How often do you Squat?

[fitinidaho]

Just wondering how often you all do squats?
If you do them more then 2 times a week, would that be overtraining?
If your trying to gain muscle, how many reps/sets would be good?
Thanks for your responses.

[goddessamazon]

Just wondering how often you all do squats?
If you do them more then 2 times a week, would that be overtraining?
If your trying to gain muscle, how many reps/sets would be good?
Thanks for your responses.

I use to squat once a week and for three months I saw no improvement. Than I went up to twice a week. Actually I do legs twice a week and now my legs muscles are developing like crazy. I am not saying that you should do the same thing but working legs twice a week is doing wonders for me.

For three weeks I lift heavy and for the forth week I lift light to moderate with lots of reps. Come January 08 I'm going to stop lifting heavy and increase my reps along with my sets so I can look nice and tight for my first competition in April.

[Casagal]

I have been doing legs once a week, but now I am doing a new training schedule in which I'm doing legs twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, which I started last week. I have noticed a definate improvement in their appearance and my glutes are getting pretty rock solid. Hopefully in another month or so I'll transform them (they lag behind the rest of me)

[Love4Life]

I train legs once a week hard and heavy. I do both front and regular squats in addition to SLD's, leg extentions, calf raises and sometimes I'll add lunges or step ups. I'm happy with my progress so far, but in the future I may try training legs twice a week.

[gfundaro]

I squat every week! I train legs only once weekly...I'd like to do them more, but they're already overpowering my upper half, so until that grows I have to be gentle with them :P

[freebirdmac]

My trainer has me doing legs once a week. Extensions, narrow stance squats, wide stance squats, deads, hamstring curls, lots of calf work, shin work, this one exercise where I lay on a bench on my belly and he puts a dumbbell between my feet and I do curls, plus a couple of unweighted floor exercises. All exercises are 3 sets. If I'm using the same weight for all three sets then it's 20 reps. If he increases the weights with each set then it's 20, 15, and 12 reps. Every weighted set leaves me struggling to finish. By the third set I generally need an assist to finish. On and only a 30 sec rest between sets. Maybe 2 minutes between exercises.

Right now, I think twice a week would be too much for me. Although, amazingly, I have little soreness. But I do walk out of there not feeling my legs.

[RImuscle]

I do squats once a week but I train my legs twice a week. I change things up a lot but I tend to do 3 to 4 sets of 6-8 reps. My legs are huge and still growing.

[pirouette]

once or twice a week.

[TurbulentFluid]

1 x week, 1x10x40,2x8x45,2x6x50kg

For legs I also do flat leg presses, leg extensions, leg curls, deadlifts, and they get beaten during good mornings and hyperextensions.

[smdiskin]

I do legs about twice a week... one session more emphasising the back of legs and the other more the front... but squats are in both....
Depending on humour and how I feel....
1x 15x 60, 1x 12x 80, 1x 10x 90, 1x 10x 100, 2x 8-9x 110, 1x 8-9x 100, 1x 10x 80 (kg)
This is about average for squats.... and it is slowly working... btw I am unable to go below parallel for balance reasons.... I fall over, even with no bar...

[sherdi]

I do back squats once a week (low reps) and a variation of 1 other squat per week (higher reps) such as front squats, hack squats etc.....I try to mix things up so that my body is not "guessing" what's coming....if you want to do squats twice a week you can, but I would be changing the rep/set/weight scheme. For example, you could do 5 x 5 one day, then 3 x 10-12 the next.

[shellabella]

What I am doing at the moment is very similar to Sherdi.
I have one heavy legs day where I do 3 sets of low rep squats and SLDL and maybe a few additional heavy singles.
On my second legs day I do overhead squats, lunges or walking lunges and sometimes step ups. I may do some front squats instead of the overheads. Will try zercher squats some time in the future. I usually do higher reps as the weights are that much lower (except with the overhead squats which i am trying to work up to 5x5 then will increase the weight - these are quite difficult for me)
This will probably change soon but I like it at the moment as I can focus on form and depth and am also increasing my strength.

