Poweriifting-Squat RX – Bodybuilding

Here’s what you need to know…

1. After the newbie stage, you need to pick between getting stronger or getting bigger and squat accordingly.
2. Mix lower rep squats and higher rep squats for hypertrophy (8-12 and even sets of 25 or 50) and use lower rep squats for strength (1-5).
3. Tempos with a slow eccentric are often useful for bodybuilding squats but usually have no place in powerlifting squats.
4. A longer time under tension is great for hypertrophy, but not so great for strength.
5. Generally speaking, use a high-bar placement for bodybuilding squats and a low-bar placement for powerlifting squats.
6. For building muscle, mix up short rest periods and long rest. When training for strength, have a minimum of three minutes rest between sets to maximize recovery and strength.
7. A bodybuilding squat requires a narrow stance while a powerlifting squat is best approached with a hip dominant stance.

To maximize results from the squat, it all comes down to reverse engineering the movement and asking yourself the question, What’s my current training goal? During your first year or two of training, you can squat on Mondays and get results. No matter how hard you bust your butt, those gains will slow after a while. Pick between the two goals when this happens.

1. Get Stronger
2. Get Bigger

There is always a carryover in size and strength while squatting, but what we are talking about is squatting to maximize strength or size. Why is this important? What he squats doesn’t matter to the man. The development of his legs is what matters. The size of the powerlifter’s legs doesn’t matter, only how much he lifts. He has to squat with his goal in mind.

We will discuss the differences between a power lifting squat and a body building squat.

1 – Reps

The standard rep range of 8-12 works well when squatting to build muscle. 25-50 reps can help build muscle. There are a number of reasons for this.

• The different mix of muscle fiber types in your legs.
• The blood volume of higher reps will increase the pump (always a good thing).
• Higher reps tend to lead to GH output (great for building muscle and losing fat).

Most powerlifters do between 1 and 5 reps. If you are a weight-class based athlete and you don’t want your legs to get any bigger, stick with 1-2 reps.

2 – Weight

No one is judged on how much they can lift, they are judged on how they look. The key is working the muscle and you want to use as much weight as possible. With proper form, you can get the right amount of volume by using whatever weight is necessary. What you do matters, but what you don’t do matters more. How? The weight is lifted by you. A squat with a 3-1-X-1 tempo can destroy your legs without using a ton of weight.

The weight is all that matters. You are not trying to build muscle. The goal is to squat as much weight as possible, hit the depth needed, and stand back up.

3 – Rep Tempo

The pace of your lifting is a factor. You can see the prescription 4-1-X-1. The negative phase is when the weight is lowered. The 4 would mean an eccentric. The pause between lowering and lifting is the second number. In the case of a squat, the pause is at the bottom, which is 1 second. The lifting of the weight is the third letter. As Fast As Possible is what we use X to mean. The pause at the top of the rep is the last number. Depending on your training goals, this could be a squeeze at the top of the movement or a standard rest time. One-second pause is used in our example. Let’s look at each phase.

Eccentric Phase

Gymnasts use tempo very well for their protocols. The negative portion of the rep is very important in building muscle, but also very bad for causing muscle soreness. If you only squat once a week, it isn’t a big deal, but most powerlifters squat two to four times a week so they don’t get sore.

Pause Phase

Pauses can help power lifters. The pause phase is great for getting a full stretch in the muscle and improving the range of motion. When you drive out of the hole in the bottom portion of a squat, the pause at the bottom can help make you stronger. It helps to find your rhythm on a deep squat.

Concentric Phase

It is beneficial to have controlled eccentric speed. There isn’t much need to focus on slow negatives when it comes to power lifting as you’re always training at one speed. As fast as possible. . You may not be moving fast when squatting, but the important thing is to. Try. To move the weight. The use of tempo on eccentrics isn’t as important as it is for powerlifting.

Top Phase

The top phase is a great time to work out. It’s important to contract the muscle in order to improve the mind muscle connection. The rest should be used to save energy for the next rep.

4 – Time Under Tension

Time under tension is how long your muscles are working. If you use any tempo protocols with slower eccentrics, this will increase time under tension. Your legs have a wide variety of muscle fiber types. They are able to respond to low-volume sets. And. There are high-volume sets. 50 reps of squats per set will help your legs grow. Let’s look at an 8-rep set of squats.

• 4 Four-second eccentric or lowering phase
• 1 One-second pause at bottom
• 4 Four-second concentric or lifting phase
• 1 One-second top/squeeze position

The average rep will take 10 seconds, so the time under tension for this 8-rep set would be 80 seconds.

The average lift in powerlifting is only a few seconds, so it only makes sense that most training tempos should be in that range. Set of 5 reps, 3 reps, and 1 rep are included in most power lifting programs. Most powerlifting training is done with a very fast time under tension and fast eccentrics, but there are benefits to slower eccentrics. This is done to improve the bar speed. The stronger you are, the faster you are.

5 – Bar Placement

When squatting, low bar and high bar are the general bar positions. The bar sits below the traps around the shoulder blade area with a low bar squat. With a high bar squat, the bar sits on top of the traps.

The high bar position moves the center of gravity of the bar to the thighs, so most squats are done with a high bar position.

