Adarq.org
Performance Area => Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion => Topic started by: bball2020 on November 13, 2010, 05:13:47 pm
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YEP
Just curious if everyone could post
A) low bar or high bar squat and how strict of a technique
B) Squat before and VJ(OR RVJ) before IE 8 months ago squatted 315lbs while jumped 28 inches
C) Squat after and VJ(OR RVJ) after IE currently squat 375lbs and jumps 34 inches
D) Why you choose to do low bar or high bar(or dont do either)
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YEP
Just curious if everyone could post
A) low bar or high bar squat and how strict of a technique
B) Squat before and VJ(OR RVJ) before IE 8 months ago squatted 315lbs while jumped 28 inches
C) Squat after and VJ(OR RVJ) after IE currently squat 375lbs and jumps 34 inches
D) Why you choose to do low bar or high bar(or dont do either)
A) Low-bar squat 1rm: 452 lbs; pretty good technique, consistently below parallel
B) Low-bar squat 8 months ago: 353 lbs; SVJ: ~31"
C) Low-bar squat: see A; SVJ: currently at 36"
D) Low-bar allows more weight to be used because of more muscle mass being actively involved. Low-bar squat strength can therefore be increased faster, which makes it a more useful exercise compared to the typical high-bar squat - which is still a good exercise. High-bar squat supposedly having more carry-over into VJ is IMHO a bad argument, because carryover happens, at least from the late novice stage upwards, through different exercises anyway, like powersnatches, powercleans, jump squats, depth jumps and the like.
But let me say this: Which squat you train primarily is a rather minuscule aspect of training and I think it is more important to do the right stuff (for example make the decision to begin with squats at all) at the right time. Also making sure to stay unstuck for as long as possible in a strength phase is more important than doing it high-bar or low-bar. Both probably have similar usefulness for VJ training as long as you get stronger and then use that strength to become more explosive. That being said, choosing the low-bar technique plays a role in "staying unstuck", too and it is actually rather easy to learn and trains the body in a very balanced fashion.
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i guess i do high bar, but not with olympic form kind of a hybrid? IDK tell me what you think, feels pretty comfortable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfdwWPpbyj0
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i guess i do high bar, but not with olympic form kind of a hybrid? IDK tell me what you think, feels pretty comfortable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfdwWPpbyj0
I don't think that this is a good squat to be honest - regardless of high or low bar. Observe several problems:
- weight shifts to the forefoot at the bottom instead of staying over mid foot the whole time
- knees traveling forward a lot while having little hip involvement which causes a lot of unnecessary stress on the knees
- sufficient depth is reached at no point causing a less than optimal involvement in muscle mass, muscle, that would be pretty useful for jumping
- the squat as a whole looks more like a leg press
Things I like:
- stance looks good
- correct alignment of knee with the big toe (knees out)
IMO you are doing yourself a disservice by not trying hard enough to improve your squat form. I am not talking the high-bar vs. low-bar discussion here but about learning a proper squat. Is your squat better than 90% of what you see in gyms? Sure it is. Is it good enough? That is the question you have to answer for yourself.
A good squat will recruit more muscle mass than yours by having you go over the full range of motion and will therefore be more beneficial for athletic performance. Using your hips better in the squat will improve hip strength better which is going to be beneficial for athletic performance. It will also decrease stress on the knees which you have enough off by jumping, plyos and stuff like that. And staying uninjured is pretty good for athletic performance.
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sufficient depth is debatable IMO as it is atleast a half squat/close to parallel
i feel great glute activation and drive though so is that not a sign that I am using hips more?
Agree on the knee travel foreward a lot, I mean I do think it has to travel foreward and not just be a power lifter knees dont really move squat..
"A good squat will recruit more muscle mass than yours by having you go over the full range of motion and will therefore be more beneficial for athletic performance."
Again, not as clear cut as you make it out to be, especially if your focusing on vert mainly IMO..but yea I want to break parallel without rounding back at all just for main sake of consistency/fun not "full" or ATG though just my preferance
do you see the same things in this squat?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGbr_GoAcY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7X5MeyG_94
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sufficient depth is debatable IMO as it is atleast a half squat/close to parallel
It's not debatable since a half squat, which yours is, is not a squat. It is a different exercise and one might say more limited in its application.
i feel great glute activation and drive though so is that not a sign that I am using hips more?
