Often, when lifters attempt the 20-rep squat, they find that they
can perform their normal 10-12 rep weight for the full 20 reps. While this seems impossible, it often educates the lifter on what it really means to approach failure. To know that you were truly leaving 8-10 reps in the tank before can bruise the ego, but it also elevates your understanding of your own ability, and thus your expectations in future.
If including 20-rep squats in your workout, I would typically recommend doing them once per week. Initially, I would do very little quad work in the same workout, as you will simply be too beat up if genuinely pushing close to failure. As an introduction, you could do 3 sets, 12 reps, 15 reps, and 20 reps, all at 2-3 RIR, and then after 2 weeks at that, add in 3 x 20 reps, with
the first 2 sets being at 3-5 RIR, and the final set at 0-2 RIR.
During sets like this, you can rest for a couple of seconds at the top to take a breather in order to keep going as you get beyond 12 reps. This is why these sets are often
called "breathing squats". This enables you to continue pushing rep by rep in the presence of fatigue.
Please do not do sets like this until you have solid squat technique already. Although arbitrary, I'd like to see someone exhibit a
full squat with good technique at 1.5x bodyweight before progressing onto more advanced workouts like this. If you are weaker than this currently, it's likely you can continue with basic linear progression without having to attempt such techniques.
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