I’ve been lifting to improve athletic performance for maybe two and a half years now but I’m new to T-Nation. It seems like it’ll be a much more productive use of my time than if I joined Facebook.
In the past I have tried a variety of different workouts and try to change up my exercises and rep/set schemes every 6-8 weeks. I had a good amount of success with 20 rep squats near the end of last fall so I plan on switching back to them as the focus for my legs.
But what I want to do differently is apply 20 reps to pull-ups and bench press. I’m mainly interested in increasing stamina for 1-2 minutes worth of sprint-effort anaerobic activity.
So I just want to know if 20 rep weighted pull-ups and 20 rep bench press is a good idea or if there’s something else I could be putting my time towards.
Are you talking about applying the “Super Squat” program, where you take your 10RM and do 20 reps, or something else?
I dunno. I thought about doing it for the bench press, but I was afraid of dropping the weight on my chest when I got tired. Give it a try and see if it works for you.
[quote]LUEshi wrote:
But what I want to do differently is apply 20 reps to pull-ups and bench press.
Are you talking about applying the “Super Squat” program, where you take your 10RM and do 20 reps, or something else?
I dunno. I thought about doing it for the bench press, but I was afraid of dropping the weight on my chest when I got tired. Give it a try and see if it works for you.[/quote]
I did twenty-rep squats for about 6 weeks. I liked it a lot. I have heard it can be applied to deadlifts and even power cleans, and from my own experiences, high-rep cleans are brutal.
As far as chest, I don’t know if bench press would be a good movement for 20. Dips might do better here. A finisher I used to do was high-rep dips in the assisted pull-up set-up. Put it on a very light weight or the lowest weight possible and rep out.
I had a friend who picked up the idea from football camp, where they would test players in that manner every week or so.
[quote]FightingScott wrote:
Do you truly support it or are you mocking me by saying that dropping a loaded barbell on my chest is a good idea for a workout?[/quote]
no i think that would be a badass idea for the rest pause squats to bench press and deadlift.
[quote]suprailiac wrote:
I did twenty-rep squats for about 6 weeks. I liked it a lot. I have heard it can be applied to deadlifts and even power cleans, and from my own experiences, high-rep cleans are brutal.
As far as chest, I don’t know if bench press would be a good movement for 20. Dips might do better here. A finisher I used to do was high-rep dips in the assisted pull-up set-up. Put it on a very light weight or the lowest weight possible and rep out.
I had a friend who picked up the idea from football camp, where they would test players in that manner every week or so. [/quote]
he doesn’t mean high rep light weight. he means rest pause style like 10 rep max and doing 20 reps.
I had done the high-rep cleans with all out effort for HOWEVER long it took to get X number of reps. I recommend a couple spotters and near-compulsive grip checks as you get up there in reps. Or, if grip strength isn’t a goal and you really want to tear up your back, use wrist-straps and don’t worry about grip.
Dips were a rep-out blitz though…It would be neat to try them with 10RM for 20.
I’ve thought of 20 rep chins, I havent done them, though.
If I were you, I wouldnt expect the overall mass gains you got with 20 rep squats. The premise behind that is the extended spinal loading. With chins or presses, its not nearly as much spinal loading. I would expect some awesome gains on your lats and pecs, though.
Give it a shot, drink the gallon of milk and see what kind of gains you make.
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
I’ve thought of 20 rep chins, I havent done them, though.
If I were you, I wouldnt expect the overall mass gains you got with 20 rep squats. The premise behind that is the extended spinal loading. With chins or presses, its not nearly as much spinal loading. I would expect some awesome gains on your lats and pecs, though.
Give it a shot, drink the gallon of milk and see what kind of gains you make.[/quote]
I’ll try it for the big three, chart my results and post it up on here someday.
Well I start next week doing this 20 rep for Bench, Pull-up, and of course Squats.
I doubt I’ll be adding 5 pounds to pull-ups and bench press every week like with squats but I gotta try.
The amount of milk I’ll be drinking is gonna get expensive. I’m thinking about taking some empty gallon jugs to our cafeteria and discretely making off with $10 of skim.
I don’t see you pulling off 20 reps of bench with your 10 rep max if done 20 rep squat style supporting the weight at the top position. I think something more along the lines of doggcrapp style training would give better overall results. Rep out… rack the weight… rest 15-20 seconds… Rep out… rack the weight… rest 15-20 seconds… rep out… done
What you want to try is already invented. I know a german IFBB coach (karsten pfuetzenreuter), who found a training system called PITT (similar to HIT, but with the technique of the breath-squat).
read this threads, they’re from a german bodybuilding forum. A english speaking guys asks about PITT.
The name of the coach and inventor is “Karsten”. One of his amateure athletes wo trains PITT-style is “meisterproper”. as you can see in his avatar pic, it’s working.
here are some links to visualize how PIIT-training looks (performed from his wife, nicole pf?tzenreuter, german IFBB pro):
I’m not an expert, but i wanted to say this.
Ps: a picture of Karsten from 2003 (?) on the biggest german fitness exibition, the Fibo next to Ronnie Coleman. Not bad huh?
[quote]JNeves wrote:
I don’t see you pulling off 20 reps of bench with your 10 rep max if done 20 rep squat style supporting the weight at the top position. I think something more along the lines of doggcrapp style training would give better overall results. Rep out… rack the weight… rest 15-20 seconds… Rep out… rack the weight… rest 15-20 seconds… rep out… done[/quote]
This is the first week out. I haven’t even gotten 20 reps all at once on any exercise yet with my weights. Before I start adding small amounts of weight I’ll need to work up to a full 20 reps with the current weights I’m using.
I thought about using straps to let me effortlessly dangle in between the last few pull-ups but decided against it. It just wouldn’t be right.
