Over 50 guys. How many times a week do you squat?

[-=FLEX=-]

I'll tell you in about two weeks.

Happy B-Day in advance.

-=FLEX=-

And 3 times a week seems like a lot.

I'm 42, and I squat twice a week, and I'm starting to think it's too much because I am not progressing as much as I think I should be.

[oldsuperman]

Happy B-Day in advance.

-=FLEX=-

And 3 times a week seems like a lot.

I'm 42, and I squat twice a week, and I'm starting to think it's too much because I am not progressing as much as I think I should be.

I hardly ever do standing squats with a bb. I did them 3 weeks ago for the first time in 2 years. I do db squats about once a mth and hacks about twice of month.

[-=FLEX=-]

I hardly ever do standing squats with a bb. I did them 3 weeks ago for the first time in 2 years. I do db squats about once a mth and hacks about twice of month.

OK, you had to expect this: What does your regular leg workout look like?

-=FLEX=-

[oldsuperman]

OK, you had to expect this: What does your regular leg workout look like?

-=FLEX=-

I use a leg trainer as, well they are lacking and I need the extra push. I get sick and almost throw up about 1/2 the time I train them. They are mixed up every week. Yet it usually is about volume of reps, not heavy. Last leg day was Thursday. It went like this.

After a few minutes of light stretching:

7 sets of hack squats

1st set warm up: 90 lbs 25 reps

2nd set: 180 lbs 25 reps

3rd set: 230 lbs 25 reps

4th set: 250 lbs 22 reps

5th set: 250 lbs 20 reps

6th set: 300 lbs 13 reps a few assisted

7th set: 300 lbs 12 reps a few assisted


Lunges
I don't know what you call these, yet you take your back leg and lay the top of you foot on a bench and the other out stretched in front of you and dip your knee down. Four sets of 20 each side, although I never could get the second set past 12 reps!

Seated leg curls
7 sets 20 reps. I didn't pay attention to the weight.

Next week will be again, lots of sets and reps, yet completely different exercises.

Well, after that I didn't drink my protein shake. In fact I didn't eat for 5 hrs. I napped some and rested till I felt better! I then had a huge cheat meal, 5 meat pizza, a bag of Whoppers, a small bag of Cadbury Chocolate Eggs, I love candy and washed it down with a Dr Pepper!

[yakabebe]

I am not 50 yet.. 46 but I do squat 3 sometimes 4 days a week
I am going pretty heavy every time even on my so called light day .. you can see it in my journal my light day always turn into a freaking not so light day only because I feel I can

Those who can't squat more than once a week are just not trained and conditioned enough to do it .. we have members here who squat 6 days a week, it's though in the beginning but
it gets easier as time goes by.. really

If you have joint issues it's understandable not to want to squat too heavy or too often

Lol, I don't know anyone here who is training to "look like a powerlifter" but there are a lot of us who are training for strength sports including powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, strongman, highland games, MMA and self defense. In these areas, and others, multiple days of heavy lifting are a valid training method.

Fair call!

Mind you so many of the pl that grab my attention say at the Olympics sort of look alot like this guy



Or this guy

[tonester]

One solid max effort lower body day per week for me. Fits well with my recovery abilities from the track/conditioning work. I do a modified (for old meat heads) version of the WS4SB templates.

[J.Ho]

I then had a huge cheat meal, 5 meat pizza, a bag of Whoppers, a small bag of Cadbury Chocolate Eggs, I love candy and washed it down with a Dr Pepper!

Breakfast of champions !!

[davidff]

Once every two weeks if you are going heavy!!

[Korr]

I squat 6-7 times a week. I've been doing this for a month now. Believe it or not your body can easily adjust to doing squats everyday. Squats do not tax the CNS very much. Now, I'm not suggesting everyone should work squats every day, I am saying traditional strength, natural bodybuilders of old, and HST programs have people doing squats 3-4 times a week.

The reason why squats hurts you guys so much is in a general bodybuilding split people only work their legs once a week, but work their upper body up to 4 times a week. In a typical split of so called separate body part workouts, the shoulders get worked 4 times a week, chest 2 times, back 3 times, arms 4 times, and the legs 1 time. Yet for some reason working legs more than once is called counter productive by many.

