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Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: chasing athleticism
« on: May 23, 2014, 04:33:33 am »
Hey entropy, I just solved your problem of "the Olympic lifters collapse their knees inward on their heaviest attempts".
It's because if you look at what muscles contribute to the hip extension (aka "the posterior chain"), they're the glutes, hamstrings AND ADDUCTORS.
And since in an Olympic lift the back is vertical (same as in a front squat, and to a lesser extent, the high bar back squat), then the knees go forward a lot and the hamstrings are put into active insufficiency.
This leaves only the glutes AND ADDUCTORS to provide hip extension. And the knees caving in is the athlete's attempt (subconsciously or not) to use these adductors to help the glutes, which are on an island on their own, to do the hip extension.
This is also the reason why front squats are great for hamstring dominant people (think - me) to learn how to use the glutes in the squatting movement: by putting the hamstrings into active insufficiency (shortening them at both the hip and knee joints), you're basically "isolating" the glutes and adductors as the only muscles capable of hip extension. And since you put the glutes in a stretched position going very low (assuming you can do it), then the front squat is maybe the best athletic training squat, assuming you still do stuff for the hamstrings.
Just thought I'll put this out there for the people wondering about these knees coming in on heavy attempts for the Olympic lifters, and also something to think about.
It's because if you look at what muscles contribute to the hip extension (aka "the posterior chain"), they're the glutes, hamstrings AND ADDUCTORS.
And since in an Olympic lift the back is vertical (same as in a front squat, and to a lesser extent, the high bar back squat), then the knees go forward a lot and the hamstrings are put into active insufficiency.
This leaves only the glutes AND ADDUCTORS to provide hip extension. And the knees caving in is the athlete's attempt (subconsciously or not) to use these adductors to help the glutes, which are on an island on their own, to do the hip extension.
This is also the reason why front squats are great for hamstring dominant people (think - me) to learn how to use the glutes in the squatting movement: by putting the hamstrings into active insufficiency (shortening them at both the hip and knee joints), you're basically "isolating" the glutes and adductors as the only muscles capable of hip extension. And since you put the glutes in a stretched position going very low (assuming you can do it), then the front squat is maybe the best athletic training squat, assuming you still do stuff for the hamstrings.
Just thought I'll put this out there for the people wondering about these knees coming in on heavy attempts for the Olympic lifters, and also something to think about.
with these floppers
