How often should I Back Squat

However, in my intent to keep things as simple as possible, all theories and models come back to the principle that I have outlined above.

1. You set a stimulus (through training)
2. You need to recover from that stimulus
3. You adapt to the stimulus
4. The cycle repeats and you set the next stimulus

There are various factors influencing the time it takes to recover and adapt from the stimulus you set. The factors are,

• Strength levels, the stronger you are the higher the neurological stress and the higher the stress on the connective tissue, which requires longer recovery periods
• Muscle mass, the more muscle mass you have the higher the damage to the muscle, which requires longer recovery periods
• The exertion level, the closer you train to muscular failure, the more recovery time you need
• Total training volume, the higher the training volume, the longer the recovery time
• Training routines, a split routine or a bro-split needs longer recovery times than a full body split
• The exercise selection, compound exercises involving more relative muscle mass need longer time to recover

These are just a few points to consider, but they outline how complex the considerations are and why it is not easy to give a one size fits all answer.

Now, here are my recommendations of how often you should Back Squat.

How often should I Back Squat to become stronger for different training goals?

The training frequency depends on your training goal, and the necessary adaptation you need to recover from the training stimulus you have set.

How often should I Back Squat to become stronger?

If you are working on your maximum strength development, recovery times range from 48 – 72 hours.

This means you can do 2 – 3 Back Squat sessions a week, with 1 or 2 days recovery in between the training sessions.

Typically maximum strength training sessions are characterized by high training intensities, above 85% 1RM, medium to high exertion, low training volume and low training density (high work – rest ratios).

As explained in the article How Long Should A Strength Training Session Last the work to rest ratio refers to the work being performed in relation to the rest. As an applied example for maximum strength training, you do a set of Back Squats with 3 repetitions at 90% of your 1RM and rest 5 minutes before you do your next set. Let’s imagine 3 reps take you 15 seconds, then the work to rest ratio is 1 – 20, for every second worked you take 20 seconds of rest. This is a low training density.

How often should I Back Squat to gain muscle mass?

If you want to gain muscle mass and build muscle and engage in a hypertrophy training program, recovery times range from 72 – 96 hours.

This means you can do 1 – 2 Back Squat sessions a week, with 2 to 3 days recovery in between.

Usually, hypertrophy training sessions are characterized by medium to high training intensities, between 60 – 85% 1RM, high exertion, high training volume and high training density (work to rest ratios typically are around 1 – 2).

How often should I Back Squat to jump higher or run faster?

If you want to run faster or jump higher and engage in a strength training program aimed to improve your power output, recovery times (due to high neural activation) range from 48 – 72 hours.

This means you can do 2 – 3 Back Squat sessions a week, with 1 to 2 days recovery in between.

As I have outlined in the articles

• 3 Steps to Develop your own Power Training Method
• How much weight should you use for power training?

Power can be trained with different training intensities depending on the desired adaptations. Typically power training sessions are characterized by low to medium  training intensities, between 0 and  70% 1RM, low to medium exertion, low training volume and low training density (high work – rest ratios).

This means you can do Back Squats or a form of Back Squats (which I explain below) 2 to 3 days a week, with 1 or 2 days recovery in between.

How often should I Back Squat to endure longer?

If you want to endure longer and engage in some form of strength endurance training or power endurance training, recovery times range from 48 – 72 hours. The reason here is less the stress on the nervous system (as during maximum strength training or power training) or structural damage to muscles (as during hypertrophy training), but more due to the high metabolic demand and high accumulations of lactic acid during a strength endurance training or power endurance training.

Typically strength endurance training sessions are characterized by low to medium training intensities, between 30 – 60% 1RM, medium to high exertion, high training volume and high training density (work to rest ratios typically are around 1 – 1 or even 2 – 1, more work than rest).

This means you can do 2 – 3 Back Squat sessions a week, with 1 to 2 days recovery in between.

How often should I Back Squat to improve my Back Squat technique?

What?

On first sight, this question might sound a bit confusing, but if you have read any of my articles before, you know that I can’t stress the importance of proper technical execution enough.

I have also written an article on T-Nation Tip: Do This 3-Squat Drop Set , explaining that even for a lot of advanced athletes technical flaws are the reason why progress stagnates. Not a lack of strength, as commonly believed.

Bottom-line, if you want to improve Back Squat technique, you need to train the Back Squat or derivatives of the Back Squat, that have a high transfer to the Back Squat, such as Front Squat, the Hands-free Front Squat or the Overhead Squat.

Due to low neurological fatigue and less structural damage technique can be trained far more frequently.

This reminds me of the story my colleague Rene Wolff told me, who ended up becoming World Champion Track Cycling Sprint 2005 and Olympic Champion Track Cycling Team Sprint 2004, when he started out as a young track cyclist learning the Back Squat, his coach gave him a broomstick and said ‘Do 15.000 repetitions of Back Squats and you are allowed to start with an unloaded bar.’ So every day he did his repetitions until he reached his required 15.000 repetitions in the Back Squat.

While this approach is probably not the most sophisticated approach, but it is a good application of how technical learning works, high repetitions and high frequency.

As a quick overview, you find all characteristics to compare each training goal and training method in the table below

The image compares different strength training methods and muscular hypertrophy

How often should I Back Squat as an athlete?

Before you answer the question of how often should I Back Squat, start with a few other questions.