More than what? More than you would use them with good technique? I don't think so.
Agree on the knee travel foreward a lot, I mean I do think it has to travel foreward and not just be a power lifter knees dont really move squat..
I agree that there has to be forward travel in a raw squat to get more quad contribution and hence create a balanced strength movement. But yours is clearly excessive in face of how little you use your hips. I can see the same by the way in your depth drops.
"A good squat will recruit more muscle mass than yours by having you go over the full range of motion and will therefore be more beneficial for athletic performance."
Again, not as clear cut as you make it out to be, especially if your focusing on vert mainly IMO..but yea I want to break parallel without rounding back at all just for main sake of consistency/fun not "full" or ATG though just my preferance
What do you want to imply with that? That it does not matter if you full squat or half squat?
I have been addressing this point a lot recently and I will do it again. Some people keep thinking that different training methods will still produce the same results and that they therefore have a reason to pick the method that is the most comfortable for them. My stance is that not every method can be the best, most effective, most time efficient method. And not every type of squat can be the best squat. If we take training seriously our concern has to be to find that best method or get as close as possible to it with what we do. As one of the best strength movements the squat is a key exercise for many athletes that they spend a lot of time on in the gym. And yet most people are of the opinion that it is okay to half squat instead of squat, to not use their hips in the squat, to not be consistent with their technique, essentially to do it however it feels comfortable for them at a given time. And those people are often wondering why they don't get stronger. These are the same people who are afraid to take 30 minutes of their time to learn a powersnatch and prefer to jump squat instead. They don't make this decision because they think the jump squat is the better exercise - which would be legitimate. But they don't care if it is or not. They only care about their comfort and what is easier to do. You don't want to be one of those people if want your training to be successful. Low-bar vs. high-bar might be a rather minuscule decision, choosing to half squat with bad technique instead of full squat with good technique is not.
Having said that, if you think your squat is the best squat for developing a high VJ than by all means go ahead and keep doing it. But please enlighten my why your squat is better than a full squat, which activates more muscle, puts less stress on the knees, uses the hamstrings and adductors better and utilizes a greater range of motion?
do you see the same things in this squat?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGbr_GoAcY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7X5MeyG_94
Yes, I feel very similar about these squats.
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Again, im not at the position to say one is "better" than the other...just like one could argue a person could get GREAT results all doing these exercises, even though like u stated and its true the movements and muscles loaded are totally different
-high bar full squat
-low bar full squat power lifting style(no knee travel)
-low bar power style(rippltoe)
-Bulgarian Split Squats
-Heavy Lunges
- box squat wide
- box squat regular
- front squats
ETC
My view is strength is strength(unless its your sport). If your getting stronger your getting stronger, who to say if you display it in the box squat, or the low bar squat, or the freaking BSS that your going to be better off? Now this is taking into account that its an exercise thats not detrimental to your safety or performance and will give desired you desired adaptations(muscle mass,not kill your CNS every workout just to load it(extra high squats,leg press etc)
In terms of your statement about power snatches, I again disagree with you. They are great explosive strength exercises, but although much harder in degree of difficulty technique wise, I do not believe any superior to other explosive strength means(jump squats, paused jumps, from box jumps whatever)
Again, this is my view on the matter and trying to convince me otherwise and that I "have" to squat till my ass touches my calves or whatever will not counter the view that i have witnessed and read about(James Smith a ton) that strength is general work and should be viewed as such.
adarq cant squat hardly a lot of weight at all. I bet he cant even bulgrain or lunge a lot, or box squat a lot. He still damn strong. My little brother squats wide low bar and defintely no where near full and has tremendous lower body strength which helped him make huge strides in speed and explosiveness while also becoming a state champ and also working himself basically into being a division one football recruit..I have seen the results personally of James Smith and how he coaches his guys, although he would not advise my forward knee travel technique at all.
But I degrees, your statement on form holds true 100% accurate. Whatever general strength exercise you use, being orthopedically sound is THE most important issue, period. And if my form is setting me up for injury, obviously this is something I must alter.
From a squat perspective, I always view the following in terms of safety
1) Low back rounding - Mine I believe is fine, maybe its because im quite parallel or at parallel though
2) Knee travel- Again I think its natural, BUT your right when mine is extreme. My ass should be back farther.
