I happened upon this snippet from Arthur Jones on high reps for legs. I know the Mentzer’s, especially Ray, experimented with high reps. Did you and/or Arthur ever test out his hypothesis?
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In his book Building the Classic Physique, Steve Reeves talks about doing 100 rep squats while stationed overseas during WWII.
As old injuries reared their ugly head, I implemented 100 rep sets of the squat. I find it easier on the joints and notice my hill climbing ability during hikes improved.
My experience is that the weight will be significantly reduced.
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Interesting, thanks. Highest I ever went was 20x1 squats…consisting of 20 sets of a single rep with a Radar chest pull between. That equated to 10-15 minutes of squats! Two weeks of that, as well as I gained, and my knees balked.
I never saw Jones use more than 50 reps on the hips and thighs. The several guys he pushed through 50 reps were indeed under a lot of pain.
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Thanks Ell. I thought I’d never heard of either of you going that high.
WHAT!? If can do one rep with 400 then can do one hundred with 380?? Had Mr. Jones taken leave of his senses at that moment?
Maybe do 380 reps by doing one or two reps, racking the barbell, pausing for a couple of minutes, then unrack and repeat same for the duration. Surely he didn’t mean keep the barbell on one’s shoulders for the whole 380 reps (and even pausing for a few seconds between reps)! That is mind-boggling.
Input on my statement is certainly solicited.
Jesse Lee
This doesn’t sound right…
If your Max is 400 you would only get 2-3 reps with 380
You can search for “Hungarian Oak leg blast” there was one plan where rather than reps you go for time on squats
Only 1 set twice a week
You start with 2 minutes and over a few weeks push to 8 minutes which even allowing for rest between reps is probably close to 100 reps
In his example a lifter could do 450 for 1 rep and was using 135 for his 8 minute set
yeah and this is the greatness of arthur jones he literally convinced me that
but in practice it does not seem possible to do 100 reps by lowering the weight a little bit. maybe on his duo squat machine.
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Years ago, Jones and Dr. Ken could convince me of just about anything in their articles. But even if I heard this ’ back in the day’ … neither could have convinced me of this.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say things so confidently and with such certainly as Jone’s could … even if it was completely nuts like this squating statement was.
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I had forgotten the poster’s name earlier but remembered @Cretin78 likes super high rep squats
Did you get this from Arthur Jones? Was the weight based on % max or whatever weight you can get the reps with?
Dr. Darden – I do believe that we need your input on what Mr. Jones said regarding the ‘400 lb. one rep max and a hundred reps with 380 lb.’ in the above video. Did you ever discuss that with him? Inquiring minds wanna know. 
I never saw Jones train anyone with 100 reps on the leg press or squat. Yes, he said he thought that 100 reps might apply. But 50 reps was more than enough. And once a guy did 50, he never wanted to try even 50 again, much less 100.
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I must echo and confirm what “tzabcan” said in his above post…
I personally spent a bit of time with Arthur while he was in his prime, including a couple of private lunches and watching him in action at some of his Medex seminars (mostly for Doctors and rehab people).
Fact: I never saw anyone with a more commanding and confident speaking voice than Arthur.
I, more than once, heard him say some pretty ridiculous and outrageous things…(I believe maybe to just to try to “get a rise” out of someone or to see who was paying attention.) I don’t know why, but he would do it with such confidence and swagger that almost no one would challenge him on it.
At one of his Medex seminars, I even heard him pretty much call an entire roomful of Orthopedic surgeons a bunch of moronic idiots…Right to their faces…And not a single one of them said anything. Pretty crazy to watch!
Dr. D. – You were with him perhaps more than anyone, did you ever see something like this, or was this episode more of an “outlier”?
Good training to all!
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Yes, I saw AJ do the same things multiple times. Only a few people would ever challenge Arthur. But the ones who did, if they had something worthwhile to say, quickly got Arthur’s respect.
Yes, I found the same thing…If you could defend your conflicting viewpoint (really defend it, intellectually!) then you earned his respect.
But he sure didn’t “suffer fools” very kindly, am I right?
The very idea of doing 100 rep squat came to me from visiting Dr Ken, he put 155 on my back and said to do 100reps.
I only made it to about 59reps to utter failure.
This was in 2007 mid summer in his garage. A young kid named Austin was doing BW squats in front of me, I was spitting sweat out of my mouth, I remember this, how hot is was.
I still do 100rep squats only because I don’t have a rack. I do them for the cretin simplicity of them, no thinking is needed, just go in and do it, the outcome is always the same, hard work. I don’t go to utter failure. I don’t use any percentages, I aim to either do more reps, more weight, or more sets. There are days I’ll do 100# for 100 as fast as I can, even that gave me insane leg pump. Some days I just do sets of 50.
BTW, I heard about speed skaters doing sets of 100 to a bench, with some decent weights.
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I only remember Dr. Ken talking about 50 rep sets in his HIT Newsletter and he said do that once a month if I’m remembering correctly. I never tried 50 rep squats thinking my lower back would give out first but did do it a few times with leg press which had me thinking about giving up weights for bowling.
I remember reading somewhere that one of the first hurdles you have to clear in early professional wrestling training / workouts was completing 500 body weight squats everyday.
This is such a great thread really with these stories.
What I’m about to say isn’t any comparison of Dr. Ken and Jones or anything, because when I was at Ken’s I heard plenty of AJ stories.
There’s a younger very strong guy on YouTube who called out Dr. Ken’s lifting saying if your a nice guy like Ken you can get away with BS.
This guy knew nothing about Ken. This guy calling him out was a big strong softie, Ken was intimidating and calling me names that aren’t allowed anymore Ha Ha, but yeah Ken was a good guy, I wouldn’t call him nice to his face though.
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I know that you didn’t ask me about the ‘suffer fools very kindly’ thing – but my understanding is that you are exactly right. As I think back on my Army basic training days, Mr. Jones reminds me of our gruff, grizzled senior drill sergeant (an E-7 SFC) that scared me even more than the ‘regular’ drill sergeants.
Not really. More the perfect statement to attract anyone’s attention. Well, maybe a marketing strategy of sorts. Arthur Jones was a remarkable man indeed. Currently digesting “In Arthur’s shadow” book by Bannister - An excellent read!
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