HOW LOW CAN
YOU
GO?
Following presses are barbell
squats in the power rack.
“Because they’re totally different
movements with different
mechanics, I’ll start off light again
to warm up the joints and knees,”
Williams says. That means a plate
on each side for 135 pounds for
12 to 15 reps.
From there, he adds 90 pounds
per set, while the reps naturally
decrease over anywhere from
four to seven sets. “I’ll top out at
five to seven plates [495 to 675
pounds] per side, depending on
how I feel that day,” he says. “The
most I’ve ever done with six plates
is 16 reps, but I’ll try to go as high
as I can. If it’s six or seven plates,
I’m aiming for six or seven good
reps out of that. If I go up to eight
plates, I’ll try for at least two to
three reps.”
No matter how long he goes,
his form remains firm, as he
drops his hips downward to
reach a thighs-parallel-with-the-
floor position while keeping his
core flexed, feet flat on the floor,
and eyes focused forward.
HACK SQUAT
TWOFER
The hack squat apparatus is
the next stop. Here, the Pompton
Lakes, NJ, resident—who has a
computer science degree from
Long Island University—often takes
a different approach, combining
wide-stance and close-stance
variations into one superset.
“We shot this workout at Bev’s
Powerhouse in Syosset, NY,
where the hack platform was
narrow, so I stepped off to both
sides of the machine for the wider
stance,” he says. “Wherever I’m
training, I try to get a feel for my
body and how comfortable I can
get, so sometimes that means
stepping off, and sometimes I can
keep my feet on the plate in the
wider stance.”
In any case, he begins with
10 reps of one stance, then racks
the sled and immediately switches
to the other, trying to push out
at least eight to 10 more reps
before failure terminates the
effort. “I do this when I’m chasing
the pump,” he says. “It adds more
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FLEX | MARCH ’18
SQUAT
overall volume to the workout.”
Here, it’s three sets total, sticking
with three to four plates per side
throughout instead of pyramiding
upward.
EXTENDING
THE PAIN
To finish off his quads, Williams
returns to where he began, the
leg extension machine, for some
two-leg extensions. Sliding the
pin in next to a high number near
the bottom of the stack, he goes
four rounds of 20 reps each,
with a brief 20-second rest in
between each set.
To gash a few more lines
of new detail into his billowing
quads, he’ll tack on three sets
of dumbbell walking lunges,
20 total steps per set. He errs
on the side of caution here,
grabbing the 50s, sometimes
the 60s at the heaviest. “I don’t
understand why some guys try
to lunge with bigger dumbbells
than that,” he says. “Lunges are
a tricky movement—one false
step and you can get injured.”
A GAMUT
OF CURLS
With quads in the books,
Williams turns to hamstrings. On
Saturdays, hams are the focal