I lift weights… I put them down

Squats are the King of Exercises. Notice how similar my style is in the 2 images above – I have 143 kg in the first image and 173 kg in the second image – the last time I did a cycle of these sort of squats is here.

Beef It!

According to my copy of ‘Beef It!’ (Robert Kennedy, 1983) the Squat is the King of Exercises (page 113). And that is what everyone else says. Of course they are all wrong as the following lift is the King of All Exercises;

The Actual King of All Exercises – or at least King of All Strength Exercises. It doesn’t do much for muscle mass but will turn you bones to steel and your muscles to erm… steel.

However this post is about Squats and if you want a set of fulsome thighs and bulky muscles like me then the style of Squats I am doing at the beginning of this post are indeed the King of All Exercises.

My fulsome thighs

Beef It goes further and states that whilst the King of All Exercises is the Squat, that famous bodybuilding guru Vince Gironda has no Squat stands in his gym and has banned his students from ever performing the Back Squat on pain of death. The reason for this is that Gironda believed that back Squats widen the hips and spread the buttocks.

So when it comes to spreading your buttocks then the King of All Exercises is the Squat.

Super Squats

Randall Strossen’s Super Squats (1989) is all about Squats, specifically 20 rep Squats. There is a problem here. 20 rep Squats will undoubtedly give one a giant anabolic stimulus for muscle building. They will also cause one to catabolise muscle and fat like crazy as well as make one feel ill and generally wanting to visit the lavatory. The solution to this is to eat like a maniac and get lots of rest and no partying. It helps if you are young and weak because when you are old and strong your stress to recovery ratio is greatly diminished. Having the constitution of a Grizzly Bear helps.

So great are the stresses of a 20 rep Squat that an alternative, the 20 rep Roger Ells Breathing Squat, was invented. The use of no more than bodyweight on the bar with emphasis on lots of breathing whilst squatting, negated the horrific catabolic/puking effects. Strength gains on such Breathing Squats were negligible. Having said that strength gains on 20 rep ’til you puke Squats are negligible in comparison to low rep squats unless one is seriously undermuscled. However 20 rep puke ’til you drop Squats will develop great metabolic condition, that is if they are not done for too long or else one will work oneself into the ground in a relatively short time.

Even diehard 20 rep puke ’til you drop Squatters don’t do them all the time – they will start off a cycle with more moderate reps, only getting to higher reps near the end of the cycle.

Funnily enough Strossen is an avid fan of Olympic Weightlifting, yet 20 rep squats are never used by weightlifters as it would totally screw up their Olympic Weightlifting.

Brawn

I got into the whole Brawn (McRobert 1991) thing years ago. Squats were a big part of the menu – they rewarded me with a sciatic type feeling in the back and a sore throat.

The problem was twofold;

1. Catabolism also applies to medium rep (10-12 rep) Squats… though the effect is not so extreme as with 20 reppers, which means it takes longer to get worn down.
2. The more stressful a stimulus the quicker one habituates to it, i.e. after a few session of repetition Squats the body no longer responds to Squatting.

Squats are certainly a horrible exercise as my buddy Mitch will confirm, “I hate Squats, I do them first to get them out of the way. I f******’ hate Squats!”

He demonstrated this recently by feeling decidely queasy after some Squats;

Mitch feels queasy after the 3^rd rep of the 2^nd set of 5 reps – note how he looks hopefully at the hooks just after the 3^rd rep.

There are various methods to avoid catabolism and habituation. They basically centre about variation of exercises and variation of sets and reps. For example one might do a straight-forward powerlifting cycle whereby the weight starts light and the reps high and as the cycle progresses the weight gets heavier and the reps lower. In this case the exercise is the same but the reps change thus hopefully slowing habituation. Another method is to do short cycles of Squats and mix them in with short cycles of other exercises of a Squat like nature, perhaps a cycle of box Squats or of sumo deadlifts. Another method is to keep rotating exercises, Squats one week, deadlifts the next, partials next, weird stuff next, then Squats again.

McRobert finally went mental, becoming obsessed with safety. I tried to explain to him, one time, that this was not due to the dangers of these exercise but due to the constant repetition of the same movements – indeed his way of ’safely’ performing his movements in such a rigid style was exacerbating his condition… he didn’t believe me but did so in a very polite manner.

Training of the Weightlifter

In Roman’s Training of the Weightlifter (Sportivny Press 1988) it is noted that beginners and low class weightlifters should do multiple sets of 4-6 reps with weights that they could actually do a max of 12 reps with. The idea being to avoid all that unpleasant catabolism and habituation by lowering the stress but keeping the volume. As the lifter got more advanced and so closer to his optimal bodymass the repetitions concentrated more on the strength or speed-strength side of things (singles, doubles, triples and the like).

In strength training in general there is no use for higher reps because higher reps means lower weights, which according to the specificity principle would mean that one would be training for the wrong thing if higher reps were employed in a strength routine.

A Consensus

My view is to avoid high or higher reps if training for strength, I may do them now and again when I don’t feel up to handling heavy weights or if it is a cold day. Every powerlifter I have ever met, never did more than 3 reps in a set and they all seemed pretty big and strong.

The bodybuilders I’ve come across do higher reps but they rarely go to failure, instead they went for pumping sets of 8-15 reps.

So in summary train heavy with reps up to about 3 or do pumping sets but don’t mix them because you are a bodybuilder or a lifter. If you are a lifter who wants the muscle building effect then try multiple sets of 4-6 reps, heavy but not to failure and not pumping… just like you see me and Mitch doing in the videos.