241-260 Squats

If you've done 241 - 260 squats in the test
Day 1 60 seconds (or more) between sets		Day 4 60 seconds (or more) between sets
set 1	50	set 1	56
set 2	50	set 2	56
set 3	52	set 3	52
set 4	52	set 4	50
set 5	50	set 5	50
set 6	50	set 6	56
set 7	max (minimum 56)	set 7	max (minimum 58)
Minimum 1 day break		Minimum 1 day break
Day 2 60 seconds (or more) between sets		Day 5 60 seconds (or more) between sets
set 1	50	set 1	58
set 2	50	set 2	58
set 3	52	set 3	52
set 4	52	set 4	52
set 5	54	set 5	50
set 6	54	set 6	56
set 7	max (minimum 56)	set 7	max (minimum 58)
Minimum 1 day break		Minimum 1 day break
Day 3 60 seconds (or more) between sets		Day 6 60 seconds (or more) between sets
set 1	54	set 1	58
set 2	54	set 2	58
set 3	52	set 3	52
set 4	50	set 4	52
set 5	50	set 5	52
set 6	56	set 6	58
set 7	max (minimum 56)	set 7	max (minimum 60)
Minimum 2 day break		Minimum 2 day break

Squats and Martial Arts

Watch a good striker land a kick and it looks like the leg does the work. It does not. The power comes up from the floor — through the standing leg, the hips, and the trunk — and the leg is just the last thing to move. That chain is exactly what a squat trains, which is why so many fighters, across very different disciplines, keep it in their program.

Start with the obvious: raw lower-body strength. Squats load the quads, hamstrings, and glutes, the same muscles that drive a roundhouse in Muay Thai, a spinning kick in Taekwondo, or a hard step-in punch in boxing. A stronger base gives a striker more to push against, and more force to send up the chain into the technique. It is the difference between a kick that lands and one that lands heavy.

But fighting is not just about producing force — it is about producing it while moving and staying balanced. Squatting through a full range trains the hips, knees, and ankles to work together, which carries over to fast stance changes, level changes, and the constant repositioning that arts like Kung Fu and Capoeira demand. A grappler needs the same qualities for different reasons: in Judo or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a low, strong base and good body awareness are what let you defend a throw or drive a takedown, and squat training feeds both the strength and the sense of where your center of gravity is.

Endurance matters too. A round is a long time to keep generating power, and squats — being a compound movement that recruits large muscle groups — are demanding enough that regular sets teach the body to keep working under fatigue. Late in a fight, when technique tends to fall apart, that conditioning is often what is left standing.

The nice thing is how easily the movement bends to the sport. A coach can program deep squats for range, pistol squats for single-leg control and balance, or loaded squats for pure power, and slot them into warm-ups, strength blocks, or conditioning circuits depending on what a fighter needs. None of it replaces mat time or pad work — skill is still built by practicing the skill — but a strong, mobile, well-conditioned lower body gives that skill a much bigger engine to run on. For an exercise this simple, that is a lot to offer a martial artist.