for the contributions guys / girls, enjoying reading them.
On a personal note, have only lost another 2-3 pounds, but am enjoying exercise now more than I have in ages. Variation has definitely been the key to that. I did wonder if I was making a costly mistake by doing yoga and tai chi at home to a DVD rather than under the supervision of an instructor (ie risk of injury) but so far so good.

Have now used up (+ ditched) all health supplements now. Going totally with my blender and nutrition.

Glad I bought the kettlebell. Thankfully it wasn't a five-minute wonder and is not now gathering dust, pretty enjoyable to do, and arms definitely feel a bit more toned for a start.

Richie wrote:It's a bit extreme! I think you can squat more often than people think though, and recover faster than upper body work enables. My squat strength has really progressed since I added a third day a week of "practice" squats: just 60kg (my 1RM would be >160kg) for sets of 10, sitting right down into them lower than a normal squat. My other days involve working at 10-12 and 4-8 rep ranges by the way. If you're interested in something that involves that kind of volume, have a read of this http://rugbystrengthcoach.com/front-squat/ decent article that, decided to just dive into smolov and liking it so far. I agree about squatting more often, even when I'm super sore, after a bit of rower and some stretches/foam roller I'm usually good to go

Richie wrote:It's a bit extreme! I think you can squat more often than people think though, and recover faster than upper body work enables. My squat strength has really progressed since I added a third day a week of "practice" squats: just 60kg (my 1RM would be >160kg) for sets of 10, sitting right down into them lower than a normal squat. My other days involve working at 10-12 and 4-8 rep ranges by the way. If you're interested in something that involves that kind of volume, have a read of this http://rugbystrengthcoach.com/front-squat/ decent article that, decided to just dive into smolov and liking it so far. I agree about squatting more often, even when I'm super sore, after a bit of rower and some stretches/foam roller I'm usually good to go

Smolov update, 25kg PR from the base cycle alone. Probably more like 20 but I made sure to start with a realistic 1RM input that I could get to full depth with every time. Strength in my hips/glutes has skyrocketed.

Back to the diet theme. I'm now investigating the GAPS diet. I've started to ferment a load of cabbage and other vegetables and am aiming to start once they are in a state of readiness. Has anyone else tried this?

Back to the diet theme. I'm now investigating the GAPS diet. I've started to ferment a load of cabbage and other vegetables and am aiming to start once they are in a state of readiness. Has anyone else tried this?

Smolov has worked well for loads of people by all accounts and loads of top level powerlifters use high volume to great effect. I would imagine you have to be careful how much deadlifting you do alongside this or you may burn out or get injured. Paused squats and beltless squatting is working well for me at the mo. If i can get stronger without a belt and doing paused reps when i put a belt on i will see a bump in numbers on the top end. That is the plan at the moment anyway. Again though this is down to the individual. I can squat twice a week but have to be careful with the volume or my hips start to grumble. And as another poster put kettlebells are brilliant. Snatches, Clean and jerks, various swings, push presses, squats and thrusters are all fantastic exercises and kettlebells are relatively cheap to buy and take up little space. A great way to do some resistance training whilst working the heart too. A 12kg, 16kg and 20kg bell set is a great investment.