20-Rep Squat Programme

One brutal set of 20 breathing squats per session — a pre-war squat-specialisation tradition for size and strength.

Intermediate lifters looking for structured progression beyond a simple novice LP, who can eat and sleep to match. It is a size programme first and it is not gentle.

One workout, three times a week on alternate days — the same session every time, not a rotation. Upper-body work comes first (press behind neck, bench, row, curl), then the single set of twenty squats, then a light pullover, a stiff-legged deadlift, a second pullover, calves and abdominal work. The pullovers stand in for Strossen's Rader chest pull, at the fifteen to twenty pounds he specifies, and are there to stretch the ribcage rather than to be trained.

The squat climbs every single session, whatever else happens — five or ten pounds, and you make all twenty reps. Everything else is double progression: hold the weight until you can drill the required reps, then add. There is no deload and no reset in the published programme, and VALDA does not add one. Strossen states "five or ten pounds" once and applies it to every exercise rather than splitting by lift, so the per-lift rates here are VALDA's own default: 2.5 kg a session on the barbell lifts, 2 kg on dumbbell work. Set your own rate per lift in programme management.