Solution- I am going to watch ripptoes videos tonight and tomorrow, place the bar lower, although not ridiculously low,and hopefully this allows me to get ass back more and knees less. Ill try to tape. Appreciate your input
Also, Im not trying to start an argument or be a jerk and I appreciate your input.
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Again, im not at the position to say one is "better" than the other...just like one could argue a person could get GREAT results all doing these exercises, even though like u stated and its true the movements and muscles loaded are totally different
-high bar full squat
-low bar full squat power lifting style(no knee travel)
-low bar power style(rippltoe)
-Bulgarian Split Squats
-Heavy Lunges
- box squat wide
- box squat regular
- front squats
front squats have the highest transfer to standing vert IMO, next in line would be high bar full squat or high/low bar half squat.. as for RVJ, half squatting has by far the most transfer imo, but should not be used solely by people who can easily squat ATG in the various styles (people with high SHR for example).. for people with really lanky leverages (low SHR), half squatting can be used entirely IMO.
box/pin squat variations are fine, they have less transfer imo, but they are fine for mixing it up or utilizing them as more of an assistance to help increase strength on the other squat styles.
deadlift just makes you rugged, and i'm coming to be a big fan of it purely for stim, as the eccentric portion of the lift can be minimized greatly, so you get a ton of p-chain (emphasis on glute) activation and of course still activate the quads.. good way to leave yourself stim'd up 2 days later. shouts to raptor for always promoting that one..
unilaterals have the least transfer of what you listed, but still, they can help improve the bilateral lifts greatly.. so i relegate these to assistance but IMO, they are absolutely necessary, even though I don't do them right now because going heavy on them flares up an issue I have in my sacral spine.
ETC
My view is strength is strength(unless its your sport). If your getting stronger your getting stronger, who to say if you display it in the box squat, or the low bar squat, or the freaking BSS that your going to be better off? Now this is taking into account that its an exercise thats not detrimental to your safety or performance and will give desired you desired adaptations(muscle mass,not kill your CNS every workout just to load it(extra high squats,leg press etc)
I agree here regardless of the statements I made about transfer above.. You can still achieve significant results using the various methods above, but some do transfer a bit more and will give you the absolute utmost bang for your buck.. If you're truly making strides to push your limits, getting legitimately stronger, as well as staying in shape & jumping & making sure to focus on reactive work, everything will come together.. but the glutes, quads, hamstrings, core, shoulders, calfs all have to be legitimately increasing in maximal strength to lay the base for improvements in explosive strength, which itself, leads to the HIGHEST transfer to vert/sprinting etc.. weight room stuff is way less specific than explosive strength exercises (plyos, drops, drop-catch, throws (jump squat/med ball/etc), oly's etc.
In terms of your statement about power snatches, I again disagree with you. They are great explosive strength exercises, but although much harder in degree of difficulty technique wise, I do not believe any superior to other explosive strength means(jump squats, paused jumps, from box jumps whatever)
Again, this is my view on the matter and trying to convince me otherwise and that I "have" to squat till my ass touches my calves or whatever will not counter the view that i have witnessed and read about(James Smith a ton) that strength is general work and should be viewed as such.
I don't believe snatching/oly's is any more effective than the stuff I listed above. A jump squat is a throw, which itself, is more specific to vert, because you are throwing yourself into the air on both exercises, except one is overloaded with ~30% of your 1RM squat. Both oly's and throws are limited by max strength, so their usage just becomes trying to produce more of that strength you already have in the time needed for an athletic movement. The amount of stimulus for "growth and adaptation" in each exercise, is not much really, I mean you make improvements in form/motor programming/small yet significant improvements in rfd/explosive strength, but you are limited by max strength. For example, shock plyometrics shits on both methods, because not only is the specificity way higher than both ideologies just talked about, but the stimulus upon impact causes a protective involuntary flood of nervous system output, that of which you cannot achieve in jump squatting or oly lifting. So now you have a REAL stimulus for growth, independent of your max strength.. sure max strength is still the base, but shock plyos can actually improve max strength in their utilization ALONE.. the only problem is, shock plyos are so intense that they cannot be used throughout the year (you can however use oly's/other explosive/reactive work), but you get the idea.
adarq cant squat hardly a lot of weight at all. I bet he cant even bulgrain or lunge a lot, or box squat a lot. He still damn strong.
hey bish calm teh fawk down.. ;d
right, i'm pretty weak, i've never been one to brag about my strength.. to my defense, i'm 152 today and I can hit 225 x 10 on half squat in waffles last night, which is near a projected 2xBW half squat.. I did lunge some pretty impressive weights last year before my detraining, 225 x 1 for multiple singles (high frequency) @ 165, but i have an issue in my sacral spine which flares up badly when I get strong on unilaterals, even more so on stepups, it's debilitating.