To those who would say my volume and intensity is probably low, or that I'm not doing them right, I work heavy volume in 90-102% of max. In fact this week I hit two PR's one on Thursday at 115kg and one on Saturday at 120kg. Go ahead and look at my journal if you don't believe me.

To those that would say squats more than once a week would be counter productive. I started this program with a 3RM of 220lbs, it's now at 1RM of 265lbs.

What about gains? I've gone from a bodyweight of 173.4lbs to 177.6lbs.

Granted I'm taking an advantage of newbie gains in the legs since I've ignored them most of my life and just started working them about mid 2009. However this is a faster increase than when I ran a 5x5 program for 2 months.

But.....but......you don't grow in the gym you grow out of the gym. I agree. However, you don't grow while doing normal daily activity or by taking it easy, you grow while you sleep.

Now to counter those that would say well yeah, that's for strength that a Powerlifter or Olympic lifter would do, it wouldn't work for bodybuilding we work for hypertrophy. I say nonsense, but who am I just another bro on a bodybuilding forum, who only weights 177lbs, what the hell would I know, right? Well then look at the natural bodybuilders of old. Until the rapid spread of steroids through lifting and bodybuilding full body routines was the building routine of choice for almost every major bodybuilding title holder from 1939 to the mid-1960s. So combining full-body training with heavy weights is not a problem. Just look at John Davis, Tommy Kono, Doug Hepburn, Paul Anderson, Norb Schemansky, Bill March, Ken Patera, Reg Park, Jack Delinger, George Eiferman, Clancy Ross, Steve Reeves, etc, etc, etc.





Reg Park



Reg Park with Arnold.

[BrotherWolf]

Be that as it may, I cant see a BB using that approach and seeing gains.

And I'm unaware of any well-placed BB who advocates anything remotely like that - although I'd stand correcting.

Given I know squat (oopppsss) about powerlifting..maybe that is a viable training method - if you aspire to look like a PL and not a BB

But that wasn't the original question
even though I doubt squatting several days a week will hinder muscle growth.

The look differences between powerlifters and BBers are not based on how many times one can squat, it's the eating and their priorities

A BBer priority generally speaking is to look large , proportioned and ripped a Powerlifter's priority is to lift more than the last time hence a lot of them don't care about being heavy and soft
but a lot of them could switch over to Body building quite easily if they'd work on getting ripped and vascular


This is an example of a powerlifter that switched over to BBing
pretty sure his training changed but squatting all the times did not hinder his development

"Powerlifter Stan Efferding won the Masters Nationals Bodybuilding Championships, and thus his IFBB pro card, this past weekend in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania"
Efferding has a 2,070 pound raw total to his credit and an 825 pound equipped pull at 275 pound. He ranks eleventh on the Powerlifting Watch World Power Rankings and first on the Lifter Rankings.

[Nikonguy]

Fair call!

Mind you so many of the pl that grab my attention say at the Olympics sort of look alot like this guy



Or this guy

Yep, the 308lb. and Super Heavy Weight classes get a lot of press because of the extreme poundages they lift but the lower weight classes are full of jacked lifters at sub 15% bf. (disclaimer: I am not one of them. )

[BrotherWolf]

Fair call!

Mind you so many of the pl that grab my attention say at the Olympics sort of look alot like this guy



Or this guy

That was exactly my point, they don't care about vascularity and 6 packs..
the second guy is Mike miller a member here with a world record squat of 1200lbs
he switched to MMA and worked on dropping his body fat , what he had under that layer of chub is quite impressive
check out his profile
http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/mule2625/

[groink]

But that wasn't the original question
even though I doubt squatting several days a week will hinder muscle growth.

