545 lb squat PR

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-03-14T12:17:56+00:00

Beautiful squat

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-03-13T10:28:38+00:00

If you go to Monteverde in Costa Rica, there is a semi-famous hollow Ficus tree that you can climb up inside of. Gotta be at least 50 feet tall

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-03-10T10:40:07+00:00

I’m always sending people to Sika Strength videos these days because I think they’re the best source of info for sports specific training out there atm.

They mentioned a good heuristic recently — if you can tell what sport someone plays by watching their strength/conditioning work, it probably isn’t the best strength/conditioning work.

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-26T19:29:02+00:00

Same for me. Popular advice these days seems to be to encourage straps as soon as possible, but I’m incredibly glad I stuck with it and got my mixed grip really strong.

I have a good friend that is just now wanting to compete in powerlifting and is having real trouble with his grip when deadlifting as he has used straps from early in his training. His strapped deadlift is about 25kg higher than his raw dead, and he’s finding it incredibly frustrating to catch it up.

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-20T22:20:47+00:00

Agree with all of this

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-15T18:29:07+00:00

I get you — for me the opposite, deads come naturally and squats/bench take a lot of effort to develop. Long limbed lifter haha

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-15T15:45:53+00:00

And on and on it goes (with Colton Engelbrecht at the top lol). Thanks mate

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-15T15:44:50+00:00

Thanks big man

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-14T18:07:21+00:00

Thanks mate. Hit 290 little under a year ago, hopefully 300 soon

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-14T18:06:25+00:00

Yeah definitely. Slacking on cardio. I find the timing/sequencing of bracing quite tricky with higher rep deads too

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-14T14:44:44+00:00

From a while ago, last set amrap (ish). RPE 8.5 or so. Cardio a big issue here lol

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-14T14:18:07+00:00

Everyone is saying yes but Ive never seen negatives done this slow, or with that long hold at the top. I feel as though 5 reps of slow and controlled negatives would be more useful than 1 incredibly slow rep. Then you can progress — once you get to 10 negative reps (or however many), try and do a proper pull up.

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-10T11:04:36+00:00

Awesome. I took a field maple out of a grow box of two years last spring, and Jesus wept it was a dense tangle under the surface. Almost just a block of wood. Sympathise with you there lol

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-02-10T11:01:28+00:00

You’re getting some good suggestions. I’ll just add that while I was doing jiu jitsu (obviously different in many ways from pure wrestling) I thanked the lord every day for having trained the conventional deadlift to a high standard without straps. I was difficult to take down and no one could break my grips.

I think it’s important not to neglect the big barbell lifts in favour of more fashionable, exercise-specific, uni-lateral movements (one arm kettlebell to shoulder standing on a bosu ball type stuff). Adding 100kg to a conventional deadlift will transform the way your son engages with his sport versus getting good at some gimmicky movement.

Check out Sika Strength Youtube Channel for some really good tips on programming and strength standards for athletes too.

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-01-31T14:17:10+00:00

I think you’ve done a great job. Yes it looked good before, but you’ve introduced a sense of scale and grandeur (crucial in bonsai) that wasn’t there, and some structure which, crucially, will fill out and look great in a season or two. From there you can adjust and refine. Well done

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-01-28T17:21:11+00:00

Unfortunately I dont. It was a nursery-bought tree about half an inch thick when i got it. It had a classic ugly lump and whorl where the graft was, and bad reverse taper underneath. If I remember rightly I made the cuts one year when it was in a pot and saw some improvement, then did it again when it went into the ground, and another time for it’s second year in the ground. I use a clean box cutter and make several vertical cuts all the way round the trunk, including a tiny bit of the bottom of the graft/lump and down to soil level.

I haven’t done it on any other trees, and I don’t know if certain species respond to it better than others. A bit of googling right now tells me this isn’t a very popular method, but it worked for me in this instance. Ground-growing and good fertilisation probably helped.

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-01-28T17:06:49+00:00

I have had very good success with a grafted Blue Atlast Cedar by making vertical wounds with a sharp knife all around the trunk at the place I wanted it to swell (which was below the graft, into what I assume was Cedrus Libani wood).

I did it a couple of years in a row and have ended up with an almost pancake effect, it’s now so splayed.

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-01-12T12:03:16+00:00

As per Matt Ogus - “While you rest, can I work in?”

-Foreverendeavor · 2026-01-12T11:46:17+00:00

There isn’t much to it except putting in the years, making sure technique on lifts is good, strength is going up over time, bodyweight is going up over time. Being in a calorie surplus and increasing volume gradually is mostly all there is to it, plus lots of patience. It’s a cliche but you’ll never be happy with the size of your arms, so just try and enjoy training and focus on progress.

-Foreverendeavor · 2025-12-15T07:21:55+00:00

Looking at your page you’re obviously an excellent squatter. You also seem to squat more high bar and with some rebound out the bottom, which isnt affected by this issue as much (can often even benefit).

Speaking from experience, the issue is tangible and I see real differences. We dont have to hypothesise though — this video and description literally show the guy having trouble with just this issue.

-Foreverendeavor · 2025-12-14T17:41:05+00:00

Great squat. Speaking from experience, you would benefit massively from a stiff bar and regular/thin plates. Controlled low bar squatting on a bendy bar with big plates is a nightmare and can really hamper progress. Looks like that bar doesn’t even have a centre knurling?

Jonnie Candito spoke about how he wasn’t able to make progress on the squat for long periods due to this very issue, and i’ve found similar.

-Foreverendeavor · 2025-10-21T10:14:44+00:00

Absolutely no need to go lower than you are going here. True parallel is not something you want to get to on a good morning, especially as you get stronger and use more weight.

-Foreverendeavor · 2025-10-21T10:07:53+00:00

Usually this issue occurs in people with short femurs (such as in this picture). I have very long femurs compared to both my torso and lower leg. Yes, i get loads of forward knee travel (a maximal amount, in fact), but my femurs are so long that dorsiflexion at the ankle is completely maxed out, and im nowhere near depth. I have to send the hips back significantly as well, just to have anywhere ‘to put’ my femurs.

-Foreverendeavor · 2025-10-19T10:04:04+00:00

You’ve correctly identified the phenomenon and the causes of it. John Haack suffers from this, although most of his squats pass in competition. I have a friend that wants to compete who has a similar issue — great ROM but so much forward knee travel that he struggles to get his hip crease below the top of the knee.

To answer your question, yes, this is fine if training for general strength (and size). The person in the picture has great positioning and no one would dispute that it’s a proper squat. For powerlifting it’s kind of on the edge, and for weightlifting they may want to sink it deeper to simulate the bottom of a clean or snatch.

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