20 rep squats...

Has anyone on this group used the 20 rep squats routine with heavy poundage... 200+ pounds. I just started it and had a few questions for any

And what might those questions be?

See my badly-scribbled article at
http://www.weightliftingdiscussion.com/articles.html

Actually, your printing is quite good. Content is excellent to. If I ever do 20 reppers I will approach them that way. Right now I have 2 excuses: I work out alone and no power rack. The saw horses aren't much encouragement, and I'm not sure they'd be hold up in a real crisis.

There's no reason sawhorses can't be braced to the point that they can take anything you can dish out. One simple way would be to use all-thread (even 1/4' should be good enough) to brace the bottoms of each pair of legs together, and to make criss-crossing diagonals from the bottoms of each pair of legs to the tops of the other pair. Use big washers and Loctite or lock-nuts. Do this to one sawhorse and see how much stiffer it is than the other one.

reps, second set to failure of 8-12 reps. Great results. I do calf raises in between the squat sets with the same routine. Currently my heavy squat set is with 675 lbs.

Gee thanks, Wayne. You just took away my excuse.

That's what we like to hear. If you do reinforce the sawhorses, you can gain confidence in them by a simple test: load up the bar with, say, 75% of your max, a weight you should be able to squat off the sawhorses and one that won't mess you up if the sawhorses self-destruct (which won't happen, but this is a confidence exercise). Do a very fast eccentric squat and drop the bar on the sawhorses. This is the worst-case form of loading for the safeties in squats. If I'm not very mistaken, you will hear them exclaim, 'What was that, a flea?' When you hear this, you will know that your sawhorses are suitably reinforced, but that you need to see a shrink.

Is that Jim, Andrew, and Lew combined, or is JimAndLew Dave Tate's latest screen name? Nah, he'd never use a dumb routine like that.

I did them alone, with no power rack, and no sawhorses. I did have a good friend who spotted me, though.

Stephen

The saw horses aren't much encouragement,

Also, if the whole idea is to try 20 rep squats, you'll be using a puny weight compared to your 1 rep max, especially the first few weeks. Enjoy - They're fun, in a sick and twisted way.