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Performance Area => Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion => Topic started by: entropy on September 04, 2013, 09:55:49 am
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While experimenting trying to get the bar over midfoot I chanced upon doing bodyweight squats ON my toes (with heels off the ground maybe about 2-4"). In this way I can maintain a bar path over midfoot. And also it makes my knees point horizontally rather than at the sky (see pictures below). This suggests having a wedge under my heel might help a lot. But weighlifting shoes will only have a 0.75" heel. That might not be enough? I may need much more heel elevation than that to get horizontal facing quads which will make my torso more upright. The best way to picture this is to look at Tommy Kono's graphic below.
(http://i.imgur.com/pbDw4fT.png)
Knees point ahead, the ideal position for an athletic squat, it means the brunt of the load is borne by the legs.
I use flat shoes to do the following squats. Pictured below is bar position at the bottom of both squats.
(http://i.imgur.com/RKQdEUA.png) (http://i.imgur.com/pAdn5OU.png)
As you can see the bar is over my toes instead of over midfoot. It's too far forward. What i'm trying to understand is WHY? It causes me all manner of problem manifesting in squatmorning my lifts with too much forward lean. I would like to be more upright.
In FS I sit down btw my legs, not thinking about bar path.
In BS I break first at knees to create space for my legs to fill so that my shins aren't vertical at the bottom of the squat. I don't have a problem with ankle mobility, as far as I know. So if it's a mobility issue preventing the bar being over midfoot id welcome suggestions as to what part of my body needs more moblity. I don't believe it's ankles because my knees are plenty forward I think.
All I want is a more upright torso. I think that would solve all my squat problems at once. Welcome any ideas or theories.
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I use 5lb little plates under the heels, makes the squat feel much more natural. I saw it on a Youtube vid about Arnold, he was using a 2x4. Just my .02
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I use 5lb little plates under the heels, makes the squat feel much more natural. I saw it on a Youtube vid about Arnold, he was using a 2x4. Just my .02
Thanks. My 2.5kg plates are 1" high. I used them yesterday to get my knees lower. Seemed to help. To get 1" i'd need to add 0.25" heel inserts to my new 0.75" heeled weightlifting shoes when they arrive in 10 days. But I was thinking about this, going from flats to 0.75" might be a good start. And I work hard on my ankle dorsiflexion and add a couple of degrees that way. So both things might help get my knees lower. Will it be enough? Maybe, maybe not, but it will be an improvement from the current situation.
So i'll stretch my ankles daily. Have read that it takes 2 minutes to cause tissue change. Could be some brosfit science but i'll try it anyway.
TLDR: more ankle ROM + WL heel wedge --> knees down and forward + more upright squat.
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the weightlifting shoes will change your mechanics more than you think. take these photos again once they arrive. also be humble with weight once you get 'em; i fucked up my hip after my shoes came because i thought i could just keep going with the weight i was using before. better to back off briefly and work quickly back up. you won't lose strength but it'll help you adapt to the new movement safely.
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^Will do on both things. Thank you.
This thread has made me re-think the idea of 'depth' when it comes to the squat. It's not just hip crease and knee joint angle as per PL. That works for PL sure, but it's not the best definition. It's not about hip at all. I have observed legitimate Olympic (as in WL who perform at THE OLYMPICS) lifters who have perfectly horizontal quads. Squat depth is instead about knee height from the ground. Depth is determined by how low (or high for that matter) your knee is from the ground.
So take my front squat for example. I could say I do them ATG BRAH. But that's not the point, it's not about the angle my hip crease makes with my knee, my squat isn't deep in the meaningful way just because my ass is almost touching the ground and/or bouncing off my calves. Rather my squat is HIGH because my knee isn't low enough. It's a subtle enough point but it's important. Because it means you can do squats that are not considered 'deep' and yet for the purposes for athleticism they're sufficient if not ideal. And you can do ATG squats that are in fact not deep enough because of high knees.
This is a bit of a rant but it annoys me when people say 'WL shoes help squat deeper'. NO, it's not the point of WL shoes when you're talking about 'depth' as being the hip crease angle! But they surely do help depth if you're looking at knee height, that depth surely does increase. And that's the depth that matters, not the stupid hip crease one which is completely irrelevant. The heel wedge increases depth but without necessarily affecting the angle btw hips and knees. DUH!
I'll edit in some photographs to illustrate my point later.
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all that shit is determined by your physiology -- lower leg/upper leg/torso lengths. don't judge your technique against what you see oly-level weight lifters doing. it's not like they're consistent with each other. there are many ways to achieve the same thing, which is a leg-driven squat.
