How Many Bodyweight Squats Can You Do Before Failure? Take the Ultimate Endurance Challenge!

Squats are one of the most badass exercises of all time and have been considered a benchmark for assessing raw strength and endurance.

If you have been around the fitness scene for some time, you have probably seen videos of people squatting until they collapse. These lifters have been treated with unmatched respect and are rewarded by the training gods with jacked legs.

I recently came across a squat challenge on social media that involves cranking out as many reps as possible before your legs give out.

This challenge clicks because it’s simple, measurable, and effective. In this article, I take you through the nitty-gritty of this test and share tips that can help maximize your performance.

What Is the Bodyweight Squat Challenge?

In this test, you will perform as many bodyweight squats as possible, but stop as soon as your form starts getting sloppy.

The squat is a full-body exercise, as it primarily engages the lower body and recruits the core and upper body muscles as stabilizers. I absolutely adore this exercise as it tests your strength and endurance. Plus, it is incredibly versatile, and you can do it in any part of your home.

I’ll take this moment to talk about muscle failure, as I see many people make critical mistakes, significantly jeopardizing their safety. When we talk about muscle failure, we are essentially referring to mechanical failure, meaning that you cannot perform another rep without compromising form.

Training to failure isn’t your ticket to keep going until you can’t physically perform another rep.

Squats feel like any other exercise early on in the set, but you start to realize the role of mental toughness, willpower, and muscular endurance as soon as you get over the 10-rep mark and fatigue starts to set in.

Proper Squat Form for the Challenge

Whenever it comes to a challenge, it is really important to standardise the technique to ensure accurate benchmarking, fairness, and judging consistency. Plus, following an optimal form maximizes muscle stimulation and significantly limits injury risk.

Squats target the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. This is how to perform this exercise with a pristine form:

1. Stand upright with a shoulder-wide stance.
2. Hold your arms in front of your chest or place them on your hips. (I prefer the former.)
3. Brace your core and lower toward the floor by flexing your ankles, knees, and hips.
4. Go as low as your mobility allows, but your thighs should at least break parallel with the floor at the bottom of your range of motion.
5. Return to the starting position by driving through your heels and reversing the movement pattern.
6. Repeat for as many reps as possible.

Mistakes To Avoid During Squats

Squats are arguably the most infamous exercise, and many people have come up with their own variations to cheat the system.

Some people advise against going below parallel, as they believe it can strain the knees and lower back. However, this is completely untrue. Full-depth squats strengthen your posterior chain, including your glutes and hamstrings. Glutes are your body’s biggest and strongest muscle group and following an ass to grass ROM fires them up, limiting the load on the knees.

Also, you are essentially leaving gains on the table by performing partial squats.

Letting Your Knees Track Over the Toes

If I got a dollar every time I heard someone say this in the gym, I would be driving a Lamborghini.

People go to extreme lengths to avoid letting their knees extend beyond their toes during squats, as they’ve been made to believe that it can overload the knees and cause chronic joint and connective tissue problems. Some reverse the eccentric motion before they even hit the parallel mark, whereas others lean over excessively, jeopardizing their lower back safety.

Olympic weightlifters arguably have the best squatting technique. Watch them closely and you’ll realize their knees extend way beyond their toes during the snatch and clean and jerk. However, you will hardly see any weightlifting athletes with knee issues.

So, there is clearly something amiss here.

It doesn’t end here, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine concluded that knees over toes during squats is considered a normal and required part of the squat movement, which should be encouraged in healthy individuals. (1)

Some people will also have you believe that while deep squats are fine, performing a high number of reps can be detrimental to your knee health. This is yet another dogma.

I have squatted high reps for years with healthy joints. Form is king, not volume.

How to Take the Squat-to-Failure Test

Leveraging my experience working with hundreds of clients across different experience levels, I’ve prepared a step-by-step list of how to set up, execute, and conquer this challenge. Here we go:

• Warm-Up: Although this is a bodyweight exercise, you shouldn’t begin this full-send effort without properly warming up your muscles, joints, and connective tissue. Spend at least five minutes doing dynamic stretches like leg swings and hip circles to boost blood flow to the target muscles, improve mobility and performance, and limit injury risk.
• Cool-Down: Similarly, lying on your couch after pushing your muscles to the limit isn’t a good idea. Perform a short static stretching routine to flush the metabolites out of the muscle tissues and promote recovery.
• Environment Setup: Find a flat spot in your living room or garage. Avoid performing this exercise on a slant or slippery surface.
• Monitor Your Form: I encourage my clients to perform this exercise in front of a mirror. The visible feedback will help you monitor your form closely. Others can record their set and honestly critique their technique.
• Advanced Tip: As you gain more experience, consider altering your rep tempo. Start with a 1:1:1:1 rep tempo, meaning a second each on the eccentric, bottom, concentric, and top of your ROM. Then, switch to a 3:2:1:1 tempo to increase the TUT and maximize muscle stimulation and adaptations.

