I've been doing squats for about 6 months now. I always steered clear of them as I thought my form was all wrong, until my PT encouraged me to do them and said my form was perfect which gave me lots of encouragement to give them a go,
I started with 5kg each side plus the bar. 6 months later I can still only do 15kg each side plus the bar though I struggle to get every single one deep enough - sometimes I totally fatigue. Otherwise it's 10kg a side with good deep squats but still only 12-15 of them.
its really getting me down! Other girls (admittedly much bigger than I am in height and far more solid) are doing 30kg a side.
I just want to look toned and I don't want massive bodybuilder thighs, but I feel hopeless that I cannot seem to increase the weight to something more decent after all this time.
is this normal??
Yes, based on what you've been doing,
it's 100% normal!
Your training seems to be emphasising everything that you do
not wish to accomplish using this magnificent exercise. I fully understand what you mean when you say you don't wish to get bigger but just toned. I also understand what it means to be stuck on the same weight for 6 long months. Here's what you need to do in order to hit two birds with one stone.
You need to train for strength instead of size, and the way you go about doing that is by firstly reducing your repetitions from 15 to no more than 5. This number of repetitions would place the emphasis on much more muscular strength rather than size. So it's a case of more here (strength) and less here (size), instead of
all here or
all there okay Oilucy. In other words, there'll always be a level of strength and a level of size gained, but it's all relative based on the program you're following, and whether it's myofibrillar or sarcoplasmic dominant training, where myofibrillar (lower reps) going to give you more muscle density over muscle size. Going even lower than 5 repetitions would make you even stronger still, as it brings in more of your nervous system, where neuromuscular efficiency would be the dominant factor over all else, where the way you'd be able to recruit more muscle fibers at any one given time would be greatly enhanced.
I did try to keep it as simple as I could for you, but I think I've failed in that department. In any case, please discuss with your PT and get back to us. Thank you.