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I'd rather say depth is actually the distance from your hip to your ankle.
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I completely agree that form is determined by leg segment length, tibia and femur ratios and torso length. That's fine not something I'd dispute. My point is squat depth for any squatter isn't just about the elevation of hip crease to knee as is commonly defined. It's also about knee height relative to the ground. That needs to be factored in. You can have depth in one sense and not have it in the other. And vice versa. I think. I will add examples soon when I have a chance to collate them for illustration.
I tried and failed to squat with a bar path over midfoot even with a block under my heel. The bar just starts and stays over my toes. Maybe i'm just build wrong for this exercise and I can't have a barpath over the middle. But without that when the the weight gets heavy it will always be a problem.
By the way I downloaded analysed Kingfishers 465 squat yesterday. No one will be surprised to know the bar tracks over mid foot thru the whole lift. KF is textbook midfoot. If KF gives permission I can post my analysis. I need to figure out a way to achieve the same bar path.
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On further reflection I've decided the romaloes are pointless. The heel height of 3/4'" is insufficient. I have realised this sport is for small guys with small legs and feet. What heel works for someone with a size 8 foot won't be enough for me. Maybe they do in fact scale heel height up a little with shoe length but its unlikely to be enough. Because leg length is an additional factor. I need probably around 1.5-1.75" heel to get the same benefit as a smaller dude.
edit, check out this chinese Olympian who has the same Romaloes 2 shoe but with a twist
(http://i.imgur.com/Syazq5Q.jpg) (http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8010/7657055008_2814ac0b54_o.jpg)
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Why would you settle for anything less than the shoes I have, the AdiPowers?
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Why would you settle for anything less than the shoes I have, the AdiPowers?
Internet says the AdiPowers if you have a narrower foot and Romaleos if you have a wider foot. Not that Romaleos are wide (D) but they're wider than than the Adidas. I don't have narrow feet so I went with Nike.
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Would Superman give up another superpower? Well, lifting in a heel that is too low will do just that.
The other day I was training in an undisclosed location on the West Coast. To my amazement, someone actually referred to the Risto's I was wearing as "high heeled shoes". About 3 years ago, people would ask me why the Risto heel was "so low"; now, I'm asked why is it "so high". This is laughable -- the heel hasnt changed! What has changed is marketing to strength athletes.
What is more interesting are the social dynamics at play of adoption. Unfortunately, there is an entire population of lifters who are now giving away kilos off their lifts, pounds off their squats by wearing a shoe which is too supple and too low a heel height.
Most people need over an inch heel to get into the power position. About a 1.25 inch heel proportionate to foot length is optimal for squats, snatches, and clean and jerks. The heel allows the lifter to maintain leverage. It permits solid contact of the foot to the floor as the lifter pushes out of a squat or against the floor in a pull. Further, in a deep squat the higher heel prevents the lifter from caving forward onto their knees or curling their back.
A flat heel will cause most lifters to have too wide a stance in their start position as well as in the catch of their snatch or clean. This puts excessive stress on the joints and knees with such oblique angles in the hips to make up for the lack of heel. Ever see someone squat with their heels come up?
http://gwenweightlifting.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/heel-height-what-right-heel-size-is.html
Youtube interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_arVPW7lbzk#t=2371)
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I think partly the reason this change from a high heel to a low heel has taken place is because there are a majority of people who use these shoes to do unathletic squats which don't require a big heel. They don't care about being upright, they avoid a bigger heel because it actually leans them over TOO much (because they squat by sitting way back). For this reason there has been an internet marketing trend towards smaller heels. One very vocal internet coach suggests 0.5" as the ideal heel height which has no doubt fuelled the trend towards small heels where even 0.75" is considered "too high". Another reason is the widespread brosfit theory that barefoot training is ideal, and since they want to be as paleo as possible, shy away from high heeled shoes from a misguided sense of what they consider natural. These are the same fools who tell people to lift in vibrams or worse, barefoot. This unfortunate convergence of brosfit preference and unathletic squatting has dried up the market of proper high heeled weightlifting shoes.
A few years ago 1.25" was a minimum standard for a WL shoe and there were shoes with even bigger heels. Gwen suggests 1.25" actually becomes say 1.75" for someone with very long feet in the Ristos which makes sense since the longer a foot, the more heel height is required to make up the same inclination as someone with a smaller foot.
