Here's an old article written by Arnold Schwarzenegger about the squat. I think he makes a couple of interesting points that are worth discussing.
Here's one quote form the article: "For the beginner I would increase the amount of weight only as I perceived his increased muscle size." In other words, there's no use in piling on weight if the program isn't working in the first place. If a person isn't getting the growth stimulus right through the workout, or if he or she isn't eating enough calories, then there's no sense in simply adding more weight to the exercise. If the body isn't recovering and growing from the stressor, adding more stress doesn't help matters.
The second point of interest is that Schwarzenegger wasn't using extremely heavy poundages. The article was written in 1976 when he was on his way to winning yet another Mr. Olympia title. Here is the squat workout he describes and was using at the time: 135 pounds x 30 reps, then heavier weights with decreasing reps for sets of 20, 15, and 10 repetitions, and finally peaking with 400 pounds for a set of 8 reps.
400 pounds is a good bit of weight for the squat, but really not that much when you consider he was the most muscular person in the world at that time. I see people squatting in the 300s virtually every time I go to the gym. All this shows is that you need to lift heavy weights to build muscle, but it's not a direct relationship - you need to be strong enough, but not Herculean strong.
Here's an old article written by Arnold Schwarzenegger about the squat. I think he makes a couple of interesting points that are worth discussing.
Here's one quote form the article: "For the beginner I would increase the amount of weight only as I perceived his increased muscle size." In other words, there's no use in piling on weight if the program isn't working in the first place. If a person isn't getting the growth stimulus right through the workout, or if he or she isn't eating enough calories, then there's no sense in simply adding more weight to the exercise. If the body isn't recovering and growing from the stressor, adding more stress doesn't help matters.
The second point of interest is that Schwarzenegger wasn't using extremely heavy poundages. The article was written in 1976 when he was on his way to winning yet another Mr. Olympia title. Here is the squat workout he describes and was using at the time: 135 pounds x 30 reps, then heavier weights with decreasing reps for sets of 20, 15, and 10 repetitions, and finally peaking with 400 pounds for a set of 8 reps.
400 pounds is a good bit of weight for the squat, but really not that much when you consider he was the most muscular person in the world at that time. I see people squatting in the 300s virtually every time I go to the gym. All this shows is that you need to lift heavy weights to build muscle, but it's not a direct relationship - you need to be strong enough, but not Herculean strong.