BRUTE STRENGTH TRAINING

HATCH SQUAT
PROGRAM
The true Hatch Squat Program consists of squatting on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and
High CNS days (aka Olympic lifts) are performed on Monday, Wednesdays, and
Fridays. These Tuesdays and Thursdays are known as “Squat days” and would take
about an hour each day just to perform the squat portions of the workout. After the
squat was finished, we would proceed to other absolute strength exercises such as
military press, push press, bench press, incline press, dips, curls, pull-ups, abs, and
hyperextensions. The beauty behind the squat program was its simplicity in nature and
repetitiveness of it. Coach Hatch never believed in squatting over 8 reps and would only
program 8 reps once or twice per year; and these days were called “Bucket 8’s” and they
still haunt me to this day. Coach Hatch also never allowed for any sets to be less than 3
reps. He felt a one rep or two rep max in the squat was not enough juice for the squeeze.
Therefore, the only reps we ever performed, outside of “Bucket 8” days (that's a whole
other blog in itself), were triples and sets of 5. Right, it seems so simple. We actually
also never performed sets of 4—only sets of triples and 5’s. Whatever squat you were to
perform first that day was to be your triple max. After finishing triples on that lift, we
would proceed to sets of 5 for the other squat lift. We would go to the maximum every
time we tripled on the squat, and the goal was to attempt a PR every week unless it was a
deload week. Here is the general breakdown of our template:
Week 1: Day 1:
1. Front Squat: work up to a max triple. Sets of 3 all the way up. Your last sets should be: 70%, 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%,
attempt new PR (Immediately following front squats, you would move to back squats.)
2. Back Squat: 4x5 Whatever you worked up to on Front Squats, you would take 4 sets working back up to that weight, and
the jumps would be done in 5% increments. For example, let's say you hit a new PR on your front squat triple that day,
giving you a new 100%. Your back squat would be these 4 sets of five on back squats at 85%, 90%, 95%, and 100% of that
new front squat triple weight.

Day 2:
1. Tempo Back Squat: (5 seconds eccentric lower) tripling up to 80% of your 3 rep max Back Squat with 4 sets above 70% of
the prescribed weight for the day. (Immediately following back squats, you would move to Front Squats.)
2. Pause Front Squat: (3-second pause at the bottom position) tripling up to 80% of your 3 rep max Front Squat with 4 sets
above 70% of the prescribed weight for the day

Week 1
Day 1 Exercise 1: work up to max triple on Front Squat % based on max Front Squat Triple

Front Squat: 80%x3

Reps and % based off best Front Squat triple 85%x3
90%x3
95%x3
Attempt new triple PR
Day 1 Exercise 2 % based on max Front Squat Triple
Back Squat: 85%x5
Reps and % based off best Front Squat triple 90%x5
95%x5
100%x5

Day 2 Exercise 1 : % based max Back Squat Triple

Tempo Back Squat: 5 seconds eccentric lower 50%x3

Reps and % based off best Back Squat triple 60%x3
70%x3
75%x3
80%x3
Day 2 exercise 2: % based on max Front Squat Triple

Pause Front Squat: 3 second pause at bottom of squat 65%x3

Reps and % based off best Front Squat triple 70%x3
75%x3
80%x3
Week 2: Day 1:
1. Back Squat: work up to a max triple. Sets of 3 the all the way up. Your last sets should be: 70%, 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%,
attempt new PR (Immediately following back squats, you would move to front squats.)
2. Front Squat: 4x5 Whatever you worked up to on Back Squats, you would take 4 sets working back up to 80% of that
weight with 5% increment jumps for Front Squat. For example, let's say you hit a new PR on your Back Squat triple that
day, giving you a new 100%. You would then take 80% of this lift, and that would be the final weight you would hit on
front squats. Your front squat percentages would be 4 sets at 65%, 70%, 75%, and 80% of max triple Back Squat.