I think the oly guys since the majority of them tend to be self selected for the sport, have proportions which don't suffer too much from a small sized heel of 3/4". They might have on average a shoe size of 8 and small leg segments. And for them a 3/4" heel is not bad given the length of their shoes. They might benefit from an extra half inch of height too, but they can definitely work with 3/4. The rest of us though, who are not build like them get very little out of a small heel of 3/4". We need at a minimum 1.25 going on to 1.75 (imho).
But even among oly guys there is a widespread practice of using heel inserts to make up the height of modern shoes. If you're starting out with 0.75" and you have a longer foot and longer legs, you need 1/2" of extra heel. So guys use vinyl inserts to make up that gap. Or they get their WL shoe modified at cost if they happen to have a wooden heel wedge from a cobbler.
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Very good read man. All he says in there goes right along with what feels natural for me when lifting.
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Very good read man. All he says in there goes right along with what feels natural for me when lifting.
Welcome. It's a she btw, haha. A down to earth MIT PhD rocket scientist with great insight on the physics of lifting. I find myself agreeing with her a lot.
I should thank you too for the tip on using 5lb plates. Today I first tried using a block under my heels and that shit is impossibly tricky for some reason, I felt so awkward and unstable. It maybe because the weight was too heavy (120kg front squat) but then later I tried with 2.5kg plates and they're a lot easier to balance on compared to the block, albeit with a lighter weight. With the block i was unsure whether to put the weight on my heels in which case toes go up! Or on the toes in which case it just didn't feel right.
But even with the heel I can't get close to midfoot. I am quite lost for ideas now. It's frustrating me. I'm not even looking at the concentric, just the first half of the movement on the way down. Without midfoot alignment I'm a hopeless backsquatter. And an ugly front squatter. I might need a 2" heel to bring my hips closer under the bar as per Tommy Kono above.
So i think I have some thoughts on what to experiment with next time. I have to jettison the knee break first on HBBS. Sure it gives me a bounce at the bottom (hamstring?), it brings my knees forward and gives my legs some room to sit into. Those are the good things. The bad thigns are it takes me forward of midfoot. Causing a great deal of inclination of the chest, shooting hips back and making it a low quality unathletic exercise that puts too much stress on the low back. That's why it has to go.
INSTEAD I have to concentrate on holding bar position from the top and driving hips down hard in a straight vertical line. This will ensure at least in theory a midfoot bar path. Hopefully it will automatically put my legs etc in the position they need to be too. Now, what i've found in the past doing this is that it makes my shins vertical unless i knee break first. But i'll have to find a way to get that ankle angle smaller (maybe the heel will do that for me?). And this is about backsquat. On FS i have no fkn clue since I don't do the knee break thing at all. Perhaps just need a bigger heel i dont know.
Oh and ankle mobility is veryyyyy good right now. I went into FS warmups with great ankle flexiblity so i'm happy with the improvement i've made in that area.
a big total heel (> 1.75") is a bit crazy. and the scary thing is unless you groove the movement in a very upright manner, a bigger heel will actually force you even further of midfoot because any inclination that occurs naturally gets amplified with a heel UNLESS you consciously work on being more upright in which case it facilitates it. Kind of like alcohol and being horny in the porter scene of macbeth.
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Actually forget that noise. I dont have to conjecture about this stuff, I can just go outside and test shit out. That's what i'll be doing on wednesdays and fridays, get my heavy 3RM set (FS or BS depending on the day) and then do a bunch of technique work with the opposite exercise (FS if heavy BS on that day, or BS if heavy FS).
I might need more thoractic mobility. knees breaking first is fine on HBBS it gives me a lot of benefits but why should my chest start to incline as a downside? That could be a mobility issue somewhere.
The problem is, as I try this out now with a PVC pipe as my bar, when you break first at the knees, that's fine. But if the bar doesn't go forward that actually places a lot of stress on the knees. And that's with unweighted squats! Imagine what happens with weighted ones. So the body reacts by unlocking at the hips and inclining at the waist. Now the load isn't on the knees. Which is good. But the bar path is now ahead of midfoot. Perhaps i'm looking at this wrong by trying to maintain a strict vertical bar path. maybe I can bring bar back into midfoot as I go descend. Although that sounds incorrect.... :/
edit 3
hmm, so if I break first at the knees and try to hold bar position it over-stresses the knees. But suppose I break first at the knees but hold the weight on the heels? Perhaps this will allow the best of both worlds.. will explore that further.
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comparing weighted and unweighted squats is a stupid crossfit fallacy. there is no comparison.
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True but you can still learn a few things just have to be careful about your conclusions. Like if you're forward of midfoot unweighted, well, adding weight will shift the weight even further. So that's a useful diagnostic. I'm learning more by doing unweighted stuff than anything I do with weight. The final judge is weighted heavy of course cause that's what matters in the end. But to fix technique it's ok to take the simplest system available (unweighted) since there are less variables to consider!
