The importance of squats and their training plan

★ Posted on 11-13,2024

In the first 2 or 3 years that I was involved in bodybuilding, I never performed formal squat exercises. There are many reasons. First of all, I think that thick thighs will affect the overall feeling of shoulder width and thin waist. In addition, I am afraid that I will not be able to buy suitable pants to wear. This continued in my self-absorbed training until one day I earned the nickname Polio. At this time, I had to re-examine my training plan, because in addition to the overall lack of coordination, my training also encountered unprecedented resistance: weight gain stagnated. For a long time, my weight has always been around 80 kilograms. No matter how much I eat, I can't gain muscle, let alone fat. Moreover, my upper limb strength is also very poor, and the grip press is always around 100 kilograms. Fortunately, there was an old coach in the gym at that time. He suggested that I focus on squats and deadlifts, because the increase in upper body thickness and leg strength would create a new me. In the next six months, my squat weight increased from the initial 90 kg to 170 kg. The deadlift also made my latissimus dorsi look more three-dimensional. The increase in squat weight also made my weight gain significantly. Progress, I quickly grew to 90 kilograms without much fat. It can be said that squats made me move towards bodybuilding competitions. After reaching this level, a new problem arose: my squat max and weight gain stalled again. At this time, a friend from the weightlifting team invited me to visit their training. In a weightlifting training class, I saw with my own eyes a 95kg weightlifter squatting 365kg. At that time, there was also an Iranian weightlifting team coming to China. Athletes visiting training camps, their big-level athletes can even squat more than 400 kilograms. This training class made me understand a truth: Wade's bodybuilding rules apply to bodybuilders, but without a breakthrough and in-depth understanding of this rule, a bodybuilder cannot become a bodybuilder within this framework. Soon, I made a new training plan for myself. In this new plan, I basically abandoned the medium weight training and replaced it with warm-up weight and heavy squat training. In order to ensure that the exercise intensity was in place, I stopped doing my own brachial exercises. Isolated training of biceps and other small muscle groups. The exercises are basically squats, deadlifts, pull-ups and bench presses. Training is done three times a week. Each squat class should be practiced for about 30 groups, and then rest for three days before restarting. Starting with squats, that means my training sessions became two basic contents: 1. Squats; 2. Deadlifts and bench presses. On the basis of the two methods, the order is sometimes changed: 1. Squat, deadlift, 2. Bench press. In fact, this training plan is still less intense than weight training, but it can meet my own needs. In the following three months, my weight quickly increased to 97 kilograms. Although there was a lot of fat, my maximum squat weight had reached 220 kilograms with the protection of friends. At the same time, my trapezius muscles and chest muscles have also made new progress, and the bench press weight has also improved.An astonishing change occurred: it reached 150 kilograms. During this period, I did not use any nutritional supplements in the current sense. The only supplements that I remember at that time were vitamin series, and it was not the current multivitamin series, as well as digestive drugs such as yeast tablets, and ginseng and royal jelly. I still kept my training plan at that time, and I posted it in the hope that it would serve as a starting point:

Monday: Squat: 80 kg warm-up - 100 kg 15 times - 120 kg 12 times - 150 kg 8 times (strength failure, rest for 2 or 3 minutes before starting the next set) - 180 kg 5 times - 200 kg 2 reps - 1 rep at 220kg, then the last three sets of very light weight exercises: 60kg barbell squats, taking joints Group method: Stand with your feet in wide-medium-narrow stances for three consecutive groups. Each group is completed 8 times. This is a large group. Rest for 15 seconds between each large group and perform the second large group of training. Total Complete three major sets of training, followed by biceps femoris training. I do this training more casually, because the biceps femoris are often strongly stimulated during the subsequent deadlift exercises. Tuesday: Rest and recovery; Wednesday: Bench press: 80kg warm-up - 12 times at 90kg - 10 times at 100kg - 6 times at 120kg - 6 times at 150kg (protect to exhaustion), complete 3 sets of 150kg to pursue the best results , Next is the deadlift training: 80-90-100-120-150-180-200. The last three sets of heavy weights require failure. After this training class, the entire back and chest will turn red, and the congestion effect is good. Awesome. Take two days off and then start squatting again on Saturday.

Any bodybuilding theory is relative. Some people’s bodybuilding theory and weightlifting theory are actually a beginner’s mentality. After bodybuilding training enters a certain stage, if you always hold the concept of “medium weight” training, then you may never make greater progress in fully developing muscles. Medium weights belong to those who maintain their figure and those who easily gain muscle. If your recovery ability and strength are not very good, you can try my training plan. Three months is a big cycle, and you can resume traditional training in the fourth month. You can see what happens after a big cycle of crazy training. Have your muscles made any progress?

I think this method is especially suitable for bodybuilders with average strength levels and those who are not easy to grow muscles, if your goal is to increase muscle mass.

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