[Commander]

I think it is perfectly fine to take a break from the big lifts, as long as you have a good reason to, not just being lazy. I seriously squatted about 63 times in 21 weeks of Smolov, roughly 15 times in 6 weeks or so of Starting Strength. So in the past year, I squatted heavy almost 80 times in 27 weeks. That is what I mean by more heavy squatting than most mortals. So, although I took the last 6 weeks off from squatting, in the other (52-6-27=19) 19 weeks of the year I squatted an average of 1 heavy time per week. That gives me pretty close to 100 heavy squat sessions (DE squat not included) for the past year. I needed to get the bar off my back and get a break. I was hitting a wall.