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I guess it depends on your goal.
The first back squat image is almost impossible to attain UNLESS you are front squatting. Of course the pic is a back squat and a drawing so the laws of physics don't apply (you could rest the bar on the neck). This squatting style will build quads and some glutes (a traditional front squat will have quad and more glute plus be easier on the knees). It will place more stress on the knees and requires a ton of ankle mobility. Also be sure to drive the knees outward. That will clear space in the hips AND the ankles. Knees should travel WAY outside the foot. If you wanna squat like this then goblet squat and front squat. Getting into the position will be easier. IME Olympic lifters don't really front squat in that position. That crazy position mostly comes from the catch phase in heavy cleans. Their back squats and front squats are more traditional.
The second image is more balanced. You will get quad and glute work (although lesser) and hamstring strength. All 3 are needed for athletes who run so this is the more common approach. It also allows more weight so ou see it is more similar to a power lifter squat. Starting strength is a classic example of this style.
The third pic is what your squat will look like if you try the first style and dont have enough hip and ankle mobility. Goodbye spine. Watch out a disk might shoot your eye out.
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Jst did a quick google search of images showing olympic squats back and front.
The only pics where the knees even come close to that far forward is in a front squat. Even then most front squats dont have the knees that far forward.
My question is why do you want to back squat like that?
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My question is why do you want to back squat like that?
he is crazy.
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The first back squat image is almost impossible to attain UNLESS you are front squatting. Of course the pic is a back squat and a drawing so the laws of physics don't apply (you could rest the bar on the neck). This squatting style will build quads and some glutes (a traditional front squat will have quad and more glute plus be easier on the knees). It will place more stress on the knees and requires a ton of ankle mobility. Also be sure to drive the knees outward. That will clear space in the hips AND the ankles. Knees should travel WAY outside the foot. If you wanna squat like this then goblet squat and front squat.
There is a good reason for preferring our backsquat form to resemble FS as much as possible. The reason is that it's much easier to train the BS than the FS. Easier to do more volume. More reps, more sets. Easier to use more weight. This is because the FS depends on rack strength as much as it does leg strength and drive. If your build means you're leaning over, you need even more rack strength than leg strength. FS is not the solution.
Also knees out will force hips back and take you away from the olympic position. That's one reason why you don't want to do that in olympic squats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V9MvP1nxOs
Getting into the position will be easier. IME Olympic lifters don't really front squat in that position. That crazy position mostly comes from the catch phase in heavy cleans. Their back squats and front squats are more traditional.
You're probably familar with and looking at how US weightlifters squat. They're not very good at doing olympic style squats, for one reason or another, they end up adopting a very PC dominant style even with their 'olympic squats'.
Knees are not unsafe in a very forward style as illustrated in the first picture. The reason you might think that though, is because you haven't learnt to do the olympic squat properly :) If you go from a PL style squat with vertical shins to an olympic squat, yes it will hurt your knees, even with the empty bar. The PL style doesn't depend on using the muscles directly around the knee and below of the lower leg. This is because you haven't taught your body the correct way to do an olympic squat which is very safe for the knees. PL style squat dont teach you to recruit the muscles of the lower leg to stabilise the knee at the bottom of a deep olympic squat. If you use your calves and hamstrings and quads (near the knee) and contract them while going into the hole, the knee is supported very well by these muscles. You just have to try this out yourself. Think of the muscles around your knee activating to absorb your descent into the hole and you'll find the stress on knees is reduced. The video above goes into this a bit too.
You'll notice one thing about these squats, there is a very tiny angle btw hips crease and the knees, the knees are almost horizontal as are quads. This means the quads are in a better position to act out of the bottom of a hole. If someone does a 'deep squat' like KingFisher or my front squats, this means the quads are not able to act immediately out of the hole since they are over stretched. That's bad. Instead in that case it's the glutes and hamstrings which bounce you out, and then the about halfway up quads kick in. This isn't a quad dominant olympic squat. That's why I was going on about depth being misunderstood, because for the purposes of an olympic squat, it's more about the depth of the knee rather than the ass vs the knee.
The second image is more balanced. You will get quad and glute work (although lesser) and hamstring strength. All 3 are needed for athletes who run so this is the more common approach. It also allows more weight so ou see it is more similar to a power lifter squat. Starting strength is a classic example of this style.
