I think a lot will be fixed if I can get to the point where I can rest as short between squat sets as I can between my other lifts. It feels like even when I do lighter deadlifts for volume I can still bounce back better between sets. Really, the deadlift feels less stressful and fatiguing in general, even with weight far in excess of my squats that kill me. I will say I do not do volume squats @9, if "@9" means one rep in reserve (I see different explanations of RPE in places, so I'm not sure whether that's what it means). The last time I squatted that intensely as part of a multiple set workout was when I was pushing LP. Despite the conception, I have heard and read various SSCs say grinding, especially on volume, is bad. It does contradict the messaging in other areas of the SS universe (and things I have heard Rip himself say), but it lines up more with what experience has taught me, so it's what I go with. I do relax this a bit with intensity work, and if I end up with a bad grind because of it, I deload the movement and its "partner" lift the following week.CheekiBreekiFitness wrote: ↑Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:44 am For your lower body lifts (as you are currently doing them) what I meant was that, if they generate so much fatigue that you can't complete the rest of the volume that you need to do in order to grow, then it might be a problem. Now I might have been unclear by what I meant by "hypertrophy work", I did not mean that you can't use the squat as hypertrophy work, to the contrary. However there is a difference between doing all of your squatting with sets of 5 at RPE 9 (that's the starting strength approach in a nutshell) and doing a variety of rep ranges, using variants (front squat, high bar squat, ssb squats, belt squats and so on). For instance, doing 5 sets of 10 reps on the high bar squat will certainly be considered hypertrophy work. Would you get hypertrophy if you only did sets of 5@9 on the low bar squat ? For sure, but the fatigue cost might be much higher than using a more balanced approach.
Lower body main lifts generate more fatigue than upper body because of axial loading so this is why fatigue management is more critical. You can do a lot of benching without creating that much fatigue (in all gyms of the world you see bros doing bench press marathons, and they seem ok).
You mention your lower body sessions being too long, it might be your conditioning holding you back. If you increase your conditioning you can rest less and do more work per unit of time, which eventually becomes a necessity when you need high volume to make progress. As much as Starting Strength loves to make fun of bodybuilders, I don't think any of them would survive a bodybuilding style leg day without passing out. Also as far as conditioning is concerned, it does not have to be low intensity cardio: you can do prowler pushes, air bike tabata, sled drags, hill sprints, jumping rope, strongmen medleys etc.
I've tried tabatas on a recumbent bike in the past, I didn't find much help provided with the squatting problems, though they seemed a very time efficient way to do conditioning, work. It's entirely possible I just didn't know how to program the things effectively to generate results. A lot of other options are off the table for me. When I saw one of the gyms I visit had a prowler, I thought "oh cool, that's that thing SS keeps saying is the best for conditioning". Unfortunately, it was a cheap piece of crap that instead of sliding forward along the ground when I pushed it it just flipped over. I had to get into this extremely exaggerated lunge-forward stance to keep the thing from flipping when pushed, and it was doing my ankles no favors. Running of any kind is no good for me, and jumping rope for me is only good for making an audience laugh. I am definitely going to try the advice from here to just condition the squat using...the squat. It'll keep me from advancing on heavy work for a while and might even make me detrain a bit, but I think once I can stop dreading extra long workouts from one single exercise I'll be a lot better off.
