That's not why I'm doing them (for joints). That's a reason to do them but not THE reason because there are many different reasons that are important depending on the person and their needs. Having said that my point stands. Think of boxing out for the rebound after the 2nd free throw. Specificity of pause squats is obvious. In general rebounding without an initial dip. A block attempt also.
Uhh... I'm actually Raptor on this one! With this line of thinking you are jumping on the path to bosu-ball balance squats... Pause squatting is not similar to boxing out during free throws or blocking someone at all. You never want to let your stretch reflex go in sports; even in a block start there is a ton of active pressure on the blocks before the start; this is exactly the opposite effect of what you are trying to train in the pause squat. Squatting is will always be a GENERAL strength exercise, don't get in the habit of choosing your lifts because they somehow remind you of a basketball move...
Despite all this.... The pause squat is a fantastic exercise. As far as 70%... Likely the most you can do initially but it will certainly climb up past 90%... You should be prepared for carryover disappointment. I was stuck on a 405 lb back squat for a long time (eg I could get it on a good day and not on a bad day)... I pause squatted exclusively worked my way from 315 to 405 in the pause squat.... Was very excited to finally let myself do a non-paused squat and throw up 500... Instead I got pinned with about 425... An efficient pause squatting is almost as good as a reactive pause squatter. The main improvement was to my form; pause squatted allowed me to never worry about my depth, etc.
I'm not sure what to make of your front pause squatting. I favor the combination of back-pause squatting and non-paused front squatting. I really wouldn't want to sit in the hole a bunch with tons of weight on my shoulders. That would get old real quick. Also, in your front squat your depth is excellent but you don't have a relaxed bottom position. The HSI group (Jon Smith and Maurice Greene) sometimes does them in the westLA weight room, I don't know how much stock you can put into John Smiths advice (he is a bit weird) but he really tries to get the athletes to get into an almost relaxed zen position at the bottom of the squat; hams on calves; don't LOSE your breath or tightness but be relaxed and go to a special place... He has the athletes get to that position and then uses a starter to shock them into exploding the weight up... Really awesome the extent that they turn it on... Then again that group has girls breaking 10.8... So, yeah they must be doing something right.
I love it. I was actually gonna ask you about Maurice because I read something online where someone was saying the paused squat carries over to 'start strength' which is important out of the blocks for sprinters. Thought you might have your own take on that.
Yea i see what you guys mean about functional training and the perils of mimicking sports moves in the gym. But i dunno. It seems like IT should carry over to sports when the movements are kinda similar. Take the push press - Lance argues well that it's a good lift for builing strength & power for basketball players. I can see that without having any experience training basketball players or trying it out myself. It seems like it ought to work. If a 80kg basketball player can throw up 100+kg for reps in the gym, he's probably gonna find it helps when chasing a rebound or a block or something. Right? Same with the paused squat, maybe the similarity is superficial and it doesn't cross over but maybe it does. I guess the danger is building a whole training regime around these things - that's probably a trap many sports trainers and what not probably fall into - that's a valid point. But then I'm clear that lifting in the gym is about building general strength and it just happens to help with certain facets of athleticism. And in that relationship if we can select exercises which help more than less then that's a good thing.
For example I was sold on teh benefits of the RDL - I gave that a decent shot of around 9 months of consistent training. Worked up to a decent poundage and I had good form (i think). But it gave me no benefits whether in the gym or outside. So i've tossed that lift. And it's possible that in a different context it would have helped but at that time it didn't. I can see paused squats helping me a lot right now because I need to clean up form - and for the main reason which is why i'm doing them - because lance suggested it lol - to help keep myself progressing in the gym because i was getting frustrated with not making easy progress with just front squats.
Btw that description of paused squat description of the HSI group sounds awesome. I would love to be in that stage someday with my front squats.
Running out of time gotta lift so i'll finish my post later.
Also Kingfisher's post was the best thing i've read on this site for a long time. It was deep and enlightening - kinda still in awe at it!!
Its not that there is some magical quality about paused squats that make them sport specific, the sport specific part is that they make your legs fucking strong. Youre getting longer time under tension in the stretch portion of the lift, and killing the bounce that usually makes that portion easier. Front squat with a pause is awesome in that it takes more of the lower back out of the lift, and REQUIRES it to drive from the LEGS. People can get away with shitty squatmorning front squats when they can bounce out of the hole and not have to spend any time in that end range, pauses will correct this.
Think of how much time we spend in the bottom of the squat, its very minimal. Pauses double and even triple this time each rep, so youre getting 2x the t.u.t. in the most beneficial portion of the lift, the stretch.
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