Day 2:
1. Tempo Front Squat: (5 seconds eccentric lower) tripling up to 80% of your 3 rep max Front Squat with 4 sets above
70%of the prescribed weight for the day. (Immediately following Front squats, you would move to Back Squats.)
2. Pause Back Squat: (3-second pause at the bottom position) tripling up to 80% of your 3 rep max Back Squat with 4 sets
above 70% of the prescribed weight for the day

Week 2
Day 1 Exercise 1: work up to max triple on Back Squat % based on max Back Squat Triple

Back Squat: 80%x3

Reps and % based off best Back Squat triple 85%x3
90%x3
95%x3
Attempt new triple PR
Day 1 Exercise 2 % based on max Back Squat Triple
Back Squat: 65%x5
Reps and % based off best Back Squat triple 70%x5
75%x5
80%x5

Day 2 Exercise 1 : % based max Front Squat Triple

Tempo Front Squat: 5 seconds eccentric lower 50%x3

Reps and % based off best Front Squat triple 60%x3
70%x3
75%x3
80%x3
Day 2 exercise 2: % based on max Back Squat Triple

Pause Back Squat: 3 second pause at bottom of squat 65%x3

Reps and % based off best Back Squat triple 70%x3
75%x3
80%x3
Week 3: Day 1: DELOAD WEEK (only one day of training this week)

1. Front Squat: triple up to 70% of your max triple. Sets of 3 all the way up. (Immediately following front squats, you
would move to back squats.)
2. Back Squat: triple up to 70% of your max triple. Sets of 3 all the way up.

Week 3
Day 1 Exercise 1: work up to 70% max triple on Front Squat % based on max Front Squat Triple

Front Squat: 55%x3

Reps and % based off best Front Squat triple 60%x3
65%x3
70%x3

Day 1 Exercise 2: work up to 70% max triple on Back Squat % based on max Back Squat Triple
Back Squat: 55%x3
Reps and % based off best Back Squat triple 60%x3
65%x3
70%x3

Day 2 Exercise 1 :

Rest Day

Day 2 exercise 2:

Rest Day
Template Design and Rationale

This would be the normal template we would follow year after year, and it never really
varied. Once one 3-week cycle would end, we would then begin the next 3 week cycle
hopefully with new PR triples in both front and back squat. The only variance would be
every so often when we were in a deep cycle, and our CNS was holding up really strong,
we would add in another loading week before the deload week, therefore, making a 4-
week cycle instead of a 3-week cycle. The four-week cycle would look like this:

Week 1: Perform a normal week 1 squat workout week

Week 2: Perform a normal week 2 squat workout week
Week 3: Perform a normal week 1 squat workout week
Week 4: Perform a normal week 4 squat workout week

Let it be known that we did squat every day as on the non “Squat Days,” we would
perform exercises like squat cleans, squat snatches, Bulgarian split squats, step-ups, etc.
Also, as years would pass on this current “squat system,” the second day programmed
each week was replaced by a light squat day, and then eventually, we only had one “squat
day” per week. Now I can imagine you being upset and wishing this long drawn out
yearly cycle with many ups and downs in volume and a ton of variance. Coach Hatch
squat program’s real secret was that most of his athletes began training under him in
their early teens on this exact squat program. Over the years, they built a huge tolerance
to squatting and built an incredible “base” strength to carry over to the Olympic lifts.
Imagine if you started squatting in this manner at the age of 13 and continued in this
same pattern for over 7 years. Your legs would be tremendously stronger. With that
being said, this program will still work no matter what age you are and current training
status, but also understand that it will take a few weeks to get used to this volume.

Attached is an excel template that will allow you to put in your max triple front squat
and max triple back squat and calculate the numbers for you each week. Each time you
record a new triple record on either the back squat or front squat, simply just change
those numbers in the template, and the corresponding numbers will change through the
program within the weeks. Enjoy!

Matt Bruce,
Hatch Leader
3-time Junior World Team member
4-time Senior World Team member
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