20-Rep Protocol

Can the 20-rep/breathing squat protocol (take your 10-rep max, and perform 20 reps taking 2-3 breaths between each rep after the first 10reps) be applied to other exercises?

Many seems to report good results with it in the squat, so i thought that maybe it could be used with other compound movements eg bench, military press,etc

Just a thought.

[quote]kung_fu_king wrote:
Can the 20-rep/breathing squat protocol (take your 10-rep max, and perform 20 reps taking 2-3 breaths between each rep after the first 10reps) be applied to other exercises?

Many seems to report good results with it in the squat, so i thought that maybe it could be used with other compound movements eg bench, military press,etc

Just a thought.[/quote]

Sure. It works well for squats because the legs contain such a large mass of muscle and different fiber types that the 20 rep breathing squat is the only way some trainers ever train them near failure as they do other muscles on a consistent basis. But try a 20 rep breathing set of military press, clean and press, or deadlifts…if it don’t kill ya, it’ll only make ya stronger!!

I think one reason it works so well with squats is that most people really don’t work their legs as hard as they do their upper bodies.

It’s relativily easy to go to failure with a set of Barbell Curls, for example. But when you use the legs you also use the heart and lungs to a much larger degree.

You can try using this technique with an upper body movement. But I just don’t think that you’ll have the same results as your upper body has been there before.