Ok so I'll go first. All of the stuff below is on "squatting for athletic performance", not for a meet.

Firstly, I don't like to force depth for people with long leverages, such as high jumpers/various basketball athletes. However, with these athletes, we do work on depth, especially during the warmup/work up sets. But for someone who is "very strong" yet has "very long femurs", I'm not going to sit there for months and months trying to get them to look like a powerlifter.

I get alot of people asking me how I teach squat form, as do most trainers. I feel that squatting off pins is probably the most effective way to teach the squat.



Really Lanky Athletes

So, for long femur'd high-jumper-build athletes, we'll go as low as possible without rounding. I can't really find any videos of half squats the way I do them, and I deleted (by accident) all of eddie's squat videos, but here's how he would squat:

• Armpit width stance
• Feet neutral
• Mid-bar
• Inhale, hold, & brace abs on the way down and on the way up, until 3/4ths of the way back up

Here's a video of me doing it, please post some nice half squat videos of high jumpers if you have them:

Half squat, close width, feet neutral:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKd87aDtHGA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKd87aDtHGA</a>

Not on video, half squat off pins, close width, feet neutral. scratch that. Here's a link to me squatting off pins, significantly above half squat tho: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF-Fp5ZeAwo (after the isos)



Non-lanky athletes

For non-lanky athletes, deep squatting comes alot easier.

• Slightly wider than shoulders width stance
• Slight external rotation causing a slight toeing out
• Mid to High bar
• Inhale, hold, & brace abs on the way down and on the way up, until 3/4ths of the way back up

Here's Taje doing some, most of the other videos are alot darker. Also, most of his vids are maxes. He keeps his form tight in those videos but their are deviations. When trying to bump up his squat, we'd sacrifice depth temporarily as he built strength under the new weight, then worked his way back down. He also used pin squats to zero-in on his form.

Regular squat:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJpCnoCmtLI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJpCnoCmtLI</a>

^^ Here taje is squatting 195 for reps. Most of his vids are darker and max attempts, so this is one of the best I got. He's hit 315 @ 150, below parallel.


Pin squat:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yq6ZVo0e70" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yq6ZVo0e70</a>






So, two different athletes with two very different builds. I saw no point in holding eddie back trying to turn his squat into some kind of PL-style squat. Due to the close stance, he got massive hamstring /glute recruitment, so did I, so does everyone.

Half squatting can also be done for athletes like taje, as they peak vert. Most of the time spent should be below parallel though.


peace

ya, especially for females who have wide hips and alot of knee valgus to begin with.. plus the way she's looking up, it's going to cause way too much of an arch in her back.

peace

Ya that's why eventually I started half-squatting after seeing eddie's gains, but making sure I hit the walking lunges/stepups very hard. I had to stop doing stepups because my glutes were getting too big, it would aggravate an issue I have in my sacral spine.



I actually had data on a few athletes, but I can't find it. I also can't find some high jumper study comparing femur length to tibia length. I am full of fail currently.

I will post my measurements tomorrow.

peace man

http://www.assembla.com/spaces/talentid2009/documents/cN48bGVKer3OFEeJe5aVNr/download/0926BookinviteSelfSelectionofAthletesintosportsFinal.doc


The crural index is a measure of tibia length in relation to femur length, defined as the height of the tibiale laterale (a) with the subject standing, divided by the trochanterion – tibiale laterale length (b). 

The brachial index is a measure of the length of the forearm in relation to the upper arm and is defined as the radiale – stylion length (c) divided by the acromiale – radiale length (d) . 

The androgyny index is essentially shoulder breadth in relation to pelvic breadth, defined as the biacromial breadth (e) divided by the bicristal breadth (f). 

The skelic index describes leg length in relation to torso length and is defined as the derived total leg length (stature minus sitting height) divided by sitting height.  These ratios are depicted in Figure 2. 



Crural index & long/high jumping:

Table 1. Here we show that while the computed somatotype components describe physique, the crural index (Davenport, 1933) represents an additional discriminant in describing physique variation across our adult sample.  A dominant crural index in classes 2 and 4 illustrates the importance of relative limb length in athletes trained for endurance and strength.  A smaller crural index may be advantageous for general agility, whereas a higher value may determine mechanically advantageous take-off technique in long-jump and high-jump events (Alexander, 1990) and in basketball, in tandem with development of commensurate muscle power to maximise femoral leverage Ackland et al., 1997).




Skeletal ratios
Significant differences in skeletal ratios are found between different types of
athletes even when differences in absolute body size are taken into account.
Marathoners tend to have a high skelic index (ratio of total leg length to
sitting height), that is, relatively longer legs. Distance runners also have a
higher crural index (ratio of lower leg length to upper leg length). Longer legs
reduce stride rate, and relatively shorter thighs mean that the resistance arm
on the upper leg is shorter. The muscle mass of the thigh is moved closer to
the axis of rotation of the leg, reducing the energy cost of locomotion. 



http://lib-ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/7871/1/b16962849.pdf
Anthropometric modelling of the human vertical jump

"A study of the proportions of animals of different species indicates that the
fast runners and jumpers are those that have long distal segments, such as
the horse, kangaroo, and the cat. The thigh segment of these animals is
short, ending before the segment leaves the pelvis or flank area The leg
segment is longer than the thigh; the foot segment is the longest, and the
toes are also quite long The animals described as the best jumpers have a
leg considerably longer than the thigh segment and therefore a large crural
index."




"Ross et al. (1982b) compared female high jumpers from the 1976 Montreal Olympic
Games to a group of Canadian reference females, and found that the high jumpers were
proportionally short in sitting height (in other words, proportionally long in the lower
extremities), and that the tibial length was also proportionally long. This supports the
notion that there is an advantage to having long lower extremities and a larger crural index
for jumping.
"

Finaly , i found a kinda useful article about leg length evaluation:

http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/3/1047/pdf

Long story short:
There is not much global data about leg length ratios.
The only data available is about Sitting Height Ratio (SHR ).
Sitting Height = height from head to buttocks , sitting in a chair.
SHR = ( sitting height / standing height ) * 100.
From what i see in SHR the chart for adlults: 52 to 53 = average , anything under 50 = very long legs , anthing over 55 = very short legs.

My SHR is 50,5%. Long legs...
Here comes the half-squat fiesta!