Commentary: Wannabe Gym-Rats Idolizing Inefficient, Relatively Weak Gym-Rats
Updated: 2022-07-25- By: Dr. Floyd
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Video Title: Chris Bumstead Squatting 6 Plates On The Smith Machine (ATG)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJdV5WNyvHQ
Analysis:
Lifting heavy outside of a smith machine is just a dangerous waste of time–sold to the kind of ignorant people who wrongly think "touch your chest" (bench), "ass to grass" (squats), and "lock out completely" (pulls), etc. are healthy or necessary, or even objective standards. They are not. At all.
As to heavy squats: they are for power and stability. There is absolutely no good reason to squat freestanding, to depth, with anything close to your max. For that matter: if you are squatting to depth, then there is no way you are squatting anywhere near your max.
For those just starting out, or trying to find yourself after years of plateaus: you can take my advice to the bank for no less than two reasons.
First, I grew up a relatively regular, pretty-thin guy (6'2", 155lbs) through most of my early teens), with a consistent interest in fitness: martial arts, basketball, and then–beginning at 15–weight training. Long story short: after about 20 years of focusing on patient consistency and proper movement and food, I was benching and squatting 7 plates (675) for reps, and deadlifting 8 plates (765) for reps. Yes, it was all in a smith machine, and no it was never to "full" (foolish) depth.
Second, if all the gym-obsessed peacocks had the right advice about strength, fitness, and health–then, to say the least, you would not see plenty of them dropping dead in their relative youth after torturing their organs with synthetic hormones to boost the results of their poor lifting habits.
Speaking of my bench: I did it this certain way that I had never seen anyone else do it (back in the early 2000s). But a few years back I saw that there is a guy on YouTube (some former world champion bencher) who is teaching the same way that I cam up with for myself. It is a hinge movement that helps to recruit your traps and lats for the bench. Look into that (and my #1 pro-tip: eccentric contraction)–and ignore the bad advice of three- and four-plate (and even five- and six-plate) guys who will be stuck in their high school glory days until they die.
Meanwhile, on a different but somewhat related note: I never went to high school–and, in fact, 2nd grade was the highest I ever completed before getting my GED while locked up as a teen (where I first started lifting especially heavy, after about a year of lifting at all). Yet here I am: double-doctorate (and mastered up too), and full a memories of a decade ago, when I was pushing 7 plates (and pulling 8). Moral of the story: careful. Countless people are all lying to you about what is necessary to achieve great results.
–Dr. Floyd