Powerlifters use a mixture of low bar squats and high bar squats, but a low bar squat is more common as it shortens the distance the bar needs to travel and it places the center of gravity of the weight on the hips.

6 – Body Position

If you want to build muscle in the legs, you want as much of a vertical body position as possible. The load will transfer to your legs if you stay upright. The load will transfer to your back if you squat and lean forward. Front squats force you to maintain an upright position, which is beneficial when it comes to building the legs.

I have seen everything from a high bar vertical body position to a low bar with the torso leaning forward. For competition, all that matters is the hips getting deep enough to pass as a lift. The torso position is not important.

7 – Rest Between Sets

A variety of rest times can be used to build muscle, from five minutes of rest between sets for heavy squats down to no rest with drop-set squats. They can help you grow. Depending on the programming and the weight used, the most commonly used rest time for squats can be anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

Rest time is important for power lifters. It is not possible to hit a heavy 3-rep max squat and then squat again in 30 seconds. It is not going to happen. Two minutes is pushing it. The minimum rest time for a lifter is three minutes. If you squat your first attempt and there is no one else in your division, you are given a minimum of three minutes to recover. Once the bar is loaded, you have one minute to start your lift.

Powerlifters use squat recovery time to model what they would do in a competition. It is good to train with rest times of 3 to 10 minutes. Training with fast rest times between sets will slow your recovery, lower your lifting, and increase your risk of injury.

8 – Range of Motion

When it comes to building muscle, focusing on full squats is always a good place to start. In the gym, we see a lot of people doing squats that are not even close to being a squat. A knee bend is not a squat, so you have to get your ass down and squat.

How deep should you squat? A general rule of thumb is to squat as deep as you can without pain. If you want to target specific areas of the muscle, focus on other exercises like leg extensions, lunges, and hack squats, but full-range squatting should be the base of your program.

To meet the judges criteria, a powerlifting squat needs to achieve the required depth. Depending on the judging, the knees must reach parallel or below parallel. If your meet requires you to break parallel and all your training has been done simply to parallel, you are not going to come back up.

Changing your range of motion for squats can help if you have a weakness in your strength. You are not very strong in the bottom portion of the squat. You can improve this by doing pause squats. Maybe you are weak at the mid range of a squat. If you can work high-range partials with more weight and overload that weak point, you can bust past your plateau.

9 – Stance

A bodybuilding squat is when your feet are at shoulder width and your toes are straight ahead. The focus is on quad and leg development.

A squat with toes out has a wider stance. The hips are the power source for squatting and this allows them to contribute more to the lifts. A lot of powerlifters use a low bar squat and wide stance for maximum strength. Sometimes that is not the case. Genetics and hip mobility are big factors in your stance. A high bar, close-stance squat is used by some of the best squatters in the world.

10 – Muscle Contraction

The flexing and squeezing of the muscles are very important. Or muscle contraction in both is very detrimental to your squat. The contraction of the muscle can be seen in a squat. It’s very very. Good thing. You want to get your legs to grow by flexing and squeezing the muscles at the top of every rep. Your legs will grow and respond better if you can improve your mind/body connection with the muscles. Knowing how to flex your legs will serve you well in a contest.

When it comes to a powerlifting squat, the last thing you want to do is to flex and squeeze them. flexing the legs is the last thing you want to do because you want to stay tight at the top of a rep. Spending energy flexing your quads will make you weaker and impact your next rep because you want to maintain energy to hit your next rep.

Bodybuilding vs. Powerlifting Squat Summary

1. Reps. Mix lower reps and higher reps for hypertrophy (8-12 and even sets of 25 or 50) and use lower reps for strength (1-5).
2. Weight. Always aim to get stronger, but for hypertrophy, you can build muscle with heavy weights and with lighter weights. For strength, always train pretty heavy.
3. Tempo. Know how to use tempo to your advantage to build muscle and strength. Tempos with a slow eccentric are often useful for bodybuilding but usually have no place in powerlifting.
4. Time Under Tension. A longer time under tension is great for hypertrophy but not so great for strength.
5. Bar Placement. Generally speaking, use a high-bar placement for bodybuilding squats and a low-bar placement for powerlifting.
6. Body Position. Keep an upright body posture when trying to build muscle. (If you’re a taller lifter, you may have a tendency to lean forward when lifting heavy weights, but that’s fine.) Body position doesn’t matter so much for powerlifting. Use whatever works for you.
7. Rest Time. For building muscle, mix up short rest periods and long rest. When training for strength, have a minimum of three minutes rest between sets to maximize recovery and strength.
8. Range Of Motion. The simple rule of thumb for both disciplines is squat as deep as possible without pain or discomfort. Work on mobility if needed to improve squat range of motion.
9. Stance. Generally, a bodybuilding squat requires a closer narrow stance while a powerlifting squat does better with a more hip dominant stance. However, your squat stance is based very much on the genetic construction of your hips, so find a stance that feels comfortable for you.
10. Muscle Contraction. When trying to build muscle be sure to focus on squeezing and contracting the muscle as hard as possible. Your rest time at the top is a good time to squeeze. Forget about squeezing the muscles for powerlifting. Keep tight, but use this time to recover slightly so you can be strong for your next rep(s).