[Euqinom]

I squat twice a week, one speedday, one day maxing out on squat varieties.
I've squatted three times a week, weightlifting class included, doable, but a bit much for me. But there are programs (russian bear, if I remember correctly) that have you squat three times a week.

[bbbom]

I'm doing Rippetoe's Starting Strength routine and I squat 3 times a week with that but the only other leg work I do is deads once a week. It's a linear progression strength building routine that you strive to increase your weight on each excercise each workout.

Rippetoe does say that most people will think you are nuts squating 3 times a week and he does recommend that once you get to the point that you can no longer keep increasing the weight used for the worksets (3 sets of 5 straight across), you should switch to front squats on the day you do deadlifts.

So, in answer to your question, squatting 3 times a week is not unheard of but it depends on what else you are doing for legs. Back when I was doing split routines, I'd do legs 2 xs a week with squats and a variety of other leg work.

[Sunshineslynn]

I do back squats once a week (low reps) and a variation of 1 other squat per week (higher reps) such as front squats, hack squats etc.....I try to mix things up so that my body is not "guessing" what's coming....if you want to do squats twice a week you can, but I would be changing the rep/set/weight scheme. For example, you could do 5 x 5 one day, then 3 x 10-12 the next.

Yeah that is what I do....

[wast0006]

I train legs twice a week with weights, but do leg based cardio almost everyday (running, cross trainer, bike). My goal isnt to bulk up though so I do a lot more cardio. I do cardio on the same day as weights with no problems, I love to squat but will vary it with every session. Sometimes going heavy, sometimes light with higher reps etc. I think its good to change it up

[josephgray17]

Twice a week.

[MadCatLady]

I do legs about twice a week... one session more emphasising the back of legs and the other more the front... but squats are in both...

This is what I do. One day I will back squat 5x5, the other front squat 3-4x 12.

[BubsNBean]

Legs twice a week, usually several variations.

When I ran the All Pro Beginner I squatted 3x/week. It's not overtraining if your body can handle it, which it probably can. Just don't expect to go super heavy every session.

[oregonchick76]

I squat once a week and deadlift once a week.
I work in both the strength AND hypertrophy rep range.

[Brknwrds]

Wow! I'm so impressed you guys. I just did my first official squats yesterday, and my legs kill. I can't imagine being able to go twice per week. I'd like to work my way up to it, though. 😀

[o0o0]

I squat twice a week - usually one day with heavier weights x lower reps and another day lighter weights x higher reps.

[thehobbes]

Strong bump of 7yr old thread by 14 year old miscer. Anyways, squat every 3-4 days here.

[birdiefu]

Depends on the program I'm running, but I find I respond best to frequency higher than 1x/wk. Currently I squat 3x/wk, different variations/rep ranges - atm I'm at a higher volume stage so reps are higher for me (I PL, so 1-3 is a normal rep range, lol). Recovery and strength improvements are going swimmingly for me despite being well into a cut.

Heaviest is back squats 5-7 with dropset 8-10, same day but before my secondary DL. Lightest of course front squats 6-8, on a day with no other leg work. Medium wt working weakest portion - paused squats 4-6, same day as and after primary DL.

It pretty much depends on how your program is laid out - you can't squat heavy to failure 3x/week and expect strength and recovery to keep up for the long term.

[RoodBoi22]

I squat 5x5 style every other day, adding 2.5kg to the bar each workout. Works well for me; stick to a program like SS or SL5x5 and it's unlikely you'll overtrain.

[DestinyBurton]

Hey everyone, i was just wondering i have been doing squats here and there but not all time, but im just starting to get back into doing it often i would consider myself a beginner.. i was just wondering how many reps and sets should i do a week and when is a good resting day in between? im 110 pounds and im just confused with everything .. please write back!! Thank you