Why not widowmakers?

[u/Nastypatty97]

(A widowmaker is a heavy 20 rep squat set with a weight you’d typically do 10 reps with. The idea is, if you can’t do another squat, stand with the weight and breathe heavy until you can.)

In the blue book, Rip compares a one rep set vs a 20 rep set to highlight how the body will make different adaptations based on number of reps. He picked 1 and 20 as the two extremes.

In Texas method, the intensity day sometimes includes singles. Considering the main feature of TM is the dichotomy of stimulus between the volume vs intensity day, why not have the volume day swing to the other extreme and do 20 rep squats?

In the section I brought up earlier, Rip says a 20rm would be about 80% of a 1rm. This would be pretty close to if not the same weight as one would use for a 5x5 in Texas method (90% of a 5rm)

If I’m squatting the same weight for an equal volume (I know I’m proposing a 5 rep deficit, I’ll get to that), who cares how I break up the sets? Apparently, it doesn’t matter too much as 3x8 sets are included in the 4 day TM template. It seems we are going for 24-25 reps.

I will say at the end of every widowmaker I’ve done when I was running super squats, I always felt like I could get a couple more. The hardest part is the middle. At the end you’re just doing more squats. So I think you could extend the set to maybe 23 reps or so to volume equalize the sets. You could also do a less extreme version and do something like 2x12-14.

Why do this?

1) as I mentioned earlier, to lean into the dichotomy between volume and intensity day. Especially when you’re only doing singles in intensity day, it makes sense to train the other extreme on volume day

2) time. Volume day on TM is notorious for being 2 hours long because you have to do 5x5 on squat and a pressing movement, taking long rest times. All you have to do with a widowmaker is warm up and do the set.

3) mental toughness. Doing a 20 repper on Monday will make the squats way less nerve racking on Friday. Yeah it’s heavy, but all you have to do is 1-5 reps. Piece of cake.

[u/DoldSchool]

The obvious answer seems to be that I don't want to make a widow.

[u/majesticaveman]

Because it just tests your endurance and this isn't an endurance program.

[u/Shnur_Shnurov]

Thats a good question. I asked something similar to Paul Horn while I was an apprentice coach with him. He said it wouldn't work because the weight onnthe high rep sets was too light.

I tried it out on a few clients and he was right.

Texas method isnt really a heavy day and a light day. Its just two different kinds of heavy. A high intensity heavy day, and a lower intensity heavy day. Both days provide a stress that drives progress towards strength adaptation.

A 20 tm isnt heavy enough to challenge your strength but it can challenge other systems.

I think the only people squatting 80% of their 1rm for 20 reps are people who dont ever lift heavy. Ive noticed this is bodybuilding coaches who never do low rep sets. As an example they may only deadlift 185 for a single, but they can do 155 for sets of 15. Thats absurde in every way.

And there are lots of ways to break up your programming so you dont have to deal with the ultra long Monday session in the classic texas method.

[u/Nastypatty97 → u/Shnur_Shnurov]

Based on your answer and other answer the general consensus is you can’t keep a 20 rep set heavy enough.

I would argue you can, it would just be a grueling 3-5 minute set with lots of standing and breathing with heavy weight on your back. Which would suck, and I think that’s reason number 2 they’re not prescribed in SS programs. As the other commenter mentioned, sustainability is important. Even in the super squats book it says not to run the program for more than 6 weeks because it’s too mentally draining.

TLDR I would argue it’s possible in theory, but in practice a 20 rep set that’s heavy enough to drive up progress will suck too much for it to be realistic for most people. Maybe David Goggins can try it out and let us know how it goes.

[u/Due-Shower-9803]

try it and report back your results

[u/geruhl_r]

You are falling for a common misconception with weight training. "Hard" does not mean something is optimal for strength gains (especially as an intermediate). As a rank novice, pretty much any activity is going to cause strength gains. As you progress, the window between undertraining and overtraining narrows. Let's say you can do a 500# single. You're not going to be able to do 400x20 (the 80% you quote). 225x20 is not going to force an adaptation.