My sole reason for half squatting is this: deep squatting in oly shoes severely injured my hip, and I have seen many others, even those with perfect form, suffer similar injuries. With half squatting, it rarely flares up, and allows me to actually walk without pain :d I get significant glute/hamstring by half squatting, improving my bilateral strength, improving mass in those muscles groups, while not having to worry about my hip.. Improvements in my half squat lead to improvements in my jumping, that's how it was last year and that's how it is now.. I probably improve more than others because of my build, long legs short torso, those who can easily hit depth on squat with proper form, would not see the improvements that I see, most likely.
My little brother squats wide low bar and defintely no where near full and has tremendous lower body strength which helped him make huge strides in speed and explosiveness while also becoming a state champ and also working himself basically into being a division one football recruit..I have seen the results personally of James Smith and how he coaches his guys, although he would not advise my forward knee travel technique at all.
your forward knee travel is not as bad as kingfish's or frank yang's, and they are both around 40" RVJ and damn strong.. i don't like shifting onto toes at the bottom of the squat too, for sure, that's something to fix, but i personally don't care much about a little forward knee travel.
But I degrees, your statement on form holds true 100% accurate. Whatever general strength exercise you use, being orthopedically sound is THE most important issue, period. And if my form is setting me up for injury, obviously this is something I must alter.
From a squat perspective, I always view the following in terms of safety
1) Low back rounding - Mine I believe is fine, maybe its because im quite parallel or at parallel though
2) Knee travel- Again I think its natural, BUT your right when mine is extreme. My ass should be back farther.
Solution- I am going to watch ripptoes videos tonight and tomorrow, place the bar lower, although not ridiculously low,and hopefully this allows me to get ass back more and knees less. Ill try to tape. Appreciate your input
Also, Im not trying to start an argument or be a jerk and I appreciate your input.
just make sure you don't drastically alter your squat form right now, i mean, sure, play around, if it feels better go with it, drop some vids etc, but you just hit some recent PR's on jumping, so no need to start worrying about changing up squat considerably, especially given your squat really isn't that much of an issue when it comes to athletic improvement.
peace
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@bball2020: Sure man, I don't want to fight with you either, just giving my thoughts.
I agree that strength is strength. But I guess we differ in opinion regarding the potential of certain exercises to create this strength long term. I have the strong opinion that low-bar squats have the most potential for growth based on the fact that people handle more weight with it (compared to high-bar, front squats, lunges, box squats over comparable ROM). It can be universally observed when comparing two different exercises, that the one which involves more muscle mass and lets you lift more weight is also the one that more readily responds to training, just think about the press and the bench press. Since these differences exist, we should not pretend that they are not.
Regarding powersnatches and jump squats I stated my thoughts here: http://www.adarq.org/forum/strength-power-reactivity-speed-discussion/3x8-or-3x5/msg20158/#msg20158
KellyB agreed with those observations as well.
Not trying to convince anybody really. If you get the results you want, everything is good. Just wanted to give reason for what I wrote.
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good points darq, not going to make a drastic switch. Maybe lower the bar a litttle get a little more butt duck, because i do think as long as your not totally shooting your knees foreward, along with your knees being in line IE not caving in, knees shouldnt be a problem on squat. Know what u mean on the full squat hip thing too, although my flexiblity may be more of an issue than my levers, but i dont feel like im build for squatting deep by any means
how do i fix the coming forward on toe thing? Is my squat the same depth as your adarq?
steven miller- good stuff man know where ur coming from
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Not trying to convince anybody really. If you get the results you want, everything is good. Just wanted to give reason for what I wrote.
it's all good man i appreciate your advice/willingness to give your side of the issue.. this forum isn't a monarchy :F
peace
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good points darq, not going to make a drastic switch. Maybe lower the bar a litttle get a little more butt duck, because i do think as long as your not totally shooting your knees foreward, along with your knees being in line IE not caving in, knees shouldnt be a problem on squat. Know what u mean on the full squat hip thing too, although my flexiblity may be more of an issue than my levers, but i dont feel like im build for squatting deep by any means
how do i fix the coming forward on toe thing? Is my squat the same depth as your adarq?
