Breathing Squats Within HST

C

cxw

New Member
Obviously a lot of people do back squats (either olympic or power lifting style) within HST. But do any of you do breathing style squats?

I currently have my ankle immobilized due to an old injury. So 3 weeks before I went into the cast I tried 20 rep breathing squats twice a week (with some other experimentation), each time increasing the weight by 2.5kg. Although this was for a short time I really feel that my max squat would have improved.

The other experimentation got me no where.

So for my next HST cycle where I have functional legs, I'm looking to incorporate breathing squats.

During the 15s I will do 20 breathing squats, working up to my normal 10 rep max.

In the 10s I will do 15 breathing squats, working up to my normal 6 rep max.

In the 5s I will do 10 breathing squats, working up to normal 3 rep max.

In the negative weeks I will try to add weight each session.

I'm not sure whether I will do this 3 times per week or twice (i.e. one session will not involve squatting).

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

I'm particularly interested in people who've done breathing squats as I feel there's something to them which isn't covered by most scientific literature. Unless of course there's been some studies using breathing squats, however as most studies involve unmotivated people it seems pretty unlikely there'd be studies involving something as challenging as breathing squats.

For those that don't know, breathing squats are when you "rest" with the bar on your back breathing in and out between each rep.

P.S My squat is awful (my worst lift). I don't know my 1 rep max but it's probaby only a tad above bodyweight.
 
I suppose breathing squats are really just a way to reduce fatigue and so allow you to do more reps with a load than you would normally be able to do in a single set. Although you are not unloading your body, your quads are able to rest a bit while the majority of the loading is passed through your skeleton to the floor. The stabilisers and support muscles along your spine and elsewhere will still be working so lactic acid will continue to build in your body at a greater rate than if you completely deloaded like you would for Max-Stim.

So, yeah, breathing squats should work just fine within an HST cycle. Your plan looks like a good one but if you find you can't get 10 breathing squats with your 3 rep max, just cluster reps. I personally feel that you won't gain any greater hypertrophic stimulus from doing, say, one set of 10 breathing squats over 2 sets of 5 breathing squats with the same normal squat 3RM load.

Of course, there may be other metabolic effects (like being better able to deal with fatigue) if you do more reps in a set but, once the load is this heavy, each rep will require full muscle fibre recruitment to get the job done so you want to minimise fatigue and maintain time under tension. The best way to do this is to cluster reps or, taken to it's logical conclusion, Max-Stim.
 
Lol: thanks for the response. However, I've tried clustering and breathing, and I believe breathing has some extra benefits - although I cannot explain why.

I'll probably try this (either two or three times a week) and see how it goes.

This is a great site with experienced and successful lifters giving good advice. But there's always going to be some experimentation in finding what's optimal for the individual.
 
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(cxw @ Aug. 04 2007,05:46)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Lol: thanks for the response.  However, I've tried clustering and breathing, and I believe breathing has some extra benefits - although I cannot explain why.</div>
I've tried both too. What do you feel are the benefits?

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(cxw @ Aug. 04 2007,05:46)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">But there's always going to be some experimentation in finding what's optimal for the individual.</div>
Absolutely! And it is greatly encouraged once a person has a handle on all the basics.
 
I didn't know I was doing breathing squats...but I've always taken however many breaths I need to hit the next rep...usually 2 to 4 near the end of a big set. No sense in starving for oxygen.
I'd guess that the longer you STAND there though...another type of fatigue sets in and offsets the advantage.
 
<div>
(cxw @ Aug. 03 2007,18:19)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">So for my next HST cycle where I have functional legs, I'm looking to incorporate breathing squats.

During the 15s I will do 20 breathing squats, working up to my normal 10 rep max.

...

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?</div>
Be sure to drink a gallon of milk every day...
smile.gif
 
lol said it first, it gives you a chance to recover(slightly) between reps.

i use this when im getting tired towards the last few reps.

try doing squats with out stopping,ie: one fluid movement, now thats a killer.

its easier to get out of breath with squats as your legs being a large muscle group demand high oxygen intake.
 
I don't see the point in doing these when you can use max-stim and get more reps out of the same weight.
 
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(Lol @ Aug. 04 2007,05:33)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I've tried both too. What do you feel are the benefits?</div>
As I stated I only did this for 6 sessions over 3 weeks so it was a reasonably short period of time.

But I felt that my squat had improved during that time more than it had under any other time during lifting (although I never had a chance to test 1 rep max).

Perhaps the metabolic stress had positve effects? With max-stim (I've also played around with this) it's almost purely mechanical stress, so perhaps breathing style may have slightly less mechanical stress but the extra metabolic stress has benefits?

Whenever my legs become right I'm going to try this and see how it goes.

I'll post a log so that we can see the results.
 
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