The look differences between powerlifters and BBers are not based on how many times one can squat, it's the eating and their priorities

A BBer priority generally speaking is to look large , proportioned and ripped a Powerlifter's priority is to lift more than the last time hence a lot of them don't care about being heavy and soft
but a lot of them could switch over to Body building quite easily if they'd work on getting ripped and vascular


This is an example of a powerlifter that switched over to BBing
pretty sure his training changed but squatting all the times did not hinder his development

"Powerlifter Stan Efferding won the Masters Nationals Bodybuilding Championships, and thus his IFBB pro card, this past weekend in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania"
Efferding has a 2,070 pound raw total to his credit and an 825 pound equipped pull at 275 pound. He ranks eleventh on the Powerlifting Watch World Power Rankings and first on the Lifter Rankings.

Couple of points i want to make...not trying to flame....

How do you know how often he squats ?

He's loaded to the gills, I'm sure he can train as much as his body can take and still grow.

[BrotherWolf]

Couple of points i want to make...not trying to flame....

How do you know how often he squats ?

Don't know but I am assuming since he's an elite powerlifter he probably squat every training session on and off .. My first thought is that it trains differently for BBing and Powerlifting a few weeks before a meet or a BB show


The point I was trying to make is that squatting 5 days a week (or 3 or 7) has nothing to do with slowing down hypertrophy, you rest at night every night so if you program your routine accordingly you can squat 7 days a week and still grow monster legs, just like Olympic lifters do.. do you have to ?? no of course not but it is not going to hurt your gains in size

He's loaded to the gills, I'm sure he can train as much as his body can take and still grow.

that's a different story

[DNG]

Once a week. And that has nothing to do with knees.

I believe the muscles need that long to recover, grow, and be ready for another workout.

[Sackett]

I guess I should have clarified more. Several times a year I will train for pure strength and will either go back to Rips or Starrs programs the rest of the time I am doing some sort of split. I just find each time I go back to squats three times a week it is getting harder on my knees.

[BrotherWolf]

I guess I should have clarified more. Several times a year I will train for pure strength and will either go back to Rips or Starrs programs the rest of the time I am doing some sort of split. I just find each time I go back to squats three times a week it is getting harder on my knees.

well... make sure your form is good, that's the only weapon against knee pain
there's pain and there's pain..

I don't have any knee pain squatting 3x a week + 1-2 days with deadlifts on the same day but I am used to it.. when I stop for any period of time longer than 2-3 weeks the first few times are hard but still no knee pain..

[oldsuperman]

Don't know but I am assuming since he's an elite powerlifter he probably squat every training session on and off .. My first thought is that it trains differently for BBing and Powerlifting a few weeks before a meet or a BB show

Well I happen to have known Stan for over 20 years and he is more like a BBer who happens to have done "some" power lifting. I think he does hold the record in some organization of the most weight lifted bench press and dead lift combined. I watched Stan win Mr Oregon 20 years ago before the NPC. He is an amazing man with great standards. He has been in Cali training with Charles Glass and NOT PLing at all. They are working on getting him more symmetrical as he is top heavy. He did his first Pro show a fee weeks ago and was handed his a$$ getting 16th place. For those that don't know how scoring goes in bbing, after 15th place, everyone else get 16th.

Stan after about 25 years old went into real estate and I hadn't seen him since he was about 27. I saw him at thirty five and I hardly recognized him. He was about 100lbs over weight and embarrassed. I then saw him 2006 at the Emerald Cup where he won the heavy class. I was shocked that he snapped back better then ever. The next year he won the overall at the Cup and then 2009 I saw him win the over 40 at Masters Nationals for his pro card, and the overall in the show after that. IMO. He's never looked better then the Masters Nats.

[oldsuperman]

Couple of points i want to make...not trying to flame....

How do you know how often he squats ?

He's loaded to the gills, I'm sure he can train as much as his body can take and still grow.

Stan mostly does face down Hack squats. He's got a video on his FB if you want to watch him and Glass train legs.

[BrotherWolf]

Well I happen to have known Stan for over 20 years and he is more like a BBer who happens to have done "some" power lifting. I think he does hold the record in some organization of the most weight lifted bench press and dead lift combined. I watched Stan win Mr Oregon20 years ago before the NPC. He is an amazing man with great standards. He has been in Cali training with Charles Glass and NOT PLing at all. They are working on getting him more symmetrical as he is top heavy. He did his first Pro show a fee weeks ago and was handed his a$$ getting 16th place. For those that don't know how scoring goes in bbing, after 15th place, everyone else get 16th.