the shoes you are wearing are going to contribute to the coming forward onto toes issue, if you were in oly shoes it wouldn't happen. the first rep is good (in regards to going onto toes) because you are a little higher, the next reps are deeper so you're getting that shift.. without changing form, try stretching the calfs/"ankles" out very good prior to squatting, or in between sets, see if that helps, this is to allow for easier getting into dorsiflexion without having to shift the knees forward at the bottom.. other than that, are you focusing on producing force through the middle of the foot? i'm not one to promote pushing through the heel, but middle of foot ya.
steven miller- good stuff man know where ur coming from
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not going to argue which one is better because i never really spent time to get comfortable with low bar style.
about knee travel on full squats.. if flexibility allows (good form maintained).. hell go for it.. putting stress on the knees makes it adapt and it gets stronger. i had ZERO knee issues even with low to mid 30s jump repetitive rim jumps at a BW of 190s. i have vids in my channel showing those 30s jumps done consecutively.
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a307/robertodimaano/Picture041_0002.jpg)
why i prefer doing the olys? because it feels right. im comfortable doing it. most of the time, your body is smarter than you. it tells you what feels right and what doesn't.. listen to it.
see how happy i am sitting down with a loaded bar :P :P :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hiTl1wbvB8
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kingfish, youre knees have never hurt at all? I know mine havent really much at all
Although I dont go olympic shoes/deep like u, do u see any problems with my squat?
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Removed due to an unlogical thought :).
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kingfish, youre knees have never hurt at all? I know mine havent really much at all
its usually the mid quads or the quads on the upper part of knees that gets DOMS. glutes also when i do more paused reps.
Removed due to an unlogical thought :).
^ steven miller probably wrote... ok.. time for some olys.
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Those are some nice looking squats, kingfish.
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more thoughts on olympic squats for power squats for VJ..
Power squats do allow you to lift more weight,ala why the stance and bar grip is used or preferred by powerlifting. It puts you in the best position to squat a ton of weight. Doesnt mean it puts you in the best position that corresponds to your particular goal(jumping). Also some argue less stress in certain areas(knees), allowing more long term safety.
olympic squats were in essence used by olympic lifters as a (main)assistance exercise since it isnt an actual olympic lift. The reason this makes sense is the angles of the clean(and jerk) and the correspodance to the high bar squat. Using this logic, IMO the high bar squat would offer more dynamic correspodance to the VJ. But as i stated earlier, it is not a directly corresponding exercise to the VJ, as you can easily be able to jump high or train yourself to jump high without it. Still if your sole goal is one rep VJ, or to a less degree RVJ, there is to strong correlation. Strength is general to sport, and jumping, but exercise selection still need to be based on ur specific goals.
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more thoughts on olympic squats for power squats for VJ..
Power squats do allow you to lift more weight,ala why the stance and bar grip is used or preferred by powerlifting. It puts you in the best position to squat a ton of weight. Doesnt mean it puts you in the best position that corresponds to your particular goal(jumping). Also some argue less stress in certain areas(knees), allowing more long term safety.
olympic squats were in essence used by olympic lifters as a (main)assistance exercise since it isnt an actual olympic lift. The reason this makes sense is the angles of the clean(and jerk) and the correspodance to the high bar squat. Using this logic, IMO the high bar squat would offer more dynamic correspodance to the VJ. But as i stated earlier, it is not a directly corresponding exercise to the VJ, as you can easily be able to jump high or train yourself to jump high without it. Still if your sole goal is one rep VJ, or to a less degree RVJ, there is to strong correlation. Strength is general to sport, and jumping, but exercise selection still need to be based on ur specific goals.
Look, the only thing that puts you in the best position that corresponds to jumping is jumping. Squats are to develop general strength in the legs. Your legs don't give a flying fuck where the bar is sitting on your back. Your own biomechanics and the bar position will place emphasis on different muscles, but if you're worried about it, do other exercises to target the ones you don't feel are getting enough tension when you squat.* Unless you are a power lifter or an olympic lifter, it does not fucking matter one tiny little bit where the bar is in terms of transfer to whatever sport or other activity you do.
