Smolov Jr Does It Work
Smolov is a Russian Squat routine that will boost your Squat by up to 100lb in only 13 weeks, even if you’re a drug-free lifter like me. Smolov was designed by the Russian Master of Sports Sergey Smolov, but it is Pavel Tsatsouline who popularized this Squat routine by publishing it first in Powerlifting USA (2001) and later in his book “Power to the People Professional” (page 63).
TL;DR 13 weeks of hell in the squat rack yields 60lb increase to my 1 rep max.
Seriously I feel like I need a shirt saying 'I survived Smolov'.
I feel like this might should go to /r/powerlifting but there are a lot more subscribers here and I would probably be preaching to the choir over there. Download kamus bahasa inggris pdf.
[M], [32yrs old], [5'9', 170lbs body weight] (158lbs at start of program)
270lb 1rm squat at beginning of program, 330lb 1rm at end.
EDIT: I also realized that it has officially put me exactly at 1000lbs for my 3 lifts!
EDIT 2: Holy shit my deadlift 1 rep max PR went from 365 (on a good day) to tonight pulling 420. A 55lb increase without ever having touched the bar
Backstory: Severe tendenitis in one of my hands - doc says no upper body lifting for 6~8 weeks. FUUUUUU.jpg Excellent time to start focusing on my legs for a while.
I had been listening to Layne Norton's muscle college radio podcasts
And on one, he mentioned how brutal (but effective) smolov's program was. 13 weeks of hell. Challenge accepted!
After doing some research on what the program was and what to expect, I found this site
and a very useful spreadsheet that calculates all your lifts and days to perform those lifts automatically. I printed it out and pretty much stuck with it the entire time.
It was brutally difficult. there is no getting around that.. especially those days where you're expected to move 80%+ of your 1RM 3 or 4 sets @ 5reps. I had good days where my lifts were pretty easy and I did a bit more afterwards and other days where I had to drop 5~10 lbs to get my reps.
The entire program is based on your 1 rep max and most sites explaining smolov say to use a 1RM that you are comfortable doing. Not that freak lift you manage to do 1 time when all the stars align. That would be setting yourself up for failure. They mean 1 rep max that you can consistently hit regardless of if your eating/sleep/etc wasn't perfect that day.
I kept notes though for a lot of days (mostly days where lifts were very easy or very hard) noting things like how much sleep I got the night before, how was my eating (did I miss a meal?) water intake? Was I mentally in it or not, how was my day at work? Etc. ALL of that can/will affect you when your body is being demanded to perform incredibly difficult lifting.
In terms of upper body work, for that first 8 weeks, I didn't do anything extra but abs and calves. Besides a 5~10 minute warm up on the stationary bike to get some blood flowing to my legs, I did little to no post workout cardio and after 8 weeks, I started to slowly incorporate upper body days back into my routine (staying away from dumbbell workouts that articulate the wrists) until I felt like I was comfortable going full weight on the upper body compounds.
Never deadlifted though. That's one thing every smolov guide says. Deadlifts will tax your lower body to the point where it will hinder recovery on squat days and to be honest, despite me actually trying to do romanian DL's one day, my glutes/hams were so sore from squats, I had to quit before I was even done with my warm up weight.
My eating was relatively clean but as most smolov guides will tell you, you will be burning insane calories during this so you can probably get away with relaxing your diet. I know I did. I started losing weight at first so I slowly started eating more and more clean calories and eventually said to hell with it and ate whatever I felt like eating and when I did that, I noticed a bit more strength and very very little weight gain (roughly 1 lb a week). I had just finished a big cut so I was perfectly comfortable gaining 1lb a week under the assumption that I would be squatting more each week.
I have heard that you CAN do smolov on a cut but I imagine that the gains would be much less significant on a calorie deficit. On the other hand, if you really don't mind not adding much to your squat, you can burn HELLA calories with this program to get shredded in a hurry.
Smolov Jr Does It Work Free
A couple of tips that helped me quite a bit are equipment related. I found GREAT help from a pair of the Rehband knee sleeves. I had to take 1 week off lifting due to what I assume to be some type of tendinitis in my knee or something. It went away after a week and these sleeves helped seem to keep it away for good.
They are sold INDIVIDUALLY so you have to order 2. I made that mistake of just buying one not knowing that : They aren't cheap but they are world renowned for a good reason and from what I gather, you can still wear these and compete in the raw lifting class as they aren't techincally considered wraps.
I also found that a high quality lifting belt helped tremendously with core stabilization. I ended up buying an Inzer lever belt which I absolutely LOVE.
Lastly, shoes. I used to squat in vibrams which I liked because there was no sole to them but in the latter half of the program, I started squatting in my chuck taylors and it seemed to help quiet a bit. I didn't have the cash to buy a pair of the Adidias shoes, which a few of my friends rave about. There are several powerlifting competitors in the gyms I lift at who wear chucks so I didn't worry about it.
So yeah, that's more or less how it went.
If you want a real challenge and want to put on serious size/strength to your squat (pro tip: all your lifts will increase while you're on this program) I highly recommend giving it a shot. Even if you only do the first half of the program, you will see big gains.
One warning though, Please please please make sure your form is perfect on squats or you will risk injury. I've read starting strength cover to cover a couple of times and really hammered away on my form before starting this program and I encourage those considering it to do the same as well.
Questions and comments are welcome.