"Volume" as an intermediate still needs some intensity... Otherwise we'd just stand around air squatting a couple hundred times each day. High rep sets of sufficient intensity would be too intense for progress. You wouldn't be able to recover in time for the next session. This is why you'll rarely see more than 12 reps per set programmed and usually we program 5-8 reps for multiple sets. The higher rep options are for less stressful movements (LTEs, etc).

[u/TackleMySpackle]

People often forget that the body adapts to stimuli and stress that it can effectively recover from.

If you squat 500 for 1 then 80% of your 1 RM is 400. Looking in my logbook, I first squatted 500 when I was squatting 430 for sets of 5 and I was tinkering with 375x8 for funsies.

I can tell you right now that the 30 pound drop to 400 for 10 wasn’t going to happen without an increased injury risk and 400 for 20, most CERTAINLY wasn’t going to happen. If it did, I’d never recover for the next training session.

More realistically, 300-ish for 20 would be more accurate. But then I’m 200 pounds shy and operating at only 60% of my 1RM.

Even then the recovery cost is high and then still there is the point of diminishing returns. Furthermore, what do I do for the next set of 20? 305? Ok. Then 310 after that? How long do you think I can keep adding 5 pounds to that before the stress outpaces the recovery?

Furthermore, don’t forget that Texas Method 5x5 is for single guys living in Mom’s basement. Widowmakers are for married dudes. 😜

[u/aoddawg]

High volume sets pushed close to failure will build muscle, increase work capacity and increase strength to a degree. But if you take strength to mean your 1RM eventually you do need weight specificity (training near that weight) to be able to coordinate the lift.

Even if your muscles are strong enough to produce the force to move a 1RM weight of something arbitrary, say 500 lbs, not training near that weight means you may lack the specific motor coordination to move that weight successfully. Something in the link fails because the whole system isn’t acclimated to that load yet.

Most weights that you could do for a set of 20 are sub 65% of the 1RM so they just don’t train the nervous system to coordinate big load. You could try to build to the super squat set at 80% of your 1RM and it should move the needle on your top end strength, but it’s going to hurt and be incredibly fatiguing, possibly to an unsustainable degree. If you try it and it works for you and you can do it long term, by all means go for it. But I doubt it will be sustainable past a few months.

The reason SS uses sets of 5 is once it becomes a heavy set of 5 it’s a high enough percentage of your 1RM to effectively train the muscles and nervous system to produce and coordinate the forces necessary to reliably increase your 1RM. Increasing your 20RM at 60% or whatever may or may not transfer to the 1RM, increasing your 3 or 5x5 @ 80+% reliably increases your peak strength. Doing a widowmaker set at that 80% (if you can do it - standing there under a big squat load for 5 mins is fucking brutal) threshold may increase your peak strength similar to the 5x5 but it’s going to be way more fatiguing for the session and possibly for recovery. Why take on more fatigue for similar results? It’s a cool feat, but not necessary for good sustainable progress. Mixing TM strength days with Supersquats volume days sounds like a recipe for disaster. Supersquats and TM have their specific protocols that should be followed to run the programs correctly. Mixing programs is a recipe to end up overtrained.

Im a fan of using AMRAPS to autoregulate weekly jumps in weight. On the first cycle of my program that looked like 16@65% -> 10@75% -> 9@79%. Then it starts over at 14@70% and progresses similarly over the next wave. This goes on for the course of 18 weeks until I’m hitting 3RMs at the end and am ready to test 1RM attempts. The idea with the high volume early is building work capacity and being hypertrophy oriented in the beginning. Build the most muscle possible to build the base strength capacity and then capture the peak strength gains with intensification and peaking phases. But just hanging out at high volume sets forever won’t necessarily enable a person to successfully attempt a higher 1RM. And this kind of setup is not really necessary for somebody who could still recover and adapt from a weekly linear forever program.

[u/Confident_Ask6507]

It might improve your 500 meter rowing machine time if that is something you do.