*NB: This is a hypothetical you, not talking about you, bball2020, specifically.
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more thoughts on olympic squats for power squats for VJ..
Power squats do allow you to lift more weight,ala why the stance and bar grip is used or preferred by powerlifting. It puts you in the best position to squat a ton of weight. Doesnt mean it puts you in the best position that corresponds to your particular goal(jumping). Also some argue less stress in certain areas(knees), allowing more long term safety.
olympic squats were in essence used by olympic lifters as a (main)assistance exercise since it isnt an actual olympic lift. The reason this makes sense is the angles of the clean(and jerk) and the correspodance to the high bar squat. Using this logic, IMO the high bar squat would offer more dynamic correspodance to the VJ. But as i stated earlier, it is not a directly corresponding exercise to the VJ, as you can easily be able to jump high or train yourself to jump high without it. Still if your sole goal is one rep VJ, or to a less degree RVJ, there is to strong correlation. Strength is general to sport, and jumping, but exercise selection still need to be based on ur specific goals.
Look, the only thing that puts you in the best position that corresponds to jumping is jumping. Squats are to develop general strength in the legs. Your legs don't give a flying fuck where the bar is sitting on your back. Your own biomechanics and the bar position will place emphasis on different muscles, but if you're worried about it, do other exercises to target the ones you don't feel are getting enough tension when you squat.* Unless you are a power lifter or an olympic lifter, it does not fucking matter one tiny little bit where the bar is in terms of transfer to whatever sport or other activity you do.
*NB: This is a hypothetical you, not talking about you, bball2020, specifically.
FUCK.
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more thoughts on olympic squats for power squats for VJ..
Power squats do allow you to lift more weight,ala why the stance and bar grip is used or preferred by powerlifting. It puts you in the best position to squat a ton of weight. Doesnt mean it puts you in the best position that corresponds to your particular goal(jumping). Also some argue less stress in certain areas(knees), allowing more long term safety.
olympic squats were in essence used by olympic lifters as a (main)assistance exercise since it isnt an actual olympic lift. The reason this makes sense is the angles of the clean(and jerk) and the correspodance to the high bar squat. Using this logic, IMO the high bar squat would offer more dynamic correspodance to the VJ. But as i stated earlier, it is not a directly corresponding exercise to the VJ, as you can easily be able to jump high or train yourself to jump high without it. Still if your sole goal is one rep VJ, or to a less degree RVJ, there is to strong correlation. Strength is general to sport, and jumping, but exercise selection still need to be based on ur specific goals.
Look, the only thing that puts you in the best position that corresponds to jumping is jumping. Squats are to develop general strength in the legs. Your legs don't give a flying fuck where the bar is sitting on your back. Your own biomechanics and the bar position will place emphasis on different muscles, but if you're worried about it, do other exercises to target the ones you don't feel are getting enough tension when you squat.* Unless you are a power lifter or an olympic lifter, it does not fucking matter one tiny little bit where the bar is in terms of transfer to whatever sport or other activity you do.
*NB: This is a hypothetical you, not talking about you, bball2020, specifically.
FUCK.
if you ain't fuckin', you ain't tryin'
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by bar position, I referred to how you squat.
IE
High bar- olympic squat, knees travel foreward and it mirrors the jumping
Low bar- more sit back involved with very minimal knee travel
I agree, strength is a general stimulus, especially when its for sport. And your right its to strengthen the musclurature not actually be the means to how your VJ goes up, or this forum would all be about powerlifting and squatting 500. But if it is just 1 rep VJ, squatting is almost a special exercise in this regard IMO and is definitely a huge bang for your buck so you want to maximize its potential in this regard.
My main point of that little rant i guess was to say that anyone who thinks that for VJ, low bar deep squat is the golden egg so to speak, they are mistaken as theoretically olympic high bar would have a greater transfer
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by bar position, I referred to how you squat.
IE
High bar- olympic squat, knees travel foreward and it mirrors the jumping
Low bar- more sit back involved with very minimal knee travel
I agree, strength is a general stimulus, especially when its for sport. And your right its to strengthen the musclurature not actually be the means to how your VJ goes up, or this forum would all be about powerlifting and squatting 500. But if it is just 1 rep VJ, squatting is almost a special exercise in this regard IMO and is definitely a huge bang for your buck so you want to maximize its potential in this regard.
