Combining Hepburn's A routine with Anderson's/People's Progressive Motion Training.

[pullmyfinger]

Over the next 8 or 9 months I'm going to apply Doug Hepburn's A routine to Paul Anderson/Bob Peoples style "progressive motion training" for my back squat. (Because I'm curious)

Hepburn's A routine dictates that you start out at 4 singles with your 3 rep max and add a single every 4 days or so until you hit 10 singles. At this point you add a small amount of weight (usually no more than 5 Ibs) and reset to 4 singles, starting the whole cycle over again (takes about 3 weeks if done every 4 days).

Anderson's/People's progressive motion training dictates that you take a load 100 pounds over your max and rep it for 2 sets of 25 reps at 4 inches from lockout (in a power rack off pins). Every few weeks you lower the pins about 3 inches and decrease your reps by about 3. You continue this until you're doing very low reps for a full range of motion.

Last week I started a new squat cycle with Hepburn's A routine (been using it for about a year, really good stuff). This time I quarter squatted a weight about 100 pounds over my max. At the end of this 4-10 single cycle I will lower the pins 1 inch and start again with the same weight. I will continue this until I reach a full range of motion. Given that I'm 11 inches from parallel this will take about 8 to 9 months with my current frequency of training. This is the only leg exercise I am doing besides natural glute/ham raise.

Has anyone done anything or seen anyone do anything similar? Also does anyone have any constructive criticism for this? Right now the only thing I'm worried about is that I will lose all of my strength in the bottom position before I can lower the pins to that level. When I succeed (or fail) I'll likely post a full transcript of my workout log up here somewhere so others can benefit. Might even take some videos of my progress along the way.

 

[J_J]

Sounds like a great idea!

I always am glad to hear about and encourage anyone who is doing heavy partials to help up their max lifts. Go for it man. Just be sure to take an extra day or two off now and then to keep from overtraining. I've surprised myself by seeing how long it can take me to recover from heavy partials with a high workload. I do shit that no one even believes when they hear it or read about it, but I can only do that because I take at least a week off between trips to the gym.

I've experimented going from heavy partials of @ 6 inches on the leg press to doing close to 18 inches on the leg press. I can make the transition from 6 to 18 inches over a couple weeks pretty easily after doing a couple brief sets moving it the longer distance. The next week I really go hard doing the longer distance it feels pretty easy. It seems to take a little getting used to the ligaments and tendons and everything stretching and contracting in order to feel better about doing it the next week. I've done this with 1,000 pounds, but I had worked up to pressing 2,000 pounds for reps in a range of @ 6 inches before experimenting with moving 1,000 pounds a longer distance.

Don't worry about it that much. Its all the same muscles you are using whether you move it 4 inches or 40 inches. Muscles don't deliberate concerning how far you move a weight before deciding to grow larger and stronger. They don't have that ability. If you work with 100 pounds more than your one max rep on the squat then your muscles are going to respond to having worked with 100 pounds more resistance. Period. You just have to stay out of the gym long enough to recover and grow so you can come back and do better the next time.

Go for it and let us know how your progress is going.