Another tool in your arsenal.
If the deadlift is king then the squat is an equally powerful tyrant on the neighboring land. We call it a tyrant because it hurts – especially when you’re in “the hole”. The bottom part of a deadlift is painful, and lifters often avoid it. However, this is where the gains happen.
If you go to the gym you’ll find a lot of people squatting sure, but if you really look around you’ll find most of these guys/gals are selling themselves short. If you’re going to go all the way down there, you might as well stay awhile. Enter: The Pause Squat.
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The Pause Squat is great because it strengthens the weakest point of your squat (the bottom). You gain more confidence and learn to become more comfortable “in the hole and lastly You increase your muscles’ Time Under Tension (TUT), which plays a major role with increased mass.
https://youtu.be/9BROLeGmTTA
In the video you’ll notice that Tony Gentilcore (from TonyGentilcore.com) comes to a complete stop at the bottom of each rep. This is what separates the men from the boys. You want to aim for a 1-3 second pause at the bottom and increase up to 3-5 seconds, anything past that is borderline masochistic.
Another key is to keep the whole lower body engaged. this is important. Everything from you gluteus maximus to your lil’ pinky toe should be involved in supporting the weight. Relying on tendons and ligaments to keep up heavyweight is dangerous, most likely resulting in injury.
In terms of sets and loading: you generally want to go between 60 to 75% of your 1-rep max for 3 to 6 sets of 4 to 6 reps. This along with with fluctuating the time you spend at the bottom of each rep should give you a varied workout with enough muscle confusion to make a difference.
Try this pause rep set and let us know what you think.
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