Depends on the person! My HBBS are so hamstring dominant, hell even my FS are so hamstring and glute dominant that my attempts at olympic squats end up resembling the 2nd pic. It's a fault. Because in my case the weight is not directly over midfoot, it's ahead, sometimes even further than my toes. This leads to good morning squats. Not enough training for my legs. Not enough quad development.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQnFe6jP46M
Have you actually watched that guy squat? Looks nothing like that... So much hamstrings. The bottom position he actually takes is more like yours than the ideal one he describes.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQnFe6jP46M
Have you actually watched that guy squat? Looks nothing like that... So much hamstrings. The bottom position he actually takes is more like yours than the ideal one he describes.
Yes! I agree completely. I would like to ask him the same thing lol.
Could be one or more of the following :-
1. I know he got Romaleos recently (~0.75" heel) when he used to wear old classic Dowins which had a 1.25" heel (that he may have modified by a cobbler to be even higher?) . A bigger heel allows you to get more knee forward. Try it by getting on your toes (emulating a big heel) and pushing your hips forward until they're directly above your ankles while sitting down into the first position in the poster. Some people will need a bigger heel than others to get to this position. He may need a bigger one to get into the ideal position than that provided by the Nikes.
2. He's not able to do the idea squat style with heavy weights, the vids of him show him doing a 2xbw squat for 5x5, he's not able to use the ideal form with his heaviest sets
3. He hasn't made the change yet from his old style, old habits are hard to break.
Would be interesting to see him show a video of a lifter he has coached into that technique using heavier weights.
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His coach has pretty nice form
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coSTR_fAMpQ
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Yup. Here is coach wu teaching his technique
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFSzleg6vM
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I wonder what entropy thinks about my form on these ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL_91zoX3jc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYVXYSncHHE
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I guess the most important question about this was why do you want to squat like that?
From your response it sounds like you want to be an olympic lifter. That is one technique that you can use to be a better olympic lifter. I have never seen anyone actually train their back squat n the positions shown in the picture (the vids showed theory but lacked in their technique when under a bar). I am not saying they are wrong. For Olympic lifting they may very well be correct.
IMO it borders on the point of diminishing returns for an athlete. The further one goes down the rabbit hole of sport specific training for olympic lifting or powerlifting the further they stray from their goals as an athlete.
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I guess the most important question about this was why do you want to squat like that?
For strengthening legs. That's it. I want an exercise which best trains my legs. Currently my squatting form emphasises glutes and hamstrings more than quads. In the BS case, it also heavily tasks lower back which sucks because it can ruin a whole week's workout if my lower back is too torched to squat normally in the coming workouts. I don't mind having a strong posterior chain, it's awesome to have that too. Atm I can work on my PC just by squatting, no need to do anything else. Whereas i'd prefer the case where my squat was training mainly my legs. I can do assistance exercises for my posterior chain.
If my squat form was olympic like, I could train harder and make better progress growing my leg strength because lower back fatigue would not detract from my squat sessions. Right now my squat progress is a zizgag of doing a heavy enough goodmorning with my squat, accidentally strengthening my back enough (once recovery has occured lol) to progress my backsquat a bit longer before again hitting a wall due to lower back deficit. It's a nightmare.
From your response it sounds like you want to be an olympic lifter. That is one technique that you can use to be a better olympic lifter. I have never seen anyone actually train their back squat n the positions shown in the picture (the vids showed theory but lacked in their technique when under a bar). I am not saying they are wrong. For Olympic lifting they may very well be correct.
Nope, basketball is my sport. Olympic lifters need strong legs. That's the purpose for which they use the squat as an assistance. They already work their posterior chain thru their main lifts as well as assistance pulling exercises. They achieve a good balance between leg strength and posterior strength. I am not an olympic lifter but I also need that same balance. No the LBBS will not give me balance. If my HBBS resembles the 2nd squat, then an intentional LBBS for me resembles a pure good morning - it's no longer a leg exercise it's a pure posterior chain one. This is another point i'd like to make, the LBBS isn't for everyone. For someone with my build it's exactly the wrong type of squat!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM2ZAQ_jFJs
These athletes are squatting with knee positions as illustrated (except for the big kid).
IMO it borders on the point of diminishing returns for an athlete. The further one goes down the rabbit hole of sport specific training for olympic lifting or powerlifting the further they stray from their goals as an athlete.