Interpreting Your Results: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

A 10-minute training session can spill the beans on your fitness, strength, and endurance levels.

Below are the rep ranges and how they categorize your performance:

Fitness Level	Rep Range
Beginner	10–30 reps
Intermediate	30–60 reps
Advanced	60+ reps

But what if you cannot even manage 10 reps? In that case, you have a long way to go, my friend.

Remember, this isn’t a rat race, and you shouldn’t chase a number just for the sake of it. Progressing from one category to the next can take several weeks of consistent effort and practice.

Plus, your current fitness levels, training history, body composition, age, and gender all play a role in how you perform in this challenge.

Only a few people can perform 60-plus bodyweight squats with a picture-perfect form. To be honest, even I cannot perform it on any random day. Achieving this training volume requires optimal muscular and cardiovascular conditioning.

Most regular trainers fall into the 15 to 25-rep category, which is decent enough.

How to Improve Your Squat Endurance

Training to failure daily can be a terrible idea, especially when training half your body using a single exercise.

I recommend focusing on squat endurance training twice or thrice weekly if you’re looking to build squat endurance. Perform three to five sets of bodyweight squats and aim for 15 to 50 reps, depending on your fitness level.

Avoid hitting mechanical failure in each set and stop with at least two to three reps in reserve (RIR) to ensure optimal recovery.

Tips on maximizing adaptations:

Here is your cheatsheet for unstoppable gains:

• 6-8 week training plan: Add two to five reps to your squat total each week and stick to this progression for six to eight weeks.
• Strength training: You don’t have to limit yourself to bodyweight training. Perform two sets of 12-15 reps of weighted lunges, step-ups, and even squats to maximize your potential.
• Nutrition and recovery: You break down muscle tissue while training. You must ensure your muscles have enough raw material in the form of nutrients to maximize gains. Use this TDEE calculator to determine your ideal daily calorie and protein intake. Sleep for at least eight hours each night to give your muscles enough time to recuperate.
• Breaking plateaus: It is completely normal to hit a plateau during these eight weeks. Varying rep tempo and employing high-intensity interval training can reignite growth.

It is really easy to forget the exact number of reps you perform. I have my clients log each workout in a training journal. You can do it in your phone’s notes app.

The Mental Toughness Factor

Make no mistake, this bodyweight squat challenge is as mentally demanding as it is physically challenging.

Your soul almost leaves your body when you hit the 30-rep mark, and doubt hits you like a wall of bricks. Your mind plays tricks, trying to convince you to stop the workout and put an end to this suffering.

The real challenge starts at this moment, and your decision proves your mettle.

People aiming for the intermediate or advanced category should break up the reps into smaller chunks. Perform 10 reps and take five deep breaths before resuming the exercise. This is enough time for your ATP stores to replenish, and it helps reset your form and recommit to the challenge.

Common Questions About the Bodyweight Squat Challenge

Many of my clients worry that this challenge might cause knee pain.

There is no scientific evidence to prove that squatting with the correct technique can cause chronic knee issues. Nonetheless, you should stop immediately if you experience sharp pain of any kind.

Dealing with Cramps

Cramps are an often overlooked aspect of endurance training. Performing 50-60 reps of an exercise can cause extreme fatigue and deplete your muscle cells’ glycogen levels, causing cramps.

Stretching before, during, and after your workouts and sipping water can lower cramp risk.

Cardiovascular Strain

Many people gas out early during squats because of poor endurance, even when their legs could handle more volume. Consider adding LISS (low-intensity steady state) and HIIT (high-intensity interval training) cardio to your routine if you’re dealing with the same issue.

You should also pay close attention to your training form. Sometimes, poor technique, like knees caving in or a rounded back, can hamper your output. Take a short break if you notice sloppy form and reset.

Conclusion

This bodyweight squat challenge requires you to dig deep and push yourself in every workout. Aiming for 50-plus squats in the very first workout is unrealistic. Building endurance takes time. Start slow, stay consistent, stick to your training routine, and you’ll reach your fitness objectives in no time. Best of luck!

References:

1. Illmeier G, Rechberger JS. The Limitations of Anterior Knee Displacement during Different Barbell Squat Techniques: A Comprehensive Review. J Clin Med. 2023 Apr 19;12(8):2955. doi: 10.3390/jcm12082955. PMID: 37109294; PMCID: PMC10143703.

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