A Monster Squat Challenge

Fitness is full of challenges you can take to make yourself REALLY tired!!! I am not sure how many are productive and that is why you have seen some fitness pros offer standards. These standards are often well-meaning to give people some baseline reference to know where their fitness stands and what their training should be addressing. That is what inspired us to develop our Clean and Press test for our DVRT certifications and now we have a little bit more of a gift with a squat challenge that does a lot more than you may ever think!

I’ll be honest, when we released our Clean and Press standard for our DVRT certifications we were met with a lot of hesitation and cynicism. A lot of people thought it was just unnecessary to being a good coach, but they missed the point.

When we thought about what makes for a good coach we thought about these qualities…..

-Was technically proficient in exercises

-Could problem solve issues of movement dysfunction

-Develop programs to achieve specific fitness outcomes

That was really the motivation for the Clean and Press test, but a lot of people only saw something really tough. Is the Clean and Press pretty rough? Yea, but not for the sake of trying to make you “hardcore”, but to force one to address some of the qualities we mentioned above. Are you technically proficient in the exercise, can you identify where you or others may have some movement issues, and can you create a program to build up the lifter to be successful?

This inspired me to think about other DVRT challenges we could create that would bring these qualities in other forms. It hit me as why not have a Front Loaded Squat standard? We all believe squatting well and being strong in the squat has great value in many different fitness goals. The Front Loaded Squat also puts our core strength to the test and connects so many of the chains of the body.

In fact, I love using the Front Loaded Squat to build up one’s pressing strength, power, and mobility because of how it impacts our fitness in so many different ways. Unlike a barbell front squat where the weight rests on our structure and different than a kettlebell double rack position because of the dimension of the load, I knew this DVRT squat challenge would do more for people than they first may believe.

Like our Clean and Press test, the idea is not to just make you really tired. We want you to really ask yourself if you own a good squat, if you have built up the connection of the core to the rest of the body, can you tolerate time under tension and have a strong foundation to allow you to benefit power training and other advanced training strategies.

Of course the first part is to know HOW to do a good Front Loaded Squat and DVRT Master, James Newman does a great job of giving us a good break down of this great squat.

Cool, what is this DVRT squat challenge and what should you notice from it other than just legs that are going to hate you a bit?

We have our 5 minute standard again because we want to see if you can create strategies to achieve a specific goal as well as we need enough volume of work done for you to really understand the true value of this squat standard.

Second, we have gender and bodyweight to consider. In order to make this reasonable we have based the loads off a general scale like our Clean and Press standard and weights of Ultimate Sandbags we recommend for training as well as challenges like this Front Loaded Squat series. We have learned inevitably someone finds these unfair, but before you look for reasons you can’t do this, try to think about the programming you have to employ to achieve it!

Men Bodyweight:

Under 170: Burly 80 pounds

171-200: Burly 100 pounds

200 plus: Burly 120 pounds

Women Bodyweight:

Under 130: 50 pound Strength

131-160: 60 pound Strength

160 plus: 80 pound Burly

Of course the BIG question is HOW many are you aiming for in the 5 minutes?

Men are aiming to hit 60 reps in the 5 minutes while women are aiming to do the same except those that use the 80 pound Burly are going for 50 repetitions. It would be insane to expect to do that in a row so very much like our Clean and Press challenge you want to aim to do 10-12 reps about every 30 seconds. So, again, we have a great strength and endurance standard. Being able to do one rep of something is cool, but being able to reproduce high level efforts is typically what life and sport asks us to do!

DVRT UK Master, Greg Perlaki and DVRT Australia Master, Cam Ward show themselves going through this great squat challenge. No, they aren’t moving that fast, the video is sped up. You still want quality of a squat during this standard.

We also determining the depth of squat was important. So, we are recommending that people use a 6 inch box or something close to it in order to make sure we are achieving proper depth and quality of squat.

Okay, but what benefits should you get from seeing if you can make that is squat standard and if not, if you build up to it what’s really in it for you?

-Great overall body strength

-Development of lower body strength and power that has great carryover to outside the gym

-Building true core strength that allows our legs and arms to develop the force they possess. Our extremities can only produce the strength our core can stabilize in the trunk.

-Awesome hip mobility

-Killer glute training because the deeper we go in the squat the more external rotation of the hips we achieve and more glutes we hit.

So, up for the challenge? Hopefully you will let us know how you do and get excited to have a true measure of more well rounded strength and fitness! Drop us a line on our DVRT Fitness Group HERE.

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