How to add 330 Pounds to your squat: Scottish workout

Recently, I stumbled across an article penned way back in 1978.

The author — a Scottish man — outlined how he boosted his squat from 70 pounds for one rep all the way to an incredible 400 pounds for 20 reps.

He started as your typical scrawny weakling, weighing in at just 130 pounds and barely able to bench press the empty barbell. After many years of hard and productive training, he ended up at 220 pounds of solid muscle — with a bench press of over 300 pounds and squat of over 600 pounds.

Anyway, I just found the workout plan he used to make such an incredible transformation. And this workout is so simple, most people won’t even give it a shot.

But those that are willing to try this workout plan for 3-6 months and commit themselves 100% might be amazed at how quickly your physique changes.

Here’s the plan:

Monday:
Squat: 1 all-out set of 20 “breathing rep” squats.
Bench: 5 sets of 5 reps.
Deadlift: 5,3,1.

Wed & Friday. (same as Monday.)

For those of you who’ve never tried breathing rep squats, you are in for a treat.

Essentially, it’s one long drawn out set of squats. You take giant, deep gulps of air in between each rep. You may only need one or two breaths between the first few reps, but by reps 15-20 you’ll generally be sucking in 10 full deep breaths in between each rep.

After that, take a few minutes to regain consciousness and then slink over to the bench press. After a quick warm-up, you’ll do 5 sets of 5 reps. If you can bench 300 pounds for a single, you’ll probably end up using around 250 lbs for your 5 x 5.

This is not as difficult as one set of 20 rep squats — but still — 5 x 5 is no walk in the park.

Finally, you’ll finish up with the deadlift. A set of 5 reps, 3 reps and finally 1 rep with increasing weights is a long-time powerlifting staple.

Whenever you accomplish all your reps, add a few pounds to the bar for the next session.

Beginners can run this workout for a few weeks increasing weights almost every workout.

When things start to get tough, make Wednesdays workout a light day (use 80% of the weights you used for Mondays workout) and you will be able to prolong progress for a few more weeks.

For more tried & true workout plans, check out the guide to muscle and might.