Bands and chains and shit.

Lol,

I like squatting with chains as it hits me right at my sticking point, and generally what I squat with weight and chains and I can free squat.

I use chains on bench as well, and really like them.

They're also very good for me on deadlifts as they kick in right where my sticking point is.

I don't use bands very often, I find them very hard on the hips for the squat, and a nightmare to unrack

In general, whatever I can do with chains and weight, I can do the total top weight straight weight. Sometimes I'll use them before a meet so I don't have to get as fired up and save my CNS for the meet.

How do you program them in your routine?

hey man, I can't really describe how I programmed them into my routine, for bench I did a whole smolov bench cycle one time with chains and it was awesome.

for squats when a meet is getting close I just throw on chains and max out, same for pulls.

Hope that helps.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm about to add them into my sheiko routine here and there, as I was struggling to find a way to use boards, but my chains weigh 45lbs, so I'm going to throw them on, and subtract 45 from the weights I'm supposed to use, and just do my reps with that.

I just can't figure out my lockout on bench, I keep trying to "pec" it up, but I think simply bringing some awareness to the issue and just trying to lock my elbows sooner on all my sets is going to go the longest way... boards and chains probably can't hurt though, lol.

My training from last night.

Not thrilled about my depth, some of them were a little high, some of them were in.

I was having a really tough time with my left hip, and I'm going to come up with a new strategy to overcome this, as my current one isn't working. After this workout, I had sciatica so bad I could barely stand.

Overall, all the weights moved very well, and I'm happy with that, my work capacity is really coming along, next month 515 max, month after 535, month after 555, then I might peak and try to hammer a 550+ squat. I think it's a good plan.

With the front squats did you say you like them to be 75-80% of your BS? Is just under 2/3s really bad?

My front squat is 85% of my back squat, 525 BS and 445 FS, but I have short-ish legs and very strong quads.

66% isn't bad at all, you may just have uber long legs that makes front squatting really tough, but I would personally just focus on your front squat for a bit and you'll find you get out of the hole much easier, as well as get your deadlifts off the floor much easier.

Hope that helps.

What fed do you plan to compete in? Suited, only knee wraps, or raw?

Since you care about squat depth a lot, I would say that could get into trouble at IPF meets. It's borderline depth I would say.

I'm in a similar situation. I have borderline IPF depth but would rather have a true "no-doubt-about-it IPF depth".