Zerchers are the most comfortable for me, though none of them are good. If I go heavy enough to be challenging my joints usually swell for a day or two. If I go lower it doesn’t do me much good. I’m not poo-pooing the great benefit of the squat, it just isn’t a good option for me, hence this trial. Besides I’d like to see at least one trial where the participants didn’t fiddle with it, cheat massively, or give up after a week.
I don’t have any experience with this, but have you heard of belt squats or weighted squats?
Obviously do what you can do and what you suggest should suffice.
Personally leg press seems to ‘zone in’ on my knees (I could be doing them wrong), so I can sympathize with what you say about the squat.
I’m curious though - with regard to squats, you could go real light and do something that I think is called Hungarian oak training (I saw it on a forum once, it could simply be ‘bro-science’, so grain of salt).
Basically you take a light squat (say 40% of your max) and attempt to squat up and down (at a quick tempo) for 2 minutes straight. Instead of going up in weight, you add a minute…
I’m just throwing out some ideas.
Interesting, I’ve never seen that weighted squat before. I do have a belt and plates, there isn’t any reason I couldn’t grab a couple of blocks and chain from work and give it a go. I’ll report back on that later. For this week I’m going to follow the protocal exactly so we can see what it does. The minimum gain should be 2.5 lbs, with a goal of five (that seems really ambitious but what the hell.). You then adjust diet and training accordingly.
That “Oak training” regimen is similar to something we do in martial arts classes. My understanding is that it is more for strength and endurance than pure mass.
Can someone explain why any of these squat variations would be easier on the knees than back squats or front squats? Assuming a person has good form, the position of the body at the bottom of a squat is determined by the need to keep the center of gravity over the middle of the foot. The fore-aft position of the weight in the zercher or weighted squats doesn’t look to be outside the range determined by regular back or front squats, and thus the mechanics at the knee should be the same as for back and front squats. So why the difference?
Less weight, primarily.
Also, certain exercises are performed differently by different people because they have different leverages. Some people’s knees are worse than others.
With the back squat, you can lead yourself out of the hole with your chest - making you go forward. It’s more difficult to do this with front squats, since you have to be fairly upright or you’ll ditch the weight.
In otherwords, if I’m going full bore on back squats (especially high bar) then I could lean forward, exerting a lot of pressure on my knees - it’s more difficult to do this with other variations.
I’ve never stuck with the 2 minute squat, and all I can say is based on anecdotes that suggest that it does build mass. If I’m in a rut, I give it a try (or a different variation).
This is the beauty of the body weight set point. BTW you are not skinny as a rail, you are a normal average weight for your height. ‘Not fat’ doesn’t = ‘skinny’.
You’ve gained 10 lbs since high school, which is common. If you’re like every other dude who eats poorly that I have known, your metabolism will slow and you’ll start gaining belly fat between ages 33 and 36, and unless you alter your habits to manage that, you’ll add on another 20 lbs at least (mostly of fat) by your mid-40s.
If you don’t really eat badly enough (ie tons of junk foods and carbs) to fuck up your metabolism at the usual time, you can stay at your set point until you die of old age, and never have to bother with watching what you eat.
I have no idea of the mechanics of it but anecdotally I can explain it for me. Back and front squats seem to localize and isolate the pressure of the lift either right in my knee or just before it. Zerchers for example, allow me to use some butt and some of the pressure is running down the back of the thigh rather than all isolated in the front of the knee. For me, that is much more comfortable and less painful.
That sounds like a form problem to me. Perhaps leaning forward, as Meatros, or maybe not going deep enough in the squat.
With all respect, I’ve trained with several personal trainers and coaches over the years and had the issue regardless of form. I simply have damaged knees from an injury in high school, It causes issues in certain motions. There are other ways around the problem.
DON’T DO IT!!! DON’T DO IT!!!
Waste of time, risk of injury, waste of money. Any weight gained will be fat. Period. :smack:
How in the H are you going to build muscle with 7 minute workouts 8 times a month? You are just going to be working out long enough to get your heart rate up and your blood pumping into your muscles and then…BAM! you quit. Stupid shit man.
This whole program is insane. The purported gains are BS relative to the level of exercise. You’re indulging in magical thinking.
Astro and Jaime we’ll see. That’s the point of this, it is an experiment. If I see noticeable fat gain, or have any other issues I can stop. Let us assume I’ve gained the target amount of 4-5 lbs by Sunday (I doubt it), I will re- measure my fat percentage and see if it has noticeably changed, along with the tape measurements. These things are measurable and can be altered, or ceased at will.
I don’t work out cold, I warm up a bit first. Push ups and jumping jacks. I’m not a fool. I’ve been doing some exercise programs, including interdisciplinary martial arts forms for years. Risk of injury is the same as any other low rep, high weight program.
I endorse experiments. 
I often to experiments similar to this - and you are going to be keeping an eye on things, and the program doesn’t look dangerous, so why not, right?
As for squats - your form could be spot on - your physiology might not be. I’m not a doctor and don’t know much physiology, so what I’m about to suggest is simply a WAG. Perhaps you injured your knee in such a way that it mechanically works slightly differently than a non-injured knee. This is why squats (or what have you) aggravate your knee. Again, I’m far from an expert.
There isn’t anything really dangerous about it at all. I’m mostly skeptical of the workout program like many of the posters and want to see if this minimal approach can actually garner results. Otherwise, GOMAD and LOMAD has been around for years and is known to be successful at adding weight. Like you, I enjoy experimenting to see if things are actually true and this program has mixed reviews, so I think it’s worth a shot.
As to my knees, Long story short, I took bad fall in wrestling in High school and smashed both joints onto the concrete rather than the padding. It left me with fluid sac and crystals in the joints for a while and they have never been the same since. I’m extremely prone to inflammation in them and the doctors have recommended staying away from surgery as long as possible because of my youth. Once you get started fooling around with knees, the problem tends to need periodic attention so as long as I’m healthy and happy it is better to avoid surgery for minor improvement. I have no problem walking, swimming, biking, climbing stairs, hiking or any other relatively low impact activity. Running aggravates the condition, though recently I’ve take up barefoot running and this seems to be a great improvement there.
Okay this is odd.
I am on Day three as of this morning and I have a legitimate change to report. I had mentioned that I carried some fat before beginning this experiment. Primarily the only real “problem” area was around my lower stomach where I carried a bit more than I would have liked. As of this morning, I have lost a little over an inch of size from that region 35" to 33.75" 
I feel the same weight to myself, so I will weigh in later today and report back. I HAD read that there can be swings in males in this amount of time but I really didn’t believe it. Will take proper measurements every two days from here on out. I suspect this might be a consequence of replacing the majority of my calories with protein. Less junk, soda, and carbs.
A proper experiment involves changing only one variable at a time. Otherwise, how do you know what made the difference?
Updated =Pic.
The diet basically IS the difference. Since I have changed little else except the workout, which is short and infrequent I can’t attribute any extra fat loss to increased caloric burning. I’m actually eating MORE that I would have previously, just different types of food. I’m not any more active, or engaging in extra cardio type activities etc… The only major difference is diet. I can’t afford to be a real lab rat and live in total isolation to eliminate all possible interfering factors. What would you attribute that to?
Update: Weight unchanged 155 lbs.