Oct. 18, 2009
Super Squats
I have a not particularly powerful squat. When I say not partcularly powerful I mean bunny like. Small bunny, not a big strong one. A puppy bunny with bad knees. Even with that discraceful handicap I have found redemtion in a simple (not easy but simple) squat program called Super Squats. There is a book about this particular program:
http://www.amazon.com/Super-Squats-Pounds-Muscle-Weeks/dp/0926888005
And the stated objective is to pack on maximum muscle in minimum time. The bare essence of this workout is to take a weight you can squat with 10 times and squat with it 20 times, add some pullovers and drink a gallon of milk. A day. The author insists this will pack on muscle like nothing else.
They don't make enough Oreo Cookies for me to drink that much milk...but I have put the squats to work to good effect. I started at 125 lbs and have added 5 lbs every workout and today I did 20 reps with 190 lbs which is really good for a bunny squater like me. Mike is at 195 and his best back squat when he came to the gym 4 months ago was 185. Pretty spectacular improvement. Now these squats are ass to ankles and at the top you take 3 really deep breaths. It makes the set of 20 take about 4 minutes which is a long time to hold that bar. Afterwards you do 20 pullovers with whatever weight suits you (30 or 40 lbs or so works for me) for 20 reps to really stretch out the ribcage to make room for all that milk fed muscle. I'm not too worried about making more real estate available for muscle, but I have been very happy with the improvement with my squats. We are doing it as an 8 week program with 3 lifts per week adding 5 lbs each workout. If you have to set the bar down you repeat at that weight until you can do all 20.
Give it a try, I'll bet it works for you.