My main point of that little rant i guess was to say that anyone who thinks that for VJ, low bar deep squat is the golden egg so to speak, they are mistaken as theoretically olympic high bar would have a greater transfer
And my point is that it doesn't matter at all whether it's low or high.
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Low bar position does not mean less knee travel, in fact, in the style of squat Steven is referring to the knees track forward quite a bit compared to a traditional wide stance, low bar, hip squat. There are plenty of lifters who squat high bar with very minimal forward knee travel and sit the hips back very far just like there are plenty of low bar squatters who allow the knees to drift forward and sit more straight down rather than back.
The bar position is simply giving you better leverage on the bar, what you do from there will determine the other things mentioned more. One big advantage of using the low bar, moderate stance, knees tracking over feet, style squat that Rip preaches is it allows the knees to track forward with much less pressure on them due to the bar position. I have had several athletes used to high bar squatting with lots of knee travel simply switch the bar position and still maintain nearly the exact same squat with that one exception, the difference in the stress on the knees is huge, the low bar position greatly aids this issue.
For athletes who are jumping, running, etc, and also squatting, I like to use that style of squat MOST of the time, I have found that it is easy to teach and greatly reduces the stress on the knees, strengthens the hell out of the hamstrings, and allows more weight to be used than other styles. If someone is comfortable with another style then by all means I have no issues with them doing that, the most important thing is that you get a style of squat that you are comfortable with and believe in, if youre always guessing wether or not you should be doing something else you will not get optimal results from anything youre doing anyhow.
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in reality, it only matters if you're improving your ability to produce force in the ROM necessary for jumping, how you do that doesn't necessarily matter, but i still think if you look at it in a minutiae sort of way, it would be in this order:
1. half squat
2. oly front squat
3. oly back squat
4. PL back squat
again, the best bets would be #2,3,&4 year round, but for lanky bishes, #1 can be used year round.. all other bishes can use #1 if they are peaking etc, it's definitely an option that might really spur on some extra gains.
if you want to look at transfer, you have to look at the body position AFTER the athlete is coming back up out of the squat, into the half squat position.. for most people, when jumping, that will be very upright torso with knees jutting forward to varying degrees, but as for squat, it's the torso being upright that seems the most important to me in terms of transfer.. unless you're jack cascio who thinks quads are 15% of SVJ/RVJ.. lol.
some pics: oly back
(http://imgur.com/lN66D.png)
(http://imgur.com/rpGRN.png)
(http://imgur.com/lWjEt.png)
(http://imgur.com/fQKBx.png)
(http://imgur.com/in6Mu.png)
(http://imgur.com/phfEG.png)
(http://imgur.com/Nq6jT.png)
some pics: oly front
(http://imgur.com/4ufYJ.png)
(http://imgur.com/0LUMn.png)
(http://imgur.com/bT68w.png)
some pics: rippetoe squat
(http://imgur.com/3F9QI.png)
(http://imgur.com/mGzvM.png)
^^ that is definitely the "least specific" in regards to SVJ/RVJ of the squats pasted..
peace
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If someone is comfortable with another style then by all means I have no issues with them doing that, the most important thing is that you get a style of squat that you are comfortable with and believe in, if youre always guessing wether or not you should be doing something else you will not get optimal results from anything youre doing anyhow.
truth.
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Right, there is no question that if your goal is an SPP type movement, the half squat will win hands down. The thing that alot seem confused on is that the bar position can still be a low bar position and be an olympic style squat, the squat in the video above is definitely more of a powerlifting style squat with less knee involvement. This is a good example of a low bar "olympic style" squat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t6sqL4PLdA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t6sqL4PLdA
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lance, how low does rip preach low bar? I mean, theres low bar, then there is LOW bar if that makes sense lol...
good posts
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Yes that makes perfect sense and is another variable that will dictate the amount of forward lean of the torso and forward knee travel to reach full depth. From what Ive seen of his videos and read from his book and posts he is teaching a "higher" low bar position than alot of powerlifters use. If you look at alot of his guys squatting they keep their torsos fairly upright compared to lifters utilitzing a deeper bar position and less knee travel. Steven Miller would be a better person to ask about what exactly Rip says but from the info i have seen and read from him that is what he is advocating.