There is an argument to be made that the olympic squat is /the/ squat exercise for athletes and general strength. I get that in some sense the LBBS is a jack-of-all-trades squats to some. Not very good at building leg strength but it's good for putting a lot of weight on the bar, for some, because it makes for a deadlift-like squat rather than a squat-like one. And since weight on the bar is very important to a lot of people, it's the natural choice. But weight on the bar is not everything, if the downside is we're turning the squat into an exercise which resembles the deadlift, then what exactly are we achieving if legs are no longer being strengthened like in the olympic squat? It's a trade off i'm not willing to entertain when strong legs are so important in sport, which is the main reason we are squatting in the first place! Guys are moving 400-500 in the LBBS and only front squatting 300! I can front squat 300 and my backsquat is around there too. What does it say about the leg training effect of the LBBS when these so-called strong squatters have such low front squats? It says their not training their legs very hard.
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Why don't you just make front squat your primary exercise? It seems close enough to your back squat at the moment that your rack strength isn't an issue.
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Why don't you just make front squat your primary exercise? It seems close enough to your back squat at the moment that your rack strength isn't an issue.
lol, if only life were so simple.
My FS is limited by quad strength, and it trains glutes and hamstrings
My BS is limited by lower back and hamstring strength and it trains the quads
FS is a cool exercise and all, but it doesn't do anything for my leg strength. When my BS went up, my FS went up nicely. BS gets stuck, FS gets stuck. FS is not my panacea.
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You'll notice one thing about these squats, there is a very tiny angle btw hips crease and the knees, the knees are almost horizontal as are quads. This means the quads are in a better position to act out of the bottom of a hole. If someone does a 'deep squat' like KingFisher or my front squats, this means the quads are not able to act immediately out of the hole since they are over stretched. That's bad. Instead in that case it's the glutes and hamstrings which bounce you out, and then the about halfway up quads kick in. This isn't a quad dominant olympic squat. That's why I was going on about depth being misunderstood, because for the purposes of an olympic squat, it's more about the depth of the knee rather than the ass vs the knee.
The second image is more balanced. You will get quad and glute work (although lesser) and hamstring strength. All 3 are needed for athletes who run so this is the more common approach. It also allows more weight so ou see it is more similar to a power lifter squat. Starting strength is a classic example of this style.
:wowthatwasnutswtf:
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a307/robertodimaano/035.jpg)
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Are your glutes and hams as developed? If i'm right they shud be more developed..
edit more explanations --
1. Your quads show development consistent with a person who does 475lb paused back squats regardless of style
2. Not to say you use zero quads in your style, it's def more than someone doing a LBBS say, but not as much as someone doing a TK style olympic squat
3. You were born with them you haven't acquired them thru your backsquats (?)
4. If you used TK style olympic squats you'd have even more impressive quads
5. low bodyfat makes fools of us all
6. i'm completely wrong but i doubt it :P
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Are your glutes and hams as developed?
Kingfish, entropy wants bare ass photos.
but seriously holy crap kingfish that quad is glorious
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Jesus KF. Still have some vascularity even at your currently 'high' BF. Insane man.
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Are your glutes and hams as developed?
Kingfish, entropy wants bare ass photos.
but seriously holy crap kingfish that quad is glorious
lol
(http://i.imgur.com/Iz4nx5a.png)
wouldn't mind a map or a legend to what's photographed there. Is that kingfisher's knee or muscles??
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VMO. Knee is down and to the right.
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See, you can't ask a question like that and then say his quads are not up to par.
And guys... please take these private questions on PM. Thank you.
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as Lance puts it: my squat resembles a standing leg extension.
most of the muscle soreness i get from doing 6-8+ reps before goes to the lower quads/VMO area. glutes get some also but not as much. hamstrings get nothing.
p-chain dominant lifters will almost always get blown away in explosiveness from a dead start by the quadzillas. :headbang:
big SVJs happen when you have so much power in unfolding your knees.
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wouldn't mind a map or a legend to what's photographed there. Is that kingfisher's knee or muscles??
thats where a 40" SVJ comes from. :wowthatwasnutswtf:
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wouldn't mind a map or a legend to what's photographed there. Is that kingfisher's knee or muscles??
thats where a 40" SVJ comes from. :wowthatwasnutswtf:
Respeck. If you ever wanna try your hand at internet coaching im putting my hands up as a keen volunteer. Would love to have VMO's like that, i didnt' even know such a muscle existed lol :P
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wouldn't mind a map or a legend to what's photographed there. Is that kingfisher's knee or muscles??
thats where a 40" SVJ comes from. :wowthatwasnutswtf:
Respeck. If you ever wanna try your hand at internet coaching im putting my hands up as a keen volunteer. Would love to have VMO's like that, i didnt' even know such a muscle existed lol :P
That's more a function of Kingfish's awesome dorsiflexion ability.
