Okay, apparently I’m bad at walking away from things.
I said you don’t need to do a 1RM or anything close to it. 5 reps is not too heavily loaded, especially over a few sets.
And the purpose of the comparison to your athlete was to show that big squat numbers are not required for explosiveness. Sure, your athlete could squat nearly 500 lbs, but could he SLJ 3.1m? I know I’ve never squatted over 400 lbs (@ a BW of 200+) but I’ve SLJed over 10’ on many occasions.
The only point I’ve been trying to make here is that unilateral lifts are a solid alternative to bilateral lifts in terms of strength work. I was using my weak squat, strong unilateral lifts, and SLJ to demonstrate that.
Somehow I managed to increase my SLJ from 8’8" to 10’2" with a crappy squat. That’s all I want to say.