Squat Every Day

An unorthodox method when muscle growth is gridlocked.

- Werner Beukes

Squat.Every.Single.Day

JUST ABOUT EVERY SPORTING GREAT OR PHYSIQUE CHAMPION YOU CAN NAME HAS DEVOTED MANY HOURS TO THE SQUAT RACK. KNOWN AS THE UNDISPUTED KING OF ALL EXERCISES, THE SQUAT WORKS THE LARGEST MUSCLES IN THE BODY AND STIMULATES OVERALL GROWTH.

This would suggest that in the world of physique development and performance enhancement, more seems to be better. However, this flies in the face of conventional training wisdom and the word ‘overtraining’ surely springs to mind. Can the human body really handle intense squat workouts on a daily basis?

LESSONS FROM THE BULGARIANS & NORWEGIANS

Coach Ivan Abadjiev put Bulgarian weightlifting on the map in the 1970s and 1980s after instructing his lifters to clean, jerk, snatch and squat every day. Abadjiev's weightlifters raked in multiple gold medals and made a small country a world powerhouse in the sport. Abadjiev preached that in order to move weight better you had to move it a lot – even if that meant every day.

In a similar vein, an experiment known as Frekvensprosjektet (Norwegian for Frequency Project) was recently conducted by the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. Powerlifters of their national team were divided into two groups with different training frequencies. One group trained three times per week and the other trained six times per week. Squats, bench presses and deadlifts were assessed and it was found that the group training six times per week gained more strength in all the lifts than the other group. On average, the high frequency group increased their bench press and squat by 11% versus the paltry 5 and 6% of the low frequency participants. Muscle mass also increased more in the high frequency group.