Love for Squats Comes and Goes

I need some ideals on why my love deep squats comes and goes. I started lifting very young and squatted routinely 2-3x a week I did eventually dial back to once a week, but with a home gym its my stable for legs, but im to the point that i have no desire to perform and I’m not sure if a nutrition issue since my volume is low and sleep is not an issue

Do you compete?

EDIT: Now that this thread is no longer in the powerlifting section, my comment makes less sense.

[quote]BigEasy24 wrote:
im to the point that i have no desire to perform[/quote]
If you don’t want to squat, don’t squat. Fine, whatever. Unless you compete in powerlifting, like Pwnisher was saying, there’s nobody who has to squat. It’s a good and useful exercise, but there are options.

Just be aware that you shouldn’t want to avoid squats simply because they’re hard. At least try to find a better reason than “It’s too tough, so I don’t wanna.” If you were doing them a bunch, you might’ve just burned out on them mentally (or physically) and you might find them coming back into rotation soon enough.

You said you train at home, so I’d probably rely on single-leg stuff (lunge and step-up variations) and deadlift variations, and adjust the volume and intensity based on goals.

I can understand the love/hate relationship with squats though. With any lift, really. I’ve had it with all 3 of the PL lifts, most recently deadlift, which used to be my favorite. I think having a love/hate relationship with heavy lifting in general is pretty healthy, and has a lot to do with success in the sport.

In some ways, I dread squat day. It’s hard, always is. But on the other hand, it’s a day I never skip. I hate how much my elbows hurt when I first put the unloaded bar on my back, but as I add plates, throw on my belt, and start to sweat, I always remember what keeps me coming back.

it must be just burn out, because I’ve never shied away from the squat even now as I detest it I still load the bar and go to get my sets in. Perhaps single leg work is the key, ill give it a try even though I’m apprehensive about taking weight off the bar for the learning curve.

True I don’t have to squat, but Not squatting defies what I consider the most important part of a training routine.

You don’t consider results to be the most important part?

Perhaps I worded that wrong, but what I meant was that the way the whole body grows from doing squats and their variations, it would be insane not to do them simply because I don’t feel like it.

[quote]BigEasy24 wrote:
Perhaps I worded that wrong, but what I meant was that the way the whole body grows from doing squats and their variations, it would be insane not to do them simply because I don’t feel like it.[/quote]

I’m not convinced that the whole body does grow from squats…

[quote]Yogi wrote:

[quote]BigEasy24 wrote:
Perhaps I worded that wrong, but what I meant was that the way the whole body grows from doing squats and their variations, it would be insane not to do them simply because I don’t feel like it.[/quote]

I’m not convinced that the whole body does grow from squats…[/quote]

I sure as shit don’t believe it. My bench press actually took a dip for a long time when I shifted my focus to squats a few years ago. These days it seems like there are a ton of guys who have bought into this bullshit, and have awful bench presses to show for it. I’ve seen way too many guys with 400+ squats and benches in the mid 200’s recently. It’s weird.

[quote]Yogi wrote:

[quote]BigEasy24 wrote:
Perhaps I worded that wrong, but what I meant was that the way the whole body grows from doing squats and their variations, it would be insane not to do them simply because I don’t feel like it.[/quote]

I’m not convinced that the whole body does grow from squats…[/quote]

I’m not sure how much hypertrophy(of the whole body) could be achieved from regularly doing heavy squats. I think it’s more realistic to assume an increase in strength/stability. The heavy loading would help with farmers walks and things like that, but I would be surprised if squats directly lead to growth in the back, shoulders, chest, etc.

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]Yogi wrote:

[quote]BigEasy24 wrote:
Perhaps I worded that wrong, but what I meant was that the way the whole body grows from doing squats and their variations, it would be insane not to do them simply because I don’t feel like it.[/quote]

I’m not convinced that the whole body does grow from squats…[/quote]

I sure as shit don’t believe it. My bench press actually took a dip for a long time when I shifted my focus to squats a few years ago. These days it seems like there are a ton of guys who have bought into this bullshit, and have awful bench presses to show for it. I’ve seen way too many guys with 400+ squats and benches in the mid 200’s recently. It’s weird.[/quote]

well I don’t know about YOU, sir, but when I want to bring up my lagging rear delts I just increase my squat frequency…

…I think it’s just a way to get noobs to squat. Like telling kids they need to behave or Santa’ll come down the chimney and burn them with cigarettes or whatever, you tell noobs that if they squat everything’ll grow, so they do.

Squats will cause whole body growth. The only downside is that frequent squatting while consuming intra-workout drinks with fast acting carbs will cause Palumboism in the long run.

Science, bitch!

Yeah, I’m skeptical squats actually contribute at all to upper body growth.

They do stress a lot of overall muscle mass, and there may be some kind of hormonal impact from doing heavy squats and deadlifts when one first starts doing them – at least, people keep saying this – but I can’t imagine it is that significant a factor.

It was actually the transient spike in hormonal levels that started this myth.

my whole belief in whole body growth from squats isn’t the minute increase in hormone released, but based off when A max squat is done and not just the legs and glutes are stressed, but how the shoulders and back have to act as stabilizers to support the weight. Almost like working the same muscle twice in a row with the first day being low volume, low weight followed by the next day with High volume or heavy weight

[quote]BigEasy24 wrote:
my whole belief in whole body growth from squats isn’t the minute increase in hormone released, but based off when A max squat is done and not just the legs and glutes are stressed, but how the shoulders and back have to act as stabilizers to support the weight. Almost like working the same muscle twice in a row with the first day being low volume, low weight followed by the next day with High volume or heavy weight[/quote]

It just doesn’t work like that in real life. As I mentioned earlier, my upper body atrophied significantly when I shifted my focus to squatting. The first time I hit a 300 lbs bench press, I could only squat 275. When I first squatted about 350, my bench press had dipped down to 260 or so. If squatting was actually useful for developing the upper body, you would think I should have at least been able to maintain my upper body strength. It’s not like I stopped benching entirely or anything.

This concept of liking and disliking movements baffles me. I just want to get bigger and stronger. If that takes a shakeweight, it’s what I will do.

I love results, and I tolerate training to get them.

results, yes. But we all have different goals, but more so we have a natural tendency to go to certain movement patterns and exercises based off personalities and body leverages. (i.e. Short limbs better a particular lift than a tall person.)I think most people myself included do the things we hate because they make us better, but we intentional or no put more effort into what we are great out

[quote]BigEasy24 wrote:
results, yes. But we all have different goals, but more so we have a natural tendency to go to certain movement patterns and exercises based off personalities and body leverages. (i.e. Short limbs better a particular lift than a tall person.)I think most people myself included do the things we hate because they make us better, but we intentional or no put more effort into what we are great out [/quote]

I feel as though this is not a great way to achieve ones goals.