Weight Training Tips and Articles

Building Muscle With 20 Rep Squats

One of the biggest keys to building muscle mass is to boost your natural levels of testosterone. To do this you need to push your body to the limit. This means that you should perform compound exercises that will work multiple muscle groups during your weight training workouts. For the most you’ll want to do these compound exercises for sets of 8-10 to build both size and strength. However, if you really want to challenge yourself and give your testosterone levels a kick start you should try 20 rep squats.

The squat may be the best overall muscle building exercise there is. It not only works the major leg muscles of the quadriceps and hamstrings, it will also work your core muscles. In fact, intense sets of squats can even help you build your upper body because performing it will give your testosterone a nice boost.

20 rep squat sets are an excellent thing to try to help build your entire body. This doesn’t mean that you should use a light weight for an easy set of 20 rep squats. It doesn’t even mean that you should use a weight that you can just barely get 20 reps on when you squat. The secret is to use a weight that will have you going almost to failure after 10 reps. when you get to 10 reps, you’ll be breathing hard and your legs could be burning. At this point you need to rest at the standing position until you feel you can try another rep. After this 11th rep you continue doing this until you hit 20 reps. The last few reps of 20 rep squats may take a while and will be painful but you’ll get those muscle building hormones going. This will take a lot out of you so a few minutes of rest may be required before you continue with your workout. 20 rep squats are an excellent addition to any high intensity weight training workouts.

Proper Squat Form

  The squat is quite possibly the most important weight training exercise you can do to build overall muscle strength and size throughout your body. While squats are considered by many to be a great exercise for the quadriceps and hamstrings, they’ll also help you gain mucscle just about everywhere else as well. When you squat you’ll get a big testosterone boost that will help you gain more overall muscle size. If you do high rep squats you’ll be forced to breathe heavily, which will increase your lung capacity and help your upper body look bigger. Doing squats while you weight train will also affect the muscles of the lower and upper back.

  To avoid injury and get the most out of them, it’s important to learn proper squat form. You’ll want the barbell you’re squatting to be placed on your trapezius muscles - not on the back of your neck. It may take some experimentation to find the best spot to place the barbell when you squat and when you do you may not even need to put a pad on the bar - especially if you have developed traps.

  When it comes to squatting you need to arch your lower back, not bend it, as you lower into a squat rep. Get your behind as far behind you as possible and stop when your upper thighs are parellel to the floor. Then use the muscles of the quadriceps, hamstrings, and hips to squat the weight up. You can squat deeper if you want, but this depends a lot on how flexible your ankles and other lower body joints are.

  Where you place your feet when you squat depends on how tall you are and whether you’re weight training in more of a bodybuilding style or more of a powerlifting style. Either way, you need to concentrate on using your hips and not your knees as you lower into a squat rep. Putting to much stress on your knees when you squat isn’t good for them.

  Once you get your squat form down you should be able to build a lot of size and power from it and get the gains in overall muscularity you’re looking for.

High Rep Squats

  How much intensity you train with is one of the most important factors in how much muscle size and strength you gain from weight training. If you just go through the motions without pushing yourself to lift more weight or do more reps per set than you did at your last workout you’ll maintain what you have, but won’t gain more size and strength. Beginner weight trainers especially need to do intense workouts and hit every muscle group regularly.

  One of the most intense weight training workouts you can do is one involving high rep squats. If you’ve hit a plateau in your leg workouts or just want to try something that’ll boost your weight training intensity, a couple of sets of high rep squats may be right up your alley. 1 or 2 sets of squats for 25 to 50 reps will give you a great boost in testosterone and help you build more muscle in the quadriceps and hamtrings. In fact, after doing a couple of sets of high rep squats you may not need to do much more for your legs during that training session. Use a weight you know you can handle for a good 20 to 25 reps and once you hit that many reps rest and breathe between reps to crank out as many more reps as you can. You’ll be surprised at how much you may be able to do. This will cause you to breathe a lot and your hands may even get a bit numb from all of the blood rushing to your legs.

  Another great trick you can do with high rep squats is to do a set of dumbbell pullovers immediately after your squat set. Since you’ll be breathing so hard from the squats doing a set of pullovers will help stretch the rib cage out and help give you a larger upper body appearance.

  If you decide to try high rep squat sets during your leg and hamstring workouts you’ll likely need up to 10 minutes of rest after completing a set or superset with pullovers. If you don’t give yourself enough rest you could end up vomiting. Yes, that’s how intense high rep squats can be if you go all out.