The End of the 00s: The Decade in Super Squats, by Hamilton Nolan

by The End of the 00s

Has this been the decade of Super Squats? Well, let’s look at the evidence.

Speaking from a historical and calendrical perspective, one must admit that Super Squats were not invented in this past decade. Hardly! Variations on the secret Super Squat routine have been around since old Coney Island strongmen were squatting with tires on truck axles. Or that could have been old time hillbilly strongmen from down South. The point is that the basic idea of Super Squats has been around quite a few decades now. But, like many things that are “old,” they had fallen out of fashion unnecessarily.

What is fitness these days? To most people, “fitness” is doing light curls on a Nautilus machine wearing a spandex leotard and hanging upside down in an aerial trapeze class at an expensive gym, trying to catch a glimpse of John Mayer’s balls. But it wasn’t always this way. Oh no! The old timers discovered what the real key to awesome fitness is: the squat. That’s right, the squat. Say it again: “the squat.”

Once that was discovered, all that was left was to make the squat Super. This was done by doing the squat 20 times straight. Here is the Super Squats secret, which I am about to relay to you, as it was relayed to me by Randall J. Strossen, Ph.D., in his classic book, “Super Squats:”

“One set of 20-rep squats, a couple of other basic exercises, plenty of good food, milk, and rest. But, oh, those squats!”

Randall J. Strossen does not throw around exclamation points as lightly as we do. He was fucking serious here.

Before we get to the decade in Super Squats, we must get to the Universality of Super Squats, which is this: First you go to some gym with a squat rack. Then you put a moderate amount of weight on the bar. Then you do 20 reps of squats, which will make you want to die, but probably will not, in fact, make you die, unless you have poor form. Then you do a few rounds of pullups and dips and situps or whatever, boom. Do this three times per week for six weeks. Every workout, you add five pounds to your squat. At the end of six weeks you will squat some weight 20 times which you had never imagined. You will also gain weight — not bad weight, but good weight, particularly if you like to have that Super Squats look. (Which is really mostly a slight thickness in the hips, so don’t expect to be getting lots of ladies with it).

SO WHAT? I hear the scoffing. Randall J. Strossen heard it too. He forged ahead. Super Squats are not about squats. Super Squats are about finding the warrior within yourself. Super Squats are here to show you that you can do things that you did not think you can do. After completing the full Super Squats program, formerly average men and women storm out full of confidence and take on the world! Or even just feel a little more confident that they could kick someone hard.

Let’s say you’re just an average person, and you think talking about “fitness” is mostly for jerks and showoff meat heads or just dumb people, and you never once in your life watched YouTube videos by Mark Rippetoe explaining the finer points of squat form or practiced keeping your weight back and pushing off the heels or got mad at some guy who was doing curls in the squat rack, of all places (asshole). And let’s just say you’re the type of person who probably is just a few seconds from abandoning the reading of this internet writing and going back to something else on the internet that’s more to your taste, like videos of a music band you like, or some other thing that has nothing at all to do with squats, much less Super Squats.

In six weeks you can be a motherfucking monster. With the help of Super Squats.

At some point during the past decade I started doing Super Squats. Before Super Squats, George Bush started an unnecessary war in Iraq and Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s death ensured that our children would never get to see a proper Wu-Tang concert. After Super Squats, I don’t even listen when someone tells me to shut up with the Super Squats talk. The difference is like the difference between the night and the daytime, which is to say very different.

What I want to impress upon you in an inspirational manner is that the time for Super Squats has not passed. As one decade of Super Squats is about to pass into the history books — marked only by this one blog post, it is a pretty safe bet — yet another decade of Super Squats is beginning. When it comes time to make a “New Year’s resolution” in just a few short days, do you know what mine will be? To do more Super Squats. And to try to be less creepy in social situations. Join me (in the Super Squats part), won’t you? You have nothing to lose but a Decade That Sucks.

Hamilton Nolan would love to hear from you but right now-well, you know what he is doing.