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April 11, 2005
How to Add a Hundred Pounds to Your Squat
Forget your hamstring striations and quad separations, and add a hundred pounds to your squat, even if it kills you! Forget the pump and train like a weightlifting champion. A powerful technique you are about to learn, will help you to achieve squatting greatness in the shortest time possible by conditioning your nervous system to the peak of performance.
Robert Roman used to conquer gold for the Soviet Empire on the weightlifting platform. Today he is a top coach who has trained many young lifters to greatness using his revolutionary methods. Roman is convinced that developing superior sport specific body awareness will make a difference between being good and great!
It is not enough to have muscle, you have got to know how to use it. Soviet experiments revealed that even elite lifters made huge errors in estimating the height of the lift, the magnitude of the force, etc. When special techniques for maximizing what Roman calls the ‘muscle-joint sense’ were developed, the top guys outdid themselves and some unpromising also-rans became world class!
Robert Roman’s sportsmen develop their muscle-joint sense by lifting …blindfolded! Their coach explains that because we so heavily rely on our eyesight, we do not pay enough attention to the various sensations in our muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints. When blindfolded, the lifter is forced to listen to his body. Contrary to what a mirror gazing bodybuilder wants to believe, this tremendously improves the technique and its stability!
Kick off your muscle-joint sense training by getting a pair of blindfolds. Roman does not recommend lifting with your eyes closed because it distracts you from what you are supposed to be doing. Training with the lights turned off may be an effective alternative, but the gym owner might object, at least if he finds you before he stumbles on a dumbell and cracks his head against the Smith machine. So blindfolds it is.
Start squatting light with your eyes open, then cover your eyes. Keep alternating open and shut eye sets or reps, but do not add wheels until you own a given weight, blind. Do not just go through the motions but concentrate on the feedback your body has to offer: muscular tension, joint angles, etc.
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Posted by james at April 11, 2005 6:25 AM