Big up to the bulgarian split squat with kettle/dumbells from here as well. One of the best movements available.
Imho a step-up loaded with DBs is also worthy for glute, ham and quad strengthening.
If the only way I could do a heavy squat and dead lift was by using a smith machine, I would still use the smith machine. And make sure I do lots of hip mobility on the side, not everyone has access to regular squat racks or the luxury of a gym at home.
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To play devil’s advocate, how much strength do you really need to ride a bicycle?
Say you do single leg dead lifts with the kettle bells. If 6 reps is all you can do with a couple of 40lb bells, for example, then 6 is all you can do and that’s a “heavy” lift for that exercise.
Is it the same motor unit demand? No, because it’s not the same total mass that you’re trying to move. But then again, 6 reps to cooked is 6 reps to cooked, and that’s still going to help you on the bike, unless you’re a track sprinter.
and don’t go to “coocked”
Training to failure is not the way to go. Go heavy, keep reps in reserve. Do more sets
I feel you. A lot of good responses here. For me, strength is 100% my biggest limiter. That being said, I think really anything will help me out at this point. I will definitely take some of the advice here, might mix in a smith machine heavy squat every now and then but definitely going to look into some of the other alternatives mentioned.
At the end of the day, it will only be ~10 weeks or so doing these heavy lifts for me. After that I won’t be using the smith anyways and switch to something better for the strength maintenance phase.
Thanks all, would love to hear more opinions. A lot of good advice so far.