Squat Training - Heavy Squats 1930s Style

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Squat training 1930s style is key to your muscle building.

Squat Training History

Our story begins with Mark H. Berry whose contributions to strength training included serving as the coach of the American weightlifting team in both the 1932 and 1936 Olympics - a man whose most widespread and enduring gift to strength training involved the promotion of heavy squats.

Consider how Mark Berry added over 50 lbs muscular body weight to his own slim frame, and how his students made comparable gains, and it is no surprise Berry was said to have ushered in a "new era".

But just how did Berry work this muscle building miracle?

Heavy Squats

With the aid of squat racks, Berry encouraged his students to use heavy, flat-footed squats. By working up to weights in the 300-500 lbs range, Mark Berry's students began to gain muscular bodyweight at staggering rates, thus proving the efficacy of the squat exercise when looking to build muscle quickly.

Using only barbells, dumbbells, and kettlebells; Berry championed compound exercises such as squats, deadlifts, presses, snatches, cleans, jerks, continentals, straddle lifts, and many more. This focus on the "proven muscle builders" - and the squat exercise in particular - were to pay remarkable dividends.

Paul Anderson Squats Two Beauties

Heavy Squats Benefits

While building muscle size was a primary benefit of Berry's squat routine, other noteworthy heavy squats benefits include:

1. Improved digestion and assimilation of foods leading to greater health
2. Mechanics of respiration increased due to vigorous leg work
3. Blood circulation boosted
4. Chest size development enhanced
5. Endurance expanded.

In the same way all boats rise with the tide, effective strength training positively impacts the "whole of the body" and not just its trained parts.

In Summary

Squat training, effectively utilized, can be as productive today as it ever was. Mark H. Berry and his students knew this back in the 1930s, as evidenced by their staggering achievements; just as those that followed in Berry's wake realized this too. (Strongmen Paul Anderson and Doug Hepburn would later rewrite the record books on the back of this mighty exercise.)

So are you looking to build muscle quickly? Heavy squats 1930s style could do the same for you.

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