http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/irontamer5.htm

http://bodybuilding.com/fun/brewster24.htm

i've go thought this article recently, and found it very challeging

i am going to start this program After chinese new year



This post has been edited by yeah_guyz: Jan 22 2009, 10:32 AM

Looks good. I think you need a decent weight (read: strength) to go 20 rep.

I doubt I'd gain a lot from it because I could probably only do 20 rep around 60 to 75 kg. :\

ya, go 1 shoot of 20 rep is very hard, you will breath like cow...lol that why they called it as breathing squat



To determine your starting weight, take your current 5RM and subtract 5 lbs for each scheduled workout. So, if your current 5RM is 315 lbs and you are planning to train three times per week for 6 weeks (18 workouts), you should begin with 225 lbs, as 18 workouts x 5lbs per workout = 90lbs. Subtract 90 from 315 and you get 225. Simple enough.

I started off at 100KG x 20 and moved up to 125KG x 20
And that was it. I never could do it again. Never dared to. It....is by far the most difficult thing you can do in the gym

I'll break it down

1-5=EASY
6-10=Manageable
11-13=Doubt comes
14-15=Feels like stopping
16-18=There's no way I can finish this
19-20=ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

In short.....brutal beyond words.

So you're starting your 20rep squat with 40kg (looking at your journal)?

75kg on my end, it's still difficult beyond words. I reckon I would've to forgo studying to mentally prep up for the gym.

so how is the result? the author said that it's good for strength and size. it looks more like strength-oriented to me though

lol, nice break down

mental play a big roles in this program, you body will cry for it ask you to stop that

i think i'll start this after CNY as well..

No way...it's not a strength orientated program at all!
It's closer to size+endurance than strength if you ask me. Well basically after 6 weeks of that, the results were like this;

My waist is 30", my weight remained at 77KG yet I leaned out. Good thing! But my jeans, the legs...were tighter. Fat burns, but leg grows.

After 3 weeks of 20 rep squats, it becomes easier. A lot easier, so much so that you just feel like finishing it quickly. The set drops from 2 minutes to about 1 minute 10 seconds for all 20 repetitions. But on week 5, (breaks out old journal...) I did 120KG x 20 and suddenly it became that much harder. 122.5KG was insane. 125KG was easy again. It seems that at certain weeks/weights, the body has a hard time handling it, but readapts again.

Your food intake, that definitely will go up. You'll just eat anything and everything.

I would've continued with the 20 reppers till I hit 140KG, but I started Olympic weightlifting again, so there was no time to waste doing 20 rep squats. The best part was really, the melting away of fat.

so you're saying that it's very good for cutting but less effective for bulking?

oh, how many set of 20 reppers did you do? do you do others compound movements as suggested, like presses, deads, rows and pulls?

i've read up somewhere that one shouldn't do deads more than 2 or 3 times in a week. is this relevant?

This post has been edited by yeahs4.1: Jan 3 2009, 05:51 PM

Squats and milk!

that sound interesting...lol!! i love hardcore training

1 set of 20reps is more than enough to kill you

NOOOO!!! I'm saying it melts fat away like a furnace yet maintains your bodyweight.
Whether or not its less effective for bulking, I cannot answer that as I didn't gain any weight during the 20 rep squat process. Yet I know of many people who only do squats and drink like Angrydog said, SQUATS AND MILK, and gained slabs of solid muscle. So I think it's perfectly fine for gaining mass as well. In fact, I know a soldier who only did this high rep squats and deadlifts, and grew in size and dropped major amounts of fat.

According to my journal, I did 20 reps on Mondays and Fridays. My routine at that time was 1-2-4-5.

1- 20 rep squats, bench press [5x5] overhead press [4 x 10] and abs [2 x max repetitions]

2- Deadlift [5x5], chest supported rows [4 x max repetitions] , pull-ups [4 x 10] and shrugs [2 x max repetitions]

4- Dumbbell swings, dumbbell snatch, dumbbell clean and push press, renegade rows with dumbbells and clap push ups. Circuit of 5 rounds. Dumbbell work is 5x per hand and clap push-ups was 10 repetitions.

Looks like I made a dumbbell day.

5- 20 rep squats, push press and overhead lockouts.

I love journals, going through what you did when you were younger. So nice.

hmm.. i understand back muscles are the slowest to recover. let's say i were going to follow this program exactly as proposed, which includes 3 times of DL per week, which every workout day consist of 1 x 15 reps, is it okay?

This post has been edited by yeahs4.1: Jan 3 2009, 06:34 PM

my ideal plan will be follow back rippetoe 3x5


Everything the same, just replace 3x5 squat with 1x20 squat, easy

I can't answer this because it's not my body.

Personally if you're asking me if pulling 15x for a single set is smart, I'll say no as your back will surely fatigue and your form will suffer. I'd much rather pull 5 sets of 3 reps instead, if I'm working on strength or 3x5 if I'm working on both strength and muscle. This depends highly on what you want to achieve.

IF you're going to do stiff legged deadlifts or Romanians, I guess it's more plausible yet still not something that I would do. Chances are if you were to deadlift 3x a week, 15x for a single set, the weights would have to be relatively light. Perhaps 60% of your 1RM on the first day, 55% on the second day and 50% on the last day of your deadlifting for that week. You could then reset it to 65% for the first day on the next week and decrease by 5% per day of the week.

Honestly, I don't really see a purpose of doing a single set of 15 repetitions. I would rather break it down to a few sets because of numerous reasons;

-Muscular fatigue
-Bad form
-Injury potential
-Slow performance as it fatigue hits.
-Reduced range of motion as pain kicks in

Remember, you're doing this AFTER the 20 rep squats. It's no joke especially on the first few weeks. Chances are you'll feel like you're meeting the devil on the last day of living.

And lastly, you have to learn to use fullstops and not commas exclusively.

cool. that clears all my doubts. i guess normal 3x5 deads are good enough for me at this moment. by the way, i'm doing normal deadlift just like the one suggested in Starting Strength. i believe it's not stiff legged DL

Just do it 2 times a week if you're concerned about slow recovery. 3 times a week was recommended for quicker recovery.

Update me on your progress by posting on this thread.

usually i do bench press 32 kg 3x18... but after 10 days i didnt work out, i feel that 32 kg or even 27kg is too heavy for me -,- ... make me feel like wanna to give up to build muscular appearance.

wtf? freaking 3 sets of 18 reps?
i'd say you'd go better with 3x5x45kg or 3x10x37kg. strength-wise and size-wise.