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True raptor. I'd been meaning to ask KF about that. How important is your kalf training to your squatting prowess? Would you recommend I start to train my calves too if i'm after a stronger more athletic squat?
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As promised, an updated caps post of squats done with WL shoes.
(http://i.imgur.com/DJ489N2.png)
I'm still at a loss of how to get my DESCENT more middle-of-foot aligned. As always any suggestions welcome.
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^Cool , i thought i was the only one dumb enough to make pictures like that comparing front and back squatting form :D
This is from 2 weeks ago, 60kg backsquats and 55kg front squats. It is the 8th rep of 3d set for both, wanted to see how bad my worse rep is:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314805/DUNK%20PICS/2013_09_13_backsquat60kg_frontsquat55kg.jpg)
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Re: analyse my squat bar path
^Cool , i thought i was the only one dumb enough to make pictures like that comparing front and back squatting form :D
This is from 2 weeks ago, 60kg backsquats and 55kg front squats. It is the 8th rep of 3d set for both, wanted to see how bad my worse rep is:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/314805/DUNK%20PICS/2013_09_13_backsquat60kg_frontsquat55kg.jpg)
dont mind if i do.
So what I see there is a bar path that isn't aligned with midfoot. It appears to be closer to your toes. Not such a problem now, but when you approach 1.5bw on the bar, you'll find it become increasingly harder to wrestle that bar up in a straight line. This is because anything off midfoot is an inherently unstable position. We're just looking at descent here. Ascent is always slightly ahead of descent, so if you're too much off on the descent, you're definitely in trouble on the ascent. So if we fix our descent, we improve our chances of a vertical (non squat morning) ascent.
also, nice shoes. ... wanna fuck? *groan* :uhhhfacepalm:
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^Agree on everything. I am trying to fix that midfoot thing, i have some progress but not there yet. One important cue ( which i am sure i am the last on the planet to discover ) is resetting between reps. A little off at descent, ascent follows, a little more off on next, bla bla bla , by rep 5 you are squatmorninging. Also i tend to fall down too fast, which of course causes loss of the descent path control. Lance gave a cue for than in the past: you don't need to make it a slow tempo rep, but you can start slow and then once your descent is under control, speed it up.
Just thinking loud here for anyone who might benefit from that chat.
also, nice shoes. ... wanna fuck? *groan* :uhhhfacepalm:
Don't be cheap, you play on the big league now with the Romaleos 2, my powerperfect IIs are half the price. :-*
Uhmmmm, did you get a good look at raptor's adipowers ??? :derp:
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True raptor. I'd been meaning to ask KF about that. How important is your kalf training to your squatting prowess? Would you recommend I start to train my calves too if i'm after a stronger more athletic squat?
not important but more lean mass on the calves is always a good thing. helps keep your ankles healthy.
Respeck. If you ever wanna try your hand at internet coaching im putting my hands up as a keen volunteer. Would love to have VMO's like that, i didnt' even know such a muscle existed lol :P
i spent most of my time in the 6-8reps x 6-8sets when i was lifting up to 385s (2.0-2.1BW max).
my vertical summit journal is full of those rest-pause squats without unloading the bar.. very high volume. long rest. protein overload.
375x7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsRFP4s1VYY
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So at your max you were doing 64 reps (8 sets of 8 reps) per workout? wtf
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True raptor. I'd been meaning to ask KF about that. How important is your kalf training to your squatting prowess? Would you recommend I start to train my calves too if i'm after a stronger more athletic squat?
not important but more lean mass on the calves is always a good thing. helps keep your ankles healthy.
Respeck. If you ever wanna try your hand at internet coaching im putting my hands up as a keen volunteer. Would love to have VMO's like that, i didnt' even know such a muscle existed lol :P
i spent most of my time in the 6-8reps x 6-8sets when i was lifting up to 385s (2.0-2.1BW max).
my vertical summit journal is full of those rest-pause squats without unloading the bar.. very high volume. long rest. protein overload.
Noted. I am already on the 6s volume. I usually 4-5 sets of 6s total. I dabbled with 8s and 10s too when I was doing a mass gain, they were cool. I have really really small muscles around my knees, my calves are small as are my vmos and hamstrings near the knee. My hamstring higher up is massive though (relative to my leg). Would like more mass around my knee for stabilisation at the bottom of a squat. I think that will really help me. If i'm right about that, putting on some knee sleeves will give me a lot of benefit (i dont have any but that's my theory).
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I HAVE MADE A BREAK THROUGH!!
