Something Different, AtG Squats as a quad "finisher"

[grubman]

About a month ago, I started doing something slightly "different", and I like it so much I decided to share. I'm not declaring any science, claiming any results, or boasting about something new and revolutionary...just that I like it. (skip to final paragraph if you don't want to read all this).

I like to finish my quad workout with a higher rep "finisher" set before moving on to hams. For a long time this alternated between belt squats and walking lunges. Every time I do walking lunges for a length of time, I start to get an annoying little twinge in my hips that feels like a looming injury, and makes me stop doing them for a while.

I decided I was going to go back to something I did years ago, which was a high rep (20+) set of slow squats with a "light" weight...

Now before I go on, I have to say, I don't do Ass to Grass Squats. I go just to parallel or a tad below. I have my reasons (although some will call these excuses, or rebut them). First, I can't do near as heavy of weights for quads and keep good form at the transition point (no matter how much I work on this), which means I'm not doing the weight my quads can handle. Second, my knees start to hurt doing AtG with a "heavy" weight...and I like my knees NOT hurting, especially since my job requires good knee health. Third, while squats are a full body movement, I primarily do them for bodybuilding quads, so doing them to parallel targets my quads for me much more than AtG with good form, which works my glutes and hams much more. Finally, I have a naturally big muscular ass (my only "gifted" muscle)! I try to keep my ass out of my leg exercises as much as possible, because it takes over the movement and grows like nobody's business while my legs remain small.

OK, back to the story...

So, I was going to do this high rep set of squats, and put on a weight I should have gotten about 20+ reps on. I went down, and for some reason I decided, what the hell, I was going to go AtG with this light weight. With my quads pre-fatigued from heavy squats and leg press, and my hams and glutes pretty fresh, I REALLY felt it in the quads. I did the whole set like this, only getting out 12 reps, with my quads burning and pumped like they were going to pop!

So, long story short, if your looking for a different "finisher" set for quads, and DON'T already do AtG squats (I know a lot of guys don't) for whatever reason, try giving a high rep/light weight set of AtG squats a try and see how it feels. Easy to keep perfect form and not hard on the knees with a lighter weight, and really kills the quads if they are already fatigued and your glutes and hams are fresh.

[Cantplankwell]

For sure! I was seeking some help with squats from a well known trainer in our area last year (squat is still a work in progress ). After the squat session he had me do deep high rep low weight goblet squats at a good clip. It was always the coupe de grace on the three or four sessions I went to. I was sore in the quads and elsewhere like never before. Now I just do two sets of lower weight higher rep (10) after the main, and yes it does cause a burn. All my squats working or post work are as low as I can get, well below parallel, but not quite ATG (pick an acorn up with your butt low)

[drudixon]

If targeting quads, I think the motor pattern and form are key. I can use low bar form on high bar squats and get nothing out of it for quads, and the opposite is true as well. Weight biased towards heels, knees shoved forward, torso upright and maintained throughout. Hardest part is not letting hips drift back in transition.

Love it as a finisher as well. Good post.