Hey, everyone. Bigthony Squattano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and I hope you're doing well. I don't know if you follow me on all of my social media pages, most importantly, Instagram, where I recently announced that I am undergoing the process of a pretty extensive physical challenge. Because look, I am a bit of a lifting junkie.

I know I have not been as consistent with it as I would like to be. I gave it up when the pandemic started because obviously during lockdowns, I was not really in and out of the gym. Over that course of time, I was doing mostly just calisthenics. And when the vaccines came out and the more current COVID strains became a bit less severe – I'm not saying that COVID has been completely wiped out because obviously it hasn't – there are still people dying of it, even if the media is not covering that accurately and properly.

With that being said, though, when it made more sense to start back into the gym, what I opted for instead was to take up climbing, which I'm still doing now and is very fun. I have no plans on quitting that. But I started to miss actually lifting and began to get back into that via squatting. When it comes to the three major competitive lifts, I always took to squatting more easily than the other two.

When I eventually hit a PR (personal record) of 305 after a few months of, again, training pretty casually, I was excited to see how far I could potentially take it if I took the time and focused on it more, which meant potentially going back into a formal strength training type of gym. But I didn't really want to do that, which had me looking online for squat racks, and there was one particular rogue model that I found that apparently, you could order in Brat green, which when I saw that color option, I figured this was a sign from God.

So yes, I am now currently the proud owner of a Brat green squat rack. And so, of course, because I was not too far off from this weight to begin with, I thought it would be interesting to turn this into a bit of a challenge and see how quickly, after training for weeks, could I get myself to 365 pounds in the Brat rack. I know that what is to come is going to involve a lot of weight training jargon and all that, but I figure I'm just going to give you guys the details of how exactly this happened.

Over the course of about nine or ten weeks, I was doing two leg days a week, a heavy day and a light day. On the light days, I would basically squat very far under like 100 pounds at the very least, whatever is my max weight, and I would go more for volume, higher amounts of reps. So, I'd be squatting anywhere from like 135 to 225 for about twelve reps minimum for five, six, seven sets at most with maybe a few extra sets of deadlifts or front squats after all of that, just to further wear myself out. Some calf raises, too.

I would do these light days several days after my heavy days to space things out efficiently. I'm keeping blood flow to that area in between my heavy days, but also not wearing myself out in advance of them by doing them too late or too close to my next heavy day. Really trying to land in the middle of those heavy days for the most part, which pretty consistently over the course of this program I put myself through, I was doing at the end of the week, be it on a Saturday or Sunday.

Also to keep my recovery up in between these heavy days, I was doing quite a bit of walking week to week, doing anywhere between 5,000 to 8,000 steps a day just to make sure I've got good blood flow going in between my workouts. I do often find my recovery is better when I'm getting some steps in, some movement outside of just weight training. Again, just casually walking, not running, not jogging, just a little bit of walking every single day, 5,000 to 7,000 steps.

I also had to be careful with in a sense, because if I did too many steps, then I was dropping a whole lot of weight. Having a little bit of extra weight on my body is only going to help recovery and give me more energy to push and get through the workout. So over the course of this time, I was keeping on about an extra 5 to 15 pounds, especially toward the end.

There were a few points over the course of these 10 weeks where I was dropping below 230, and I was like, 'God, what am I going to do?' I need to really start eating, eating in order to keep the weight on because the fruit smoothies and veggies burgers and homemade hummus and tempeh and seitan and nuts and cashews and so on and so forth that I was eating weren't fully keeping it on. So here and there, I was throwing in some potatoes, some donuts, throwing in some of those Lenny and Larry Complete Cookie things that they sell at the store. Those things will make you fat. The density and calories on those things are fucking insane.

So yes, I had my light days, I had my regular walks, and then finally, it was basically my heavy days programming those week to week to ensure that I was eking out just a smidge of progress every week, even if it was a couple of extra reps of a weight that I hadn't gotten before, or if it was just 10 extra pounds that I hadn't done the previous week.

@theneedletok day 1 of squats @Charli XCX #charlixcx ♬ 365 - Charli xcx

My max when I started This process was 285. I was not squatting any more than that. The first time I tried that amount of weight, it was a very, very shaky 285. I barely got that weight up for the five or six reps that I did. My knees were wobbling. The leg strength was mostly there, but my core and my secondary muscles were pretty trash. I did not do this series of lifts. I did not do this squat challenge with a belt. It's something I would be more open to doing if I squatting more around 400 or something like that, or if I was doing more like big jumps and weight, one rep maxes, that thing. But my progress along this entire thing was very gradual.