:ibsquatting: :ibsquatting: :ibsquatting: :ibsquatting: :ibsquatting:
I figured it out today, partially in the lab and later on paper. Here is how I fix my off midfoot barpath on the descent - knees go out and forward. This will keep me balanced over midfoot instead of drifting far too forward.
The way I discovered this is actually by doing that on the ascent and realising the same principle should apply on teh descent! On ascent, after passing the sticking point, my knees went out, and this kept me from squat morning.
New technique
So here is how I do a technically correct midfoot squat on paper for next time. Keep weight on heels, stand upright make sure i'm not leaning at all. Brace abs etc etc. Then begin descent, knees break out and forward. At the bottom position my knees are held out. As I come out of the bottom, my knees come in to give me quad/glute drive out of the bottom, as i pass the sticking point, knees go back out. So it's a sequence of knees out, knees in, knees out in that order. Next time i'll have caps of bar path.
I tried this technique partially today, only just for ascent and it made a big difference, suddenly my squat became quad dominant, i remained upright and i could pop out and lock out like a boss. When I make the change on the descent, it will give me a better bar path on the descent which means i'm in a better position at the bottom, which means i'm going to have a much better position on the ascent. b00m! problem solved.
:headbang:
to test this out, i will put my money where my mouth is, next time i squat, which follows after 1 days rest, i'm going to put 135kg on the bar and front squat it ATG without a belt. Keep in mind just 3 days ago i got buried by a 132.5kg FS and today I got it without much fuss, so it's not just some bullshit internet analysis, i've video proof to back it up.
:ibsquatting:
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Form change is basically to do with knees. They go in at the start of the concentric, and then OUT as I go past the sticking point. This is new for me, it's the antidote to the squatmorning sickness I so desperately needed to cure.
you are using too much weight if you had to grind the knees to get the rep. uneven stress on the knee is not healthy specially when supporting near-max weight.
A lot of Chinese lifters do it and Dan Green also recommends it. IDK how to feel about it because what you say has also occurred to me as a potential trouble.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y8yKSJbpFI
KF can you expain what is grinding the knees? i'm not sure what you mean.
I agree with joe though. The intentional knee-in push movement to initiate the concentric is something you see with all the top lifters, from Broz's to chinese olympians to top east european lifters. Dan Green is one proponent of it, his story is pretty interesting because he started out as a typical north american PL who noticed he was getting his ass handed to him by stronger, leaner, lighter russian lifters. He noticed they had massive quads and they used a very quad dominant squatting style, so he adopted their style too. I've always done this naturally but when you do it intentionally it somehow gives you more pop out of the bottom of a squat.
The other part is the knee out after passing the sticking point -- this is new for me, i got it from watching one of broz's lifters and suddenly it just clicked. Now here is the interesting part, the video of yours you linked, you actually do the knees out after sticking point motion too :) Great minds think alike!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsRFP4s1VYY
As you come out of of the sticking point your knees go out. This is what I had been missing all along, it was the crucial thing. I knew my knees couldn't stay out the whole way ascent-to-descent, because there was that point at the bottom where my knees had to come in to get out of the hole. But what I didn't know, and what i've discovered is once i've got out of the hole, my knees going out give me that stability and uprightness which I really needed. The real breakthrough which I am hoping will work out for me, is applying this on descent. I'll test that today, will update what happens.
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wobble baby wobble baby wobble baby wobble
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^cool.
(http://i.imgur.com/4eMwPvE.jpg)
As promised here is a cap of my bar position from today's 135kg PR done with the new technique.
Acole might be able to help me here but I think midfoot is near where the tick starts on the NR2s?
It's not bad but still not middle. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
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Was just viewing footage from today's squatting and I came across this rep of BACKSQUAT which I failed but notice my position
(http://i.imgur.com/zbsSITZ.jpg)
This is a deep, upright, midfoot heavy BACKSQUAT, which is never this deep for me. Any ideas on wtf happened here. Should I be able to do my normal backsquats this way. I guess I had to relax some muscles that would normally be tight to get this position? which muscles, i don't remember either. It's interesting though. Might be something to explore further.
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I explored it further, turns out, somehow I can do the very deep atg style backsquat after all. I did KF style paused backsquats today as a finisher to a very ordinary workout. I can definitely do it, i have the mobility and what not to do it. What's more, midfoot bar path occurs automatically without any extra effort on my part. I dont even need $200 fucking weightlifing shoes to do it, i did these in my old ones just cause I dont wanna wear them out. Anyway.
(http://i.imgur.com/K2ntg8k.jpg)
I guess I just found my new squatting obsession when I start my cut :) Watch out KF, i'm coming for ya! haha.