20 Rep Squats

[FROGGBUSTER]

hey mark, i read your description of 20-rep squats in Strong Enough and i'd like to try it sometime in the near future. however, i have always trained with low reps on squats and have rarely gone past five reps.

do you think it is wise to go straight into a 20-rep workout with a 10RM weight without having built up some tolerance to higher-rep stuff? or should i spend a few weeks doing 20 reps with lower weights?

thanks.

[Mark Rippetoe]

There's no way to build a tolerance to 20s. If there were, they wouldn't work. 10s sure as hell don't, so you might just as well go ahead and start doing them. Use a weight that is about 10% lighter than your 10RM the first time, and just get ready to be sore.