Challenge Your Endurance by Squatting Your Bodyweight

Remember when I said that this week, I'd be creating a new workout challenge for you? Get ready, because here it comes. Here's a five-minute routine: go ahead and try to do better than my results. Scroll down to see how I did.

If you've been following my articles for any length of time, you'll be aware that I get a kick out of changing up the workouts I recommend. Setting particular goals for the exercised you do, as well as taking a crack at various fitness regimens and methods of training helps keep you motivated.

You may have seen one of my unusual workout programs when it was written up in the July/August issue of the internationally known publication, Muscle & Fitness Hers, on page 18 of the magazine.

This week's cure for the workout blues is an idea I just came up with. I got together at my gym with two of my training partners, and we had a contest to see, in five minutes, who could do the highest number of reps of bodyweight squats. To be absolutely clear, I'm not talking about the ones you see people doing all the time--those wimpy little "half-squats" that only go halfway down--no, I'm talking about parallel to the thighs. full, deep squats

You time five minutes, during which you do as many of these squats as you can. If you need to take a three-second break to help you continue, you can do that, but only one or two times.

I thought this would be good for you guys because it works as a welcome departure from the same old sets of 10x3, 5x5, 7x3...I'm sure you know what I mean. The general shakedown with weighted squats is something between twenty and forty reps in any of your workouts, whichever way you slice it.

When it comes to maximum rep bodyweight squats, however, your numbers can quickly exceed a hundred reps within five minutes. And believe me... you may not be squatting major weights with this new and different routine, but the high number of reps works the heck out of your quads and will soon have you sweating hard.? Be prepared for some pretty intense soreness in your legs for two to three days after you start doing these high numbers of squats.

Shall I tell you how I did? Let's see...I cranked out 157 reps on my first try at five-minute squats. After a week went by, I made another attempt, and exceeded my first result by six squats. By week three, I was pumping out 169 squats, once again beating the previous week's score by six squats.

Of course, I've got a goal I'd like to reach, which is to make it to 200 squats without exceeding five minutes. I've done some calculations and figured out that you'd have to be squatting very fast to crank out two hundred bodyweight squats within five minutes (which breaks down to 300 seconds), so two hundred is, most likely, where most people would max out.

I'm always trying to come up with off-the-beaten-path challenges (if you've been reading my articles, you know that this is only one among many) simply to keep myself from getting bored. I think the smartest thing to do is to choose a similar goal, spend a couple of months working towards it, and then change up the routine again and push yourself towards a new goal for another couple of months. This way you experience some new stuff in your workout, but the regularity of each new routine also allows you to progress.

By contrast, this challenge to build muscular endurance by squatting your body weight two hundred times in five minutes is nothing like the goal I worked toward a year ago when I was trying to strength train to the point where I could dead lift 405 lbs. Switching out your workouts to help you reach drastically different goals is a great way to keep you motivated for the long haul.

OK, now it's your turn to try out my nifty little challenge: five minutes, full squats--the real ones, don't be lazy.

Time for an update: It's three weeks later, and guess what--I actually went beyond the goal I'd set to squat my body weight two hundred times in five minutes, managing to crank out 214 repetitions! And man, am I feeling it!