Have you found beltless squats and pulls to be productive in the context of a good training program? I’ve been writing my own programming for a year now and following what I learned during my time with Mike T at RTS. I’ve been doing my competition lifts during the first half of the week and assistance variants during the second half (usually pause or pin variants). Recently, I decided to try out the beltless variants during the second half of the week and have been noticing a lot of carryover to my comp lifts. The loading is about the same for the pause variants so the absolute stress is lighter despite the relative stress being the same which is good for recovery. How long can one maintain beltless variants in their program from your experience?
We use beltless supplemental movements all the time, and do not find that their use needs to be limited to a specific period of time.
I have a similar question(s) so I’m just adding here instead of making a new post. This is specifically in reference to squatting.
I’m currently prepping for a meet (week 6 of 12 week Strength), and I’ve discovered that my technique for beltless squats feels noticeably different than my competition squats. Specifically, I’ve noticed that when beltless I tend to stay too upright, which messes with my positioning and bar path. I haven’t nailed down why this is happening, yet.
Do you see any harm in belting up for all squat variations for the remainder of the prep?
For the pause and pin variation I was thinking about lengthening the duration of the pause to keep absolute/relative intensity the same as if I were beltless, and for the squat (no belt) variation, I was thinking of dropping all work sets by 1 RPE, again, to keep the same absolute intensity. Correct dose of stress, and all. Is this reasonable, or is it not even necessary?
My reasoning here is that at this point in my training specificity is more important than tinkering with technique, and this will lead to a better performance come meet day. Nuance happily encouraged.
Sorry for the long winded post. Trying to provide context.
As always, thanks for your time.
Dexter
Do you see any harm in belting up for all squat variations for the remainder of the prep?
Nope. In fact, I often have people start belting up for some of their supplemental movements at around 3 weeks out anyway.
I can’t confidently say whether you’d do better with the suggested adjustments or just running things as-is, to be honest. Try it and see how it goes, and learn from it for future training cycles.
Will do. Thanks again Austin.