I will also note a lot of these lifts got a lot of commentary from people on Instagram and such talking about the depth of which I was squatting at. I don't know if it's fully visible from the angle that I am doing it, but for the most part, I am hitting a nice 90-degree little angle between my calf and my knee, which is fine for me. That's the depth I personally was aiming for. I was seeing a lot of strength progress in terms of my hamstrings and my butt and my thighs throughout all of this. It's not as if I wasn't actually getting gains and benefits from doing it at this depth. I most certainly was.

But also on top of this, and I didn't really discuss this over social media, I have a pelvic anterior tilt which makes a full ass to grass squat, which is not completely necessary in order to see gains or get any benefits from squats. I can't really do a full ass to grass squat in this position. There are suggestions on the internet as how you can work around this as somebody who has pelvic anterior tilt, but honestly, I didn't really feel inclined to do that, but I don't care. I was primarily focused on just getting the weight up and doing this whole process safely so that I didn't get injured at any point, which I didn't. So mission accomplished.

@theneedletok day 2 @marc rebillet #charlixcx ♬ 365 - Charli xcx

Week to week, I was starting with pretty much like a 135 and a 185 squat warmup. I would pick a starting weight for my working sets where I would be typically hitting five to six reps a set, mostly six, and I would basically jump up 20 pounds per set until I hit what was going to be my for that week. I struggled with 285 for the first week, so my goal on the second was to get that same amount of weight, but actually be able to do it with more strength and stability. From there, all it really took was just focus and consistency every week between my eating, between my walking, between my light days, and effectively programming my heavy days so I'm not wearing myself out too quickly at the start of the workout.

I hit a few snags bags along this process. I had one week where I had COVID. Hilariously enough, While I had COVID, I actually did hit a PR that week. I think I did three plates with COVID, which is pretty funny. I was less messed up with COVID than I was the week following COVID, where I feel like my progress was stifled a bit because basically having COVID killed my appetite, and I was really not eating well that week. So when it came to the next weekend and I had to lift heavy again, my lifts were pretty much shit, and I was stuck right exactly where I was the previous week.

I also, toward the end of this workout program, had a Saturday in New York where I was walking around all day, doing collabs with a few other short form people. I ended up putting in 17,000 steps that day and sitting on the train for four hours, combined, going to and from the city. And by the end of this, my back was shot. So the next day, when I went to do a heavy squat day, my lifts were just garbage. They were trash.

But thankfully, the following week, I rested and ate well. And those days of soreness actually ended up turning into a week of gains yet again because the following week, the final week in which I was doing this challenge, I advanced from doing 325 for four reps to hitting that same amount of weight for five. When I hit that 325 for five, it was very solid. In fact, I felt like I could even get a sixth out of it.

But honestly, Charli XCX just announced not too long ago that it is, in fact, the end of Brat Summer. I sat there and thought to myself, 'How much longer do I want to extend this whole process out?' Because while it was fun and I have been enjoying the challenge of doing this. It has required a lot of bandwidth and a lot of focus and a lot of extra eating.

A squat max calculator would tell you that if you can nail 325 for six reps, you have at least a 377 one rep max. I decided, F it, let me just try to see if I can finish this thing once and for all and just be done with it. I actually did nail it for the one, and I got a shaky second rep out of it.

Essentially, that is how I squatted 365 pounds in the name of Charli XCX's BRAT.

I'm going to continue benching and squatting and getting my weight lifting days in. My weight lifting days are certainly not over, that's for sure. But the progress that I make and I eke out week to week, I'm going to take a bit more slowly and gradually Really, I will not be trying to put on tons of extra weight in order to advance more quickly and just get a physical challenge done. But this has been a really great experience in terms of learning about just getting together a very effective exercise regimen.

I guess I should also mention that having a former power lifting coach dad who trained you as a teenager does help in these instances. I didn't exactly exactly go into this whole thing raw. But you know what? There you have it. Visual proof of the challenge, the mission, the success, the accomplishment. 365 Squat Max for Brat. I done did it. There you go.

Anthony Fantano, squats, forever.