• What are the demands of your sport? What are the limiting factors in your sport (technical and coordination, metabolic, speed, strength & power)?
• What is the relative importance of strength for the performance in your sport?
• Out of all your training sessions, how many sessions do you want to dedicate to strength training?

Once you have answered these questions, it will give you an insight to how many strength training sessions you can do in a week.

I would like to share my perspective on training athletes, with the goal that they get better in their sport and achieve better results in competition.

Let’s take the example of choosing 3 different squat variations, such as the Back Squat, the Front Squat, and Bulgarian Split Squat as a ‘tool’ to increase lower body strength. As I have mentioned before, the strength training and in this case the squatting is a means to an end, not the end in itself.

Generally speaking, I have 2 or 3 strength training sessions in a week and there are different options to plan and schedule the training sessions.

Option 1: Select one squatting variation in each strength training session

That means, that we do a different squatting variation in each strength training session and I select from the Back Squat, the Front Squat, and the Bulgarian Split Squat.

Why not Overhead Squats?

As much as I like the Overhead Squat, it doesn’t allow to set the stimulus I would like to set with athletes that have a certain strength level. I have written about the benefits of the Overhead Squat and the disadvantages of the Overhead Squat in the articles

• 9 Benefits of the Overhead Squat and counting…
• Why Front Squats are better

Back to the scheduling and programming for the Back Squat, Front Squat, and Bulgarian Split Squat.

I plan the Back Squat in the first strength training session, the Bulgarian Split Squat in the second strength training session and the Front Squat in the third strength training session.

That looks like this

Why this order of Back Squat, Bulgarian Split Squat and Front Squat?

It follows the ‘heavy – light – medium approach’, which is an approach that ensures adaptation and progress by structuring strength workouts in an order of a heavy strength workout should be followed by a light strength workout, which should be followed by a medium strength workout. I am not entirely sure, who is the true inventor of that approach, it has been popularized by Bill Starr in the late 1970’s The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football and taken over by Mark Rippetoe in his Practical Programming for Strength Training by Mark Rippetoe, Andy Baker (January 14, 2014) Paperback book in 2006 and is nowadays used by Crossfit.

The variation I am using with these athletes is a very advanced variation and relates to the Volume Load (VL), the product reps multiplied by sets multiplied by the load (VL = reps * sets * load). Have a look at the example below, which is the data of one of the training sessions of one of my athletes.

You can see, strength session 1 has the highest VL and is, therefore, heaviest, strength session 2 has the lowest VL and is, therefore, lightest and strength session 3 is classified as medium.

Option 2: Select the Back Squat for each strength training session

When selecting the Back Squat for each of the training sessions, I modulate load, reps, and sets in each session. Hence the athletes won’t do the same repetition, sets, and load scheme in each session.

The strength training sessions structure for a not our not very advanced athletes could look like this.

It’s evident, that this structure also follows the ‘heavy – light – medium approach’ approach, due to the changes in intensity in the different strength training sessions.

Depending on the focus of the training phase or training period, I modulate reps, sets, and load.

If the goal of the training period is to increase maximum strength, the structure of the sessions could look like this

The smart reader must have figured out, that this programming approach violates against the ‘heavy – light – medium approach’, because if you make your calculations on the Volume Load and for simplicity reasons calculate on a 1RM Back Squat of 100 kg, you will find the following

It is true if we are looking at the pure Volume Load number, on the other hand, the intensity in relation to the repetitions performed also have an influence on how heavy the strength training is.

One of the best visuals I could find is the load-exertion table on Mladen Jovanovic’s website Complementary Training in the article How to Create Individualized Exercise Profile in Strength Training? Part 4: Velocity/Exertion Profile

The load-exertion table explains the exertion level based on intensity and repetitions performed.

From the pictures, it becomes clear that even though the Volume Load only reflect how heavy a training is if reps and sets are kept constant and intensity is modulated.

Back Squat : How often should I Back Squat – Load Extertion Table Complementary Training

How do you read the table?

If you look at the second column with the title % 1RM you can see the intensity based on the 1 RM in percent.

If you now look at the 3^rd row, where it says 93% and move in the same row column 4 with the title ME (maximum exertion), you can see 3, which refers to the amount of repetition you can do with 93% of your 1 RM. So you are able to do 3 repetitions, 4 wouldn’t be possible, therefore it’s classified as maximum exertion.

If you move 1 column to the right you can see 2 repetitions and the title says ‘Near Maximum Exertion’ and below that you see ‘1 rep short’, which means, if you do 93% of your 1 RM for 2 reps it’s a near maximum exertion and you are 1 rep short of your maximum exertion, which we just discussed being 3 reps.

I guess the concept is clear, if you now move another column to the right you can see 1 repetitions and below the title Near Maximum Exertion you can now see 2 reps short. This means, if you perform a set at 93% of your 1 RM for 1 reps, you are 2 reps away from maximum exertion.

Let’s have a look at the above-mentioned sessions.

Session 1: 3 sets of 2 repetition @ 95% 1 RM Back Squat

Back Squat : How often should I Back Squat – Load Exertion Table Session 1 – Complementary Training

From the table, it becomes evident, that this session can be classified as a session with maximum exertion.

Session 2: 5 sets of 3 repetition @ 85% 1 RM Back Squat

Back Squat : How often should I Back Squat Load Exertion Table Session 2 – Complementary Training

From the table, this session can be classified as a session with hard exertion and therefore less intens as session 1.

Session 3: 4 sets of 2 repetition @ 90% 1 RM Back Squat