Stan after about 25 years old went into real estate and I hadn't seen him since he was about 27. I saw him at thirty five and I hardly recognized him. He was about 100lbs over weight and embarrassed. I then saw him 2006 at the Emerald Cup where he won the heavy class. I was shocked that he snapped back better then ever. The next year he won the overall at the Cup and then 2009 I say him win the over 40 at Masters Nationals for his pro card, and the overall in the show after that. IMO. He's never looked better then the Masters Nats.

Awesome....So he is more of body builder that powerlift ? I thought he started out as a Powerlifter ...
I don't know about his individual lift records but he has a total of 2,221 Raw @ 275lb

if you see him ask him how he trains before a PL meet
It's the kind of stuff that gets my curiosity going

[BrotherWolf]

Stan mostly does face down Hack squats. He's got a video on his FB if you want to watch him and Glass train legs.

Must be this... with interview
http://rxmuscle.com/videos/iatrainin...venice-ca.html

He talks about learning to isolate his quads after being used to squats full rom
and diet.. milk and eggs and that he snuck out to train with his PL team to squat LOL... at 12:50

[oldsuperman]

Awesome....So he is more of body builder that powerlift ? I thought he started out as a Powerlifter ...
I don't know about his individual lift records but he has a total of 2,221 Raw @ 275lb

if you see him ask him how he trains before a PL meet
It's the kind of stuff that gets my curiosity going

Sure I can find that out.

He's about 5'9" to 10" and is wide and thick. He's pretty impressive. I don't see him much since he's been pro, yet I think he's guest posing at on of out comps in the area soon. I'll twist his ear bout it then for sure. As I said, on hell of a guy! The thing about Stan, is even at 275 lbs, he's still ripped to the gills. He's not one of these boated fat guys off season.

[groink]

Stan mostly does face down Hack squats. He's got a video on his FB if you want to watch him and Glass train legs.

I did those today, they are one of my staples. Great movement....kills the quads.


I love watching glass train people. not to toot my own horn, but i've stumbled across a LOT of the same theories he uses on my own...

[oldsuperman]

Must be this... with interview
http://rxmuscle.com/videos/iatrainin...venice-ca.html

He talks about learning to isolate his quads after being used to squats full rom
and diet.. milk and eggs and that he snuck out to train with his PL team to squat LOL... at 12:50

Ya this is the one on his FB. It's pretty good stuff. Stan is learning some things.

[BrotherWolf]

Sure I can find that out.

He's about 5'9" to 10" and is wide and thick. He's pretty impressive. I don't see him much since he's been pro, yet I think he's guest posing at on of out comps in the area soon. I'll twist his ear bout it then for sure. As I said, on hell of a guy! The thing about Stan, is even at 275 lbs, he's still ripped to the gills. He's not one of these boated fat guys off season.

He says he was around 7% BF even when he was Plifting , that's a gifted guy

[IR45N]

Once. That's enough to REALLY suck at a lift.

[oldsuperman]

He says he was around 7% BF even when he was Plifting , that's a gifted guy

Yep, he's always be a ripped guy. That's why i was so shocked when I say him at 35 and he was so fat! He's got it in check now for sure.

[Karl_Hungus]

I don't know what you call these, yet you take your back leg and lay the top of you foot on a bench and the other out stretched in front of you and dip your knee down. Four sets of 20 each side, although I never could get the second set past 12 reps!

Sounds like you are referring to bulgarian split squats.....

[BrotherWolf]

Yep, he's always be a ripped guy. That's why i was so shocked when I say him at 35 and he was so fat! He's got it in check now for sure.

He sure did.....

[oldPlumber]

About 2 times a week or when my knees allow me. I have trouble using the bar now-a-days, so I use 100lb dumbbells. I do 3 sets of 9. Never was my favorite exercise.

(Why isn't there a "Over 50" sub-forum? The difference between 40 and 50 is 10 really huge years.)