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Dear reader,
Readers have often asked me questions about doing the high rep squats I refer to in my book. An excellent exercise indeed, and they’re pretty much ALL you need for overall leg, back and BODY development – not to mention the oft “dreaded” word CARDIO.
Believe you me, you could do just THIS ONE exercise your whole life and make excellent progress. I’m not saying that is what you need to do – of course – pushups are key, but I’m merely “writing” testament to just how EFFECTIVE (both timewise and otherwise) this SINGLE exercise is!
There’s a lot of stuff floating about on the almighty (in this case not) Internet about this type of high rep squatting being bad for you – specifically the knees – and I must categorically state here that these sort of claims are UTTER BALDERDASH. Utter baloney.
TOSH. ROT. Insert term of choice, but there it is – and most of the folks making these claims have actually DONE the squats the way they were SUPPOSED to be done!
By the way, this is coming from someone who climbed hills between the PEAK hours of 12 noon to 3 P.M. in the summer heat in Southern China. Certainly no armchair trainee or keyboard warrior I’d say and yet I’ve got NO form of cardio that beats the cardio you get from doing these squats the way they’re supposed to be done.
Despite the great shape I was in, my knees “clicked” when I first did these – but it soon went away. Lesson learnt?
The TENDON development you get with these, and other exercises I recommend CANNOT be beat!
Sprints and hill climbs are great – and you do need ’em – but again – nothing beats Hindu squats for sheer cardio, conditioning and overall body development.
And again – those that knock these have never ever DONE ’em the way they’re supposed to be DONE!
When you first start out doing this great exercise, work into it with caution. Believe me, this one exercise can leave you sore for days. Most trainees, even the “advanced” ones would probably do best to start with 25 and work up from there.
In my book, I advocate working up to 500. This is great – but the key is to keep track of the TIME you’re doing them in. You need to be working up a SWEAT when you do these! And if you’re taking 10 minutes to do 100 squats – then – well – you AIN’T doing ’em RIGHT!
Yet another key that I did not mention in the book (and that I’m mentioning here as a REWARD for signing up for the blog posts) is to STAY ROOTED to the spot when you get to a point when you can’t do any more reps.
Simply stand where you are, flex your thighs, move the legs a little – and keep soldiering on. DO NOT ALLOW THE MIND TO DWADLE! Keep the ultimate goal of finishing in a reasonable timeframe in mind ALL THE TIME!
And no, you do NOT need to “warm up”. I cover this topic at LENGTH in the book, but for now, let me just say there are NO warm-ups required for this exercise. You may do a few reps at a slower cadence, but thats the extent of it.
These few tips by themselves are so valuable that (along with the post on breathing I did up yesterday) I could probably write an entire BOOK on them and then some. For now though – this should suffice.
More later!
Best,
Rahul
P.S. – My book has pictures that show you EXACTLY how to do this great exercise – The Book
P.S. #2 – I did 500 squats and 200 pushups today – and I feel BUZZED!
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