Ok guys, I have “finished” my 8-7-6-5 cycle BUT I haven’t even reached my stagnation step. I had to stop it because of injury (my right leg is all injured, with pain in the Achilles’ tendon, ankle, knee and hip). It’s not because of squatting but because of some awkward jumps I did a few weeks back when it all started.

Anyway, even in this situation, I managed to improve my all time squat 8RM by 5 kg. Meaning, the best I could ever squat for 8 reps was 110 kg (242 lbs) and I managed to squat 115 kg (253 lbs) for 8-7-6-5 a week ago when I decided to stop the cycle because of the injuries. I have no idea if I would’ve been able to increase even further, as I haven’t reached my stagnation in this cycle, but decided to stop because the knee was bothering me and I was training for way too long for strength and neglecting the fat levels and reactive ability.

Now that it’s warm outside, just perfect for track training, I decided to switch strength to maintenance and work on lowering my body fat levels (which are at about 16-17% by the way) and when I’m done with them (I want to lose about 6-7 kg of fat if possible) I will train for reactive ability and jumping skill more.

Anyway, the point was that the 8-7-6-5 works and works good, at least for me. And it always seems like nothing ever works for me so that should tell how efficient this has been. It is very demanding though, and you need good nutrition and good recovery, also being offseason so you can only focus on strength, for it to work.

Good luck!