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Is This The Answer?
by Tom Furman
A Goblet is not a Holy Grail, however it can be a tool that has many uses.
When one individual slowly carves a methodology with a tool on one coast and gets great results. It’s a good thing. When a person on the other coast is unknowingly doing the same thing and getting superior results, our ears perk up. That’s what happened. I first read in Easy Strength, by Pavel and Dan John about Mark Toomey’s Goblet Squat program. Mark’s squatting max was around 315 x 5. He could keep it in that range with a Goblet Squat program. Here were the ingredients.
- Every fourth day
- Volume day was 8 to 10 sets of 10 reps
- “Heavy” day was 5 sets of 5 reps
That’s it. Quick and dirty. Adjust the weights when they become “easy” and progress again.
That workout stuck in my head. If someone promises, “something for nothing”, I’m careful to protect my wallet, but I was intrigued.
Here is commentary from the Strongfirst forum by Mark himself on what exactly happened. It’s rather vivid.
“I had struggled to get through 315 on a back squat until I used the goblet squat as part of a continuity of training. Squatting repeatedly in an effort to get over 300 had probably led me to over-training (yes, it’s a problem for…