Individual levers will play a big role in optimal bar placement as well, longer torsos and shorter legs will be able to keep the torso more upright (see olympic lifters adarq posted), and shorter torso, longer legs (see the low bar squat adarq posted) will have to have more forward lean regardless of bar position. The low bar position allows the lifters with shorter torsos to stay more upright and allow the knee travel without as much knee stress.
(here is one of rips lifters squatting at wfac)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqjXWZaOElA
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good stuff..does he/you like the 45 deg feet out? I try to go 35 degress, but im thinking, looking at my form, its probally 45 degrees..
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Yea, Ive seen him cue the feet out when the lifter is having trouble with depth, I do the same thing. If someone has an issue with the knees turning in or needs a little more depth then its a good way to fix it, whatever is most comfortable though, angles will vary.
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in reality, it only matters if you're improving your ability to produce force in the ROM necessary for jumping, how you do that doesn't necessarily matter, but i still think if you look at it in a minutiae sort of way, it would be in this order:
1. half squat
2. oly front squat
3. oly back squat
4. PL back squat
again, the best bets would be #2,3,&4 year round, but for lanky bishes, #1 can be used year round.. all other bishes can use #1 if they are peaking etc, it's definitely an option that might really spur on some extra gains.
if you want to look at transfer, you have to look at the body position AFTER the athlete is coming back up out of the squat, into the half squat position.. for most people, when jumping, that will be very upright torso with knees jutting forward to varying degrees, but as for squat, it's the torso being upright that seems the most important to me in terms of transfer.. unless you're jack cascio who thinks quads are 15% of SVJ/RVJ.. lol.
some pics: oly back
(http://imgur.com/lN66D.png)
(http://imgur.com/rpGRN.png)
(http://imgur.com/lWjEt.png)
(http://imgur.com/fQKBx.png)
(http://imgur.com/in6Mu.png)
(http://imgur.com/phfEG.png)
(http://imgur.com/Nq6jT.png)
some pics: oly front
(http://imgur.com/4ufYJ.png)
(http://imgur.com/0LUMn.png)
(http://imgur.com/bT68w.png)
some pics: rippetoe squat
(http://imgur.com/3F9QI.png)
(http://imgur.com/mGzvM.png)
^^ that is definitely the "least specific" in regards to SVJ/RVJ of the squats pasted..
peace
Youre talking about 2leg RVJ right?
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I do not doubt, that the half squat is the most similar variant to a VJ and I would agree for the most part with the ranking adarqui gave - yet the squat, regardless which type, is still very, very different, especially in one of the most important aspects, namely time for force production. Thinking about the squat as a VJ-specific exercise will not lead to the best results for anyone but a novice-level-strength athlete.
IMO this point led to a lot of misunderstandings between people on internet forums. What everyone observes is that an athlete makes gains in VJ once he starts to train his squat and gets better relative strength. What people deduce from this observation is that they have to squat more weight and also jump to make further gains. Legitimate regarding the observation. Then there comes a coach like Shawn Myszka and says that the squat is overrated for VJ and that squat strength does not correlate with VJ. I am sure his observation is valid as well. The problem is that both sides talk about different athletic populations, one that needs less specificity and gains ridiculously well from the squat alone and one that needs more specificity and will have a hard time to make gains from squatting and jumping without the assistance of exercises, that are indeed closer to the VJ on the similarity spectrum than ANY type of squat, for example powercleans, powersnatches, hang snatches, jump squats, depth jumps etc.
I agree with adarqui in so far, that people will make considerable gains with a half squat in the beginning. bball2020's argument falls in the same category and might be correct if every trainee stays as unadapted as they are in the beginning. But that is not the case. Sometimes even with less than optimal programming people actually get somewhat strong by accident and from this point onwards they will have little benefit from doing half squats alone. What they need is the type of squat that produces the strongest person the fastest regardless of how similar that squatting movement is to the sport demands. Because other exercises will have to be used anyway to transfer higher strength to higher VJ. At this point it is irrelevant how closely your squat "mimics" a jump, a concept that is totally backwards in the first place, and it becomes a lot more important how well your squat prepares you for things you better do to become a better athlete, like doing snatches. Then you are at the point were Shawn Myszka was when he said that squats are an overrated exercise for VJ - an argument that I don't share, but that is understandable regarding his perspective working with a lot of preselected athletes, that have a certain level of strength already and that validates my thoughts that a half squat is not the final answer to VJ training and that training this way is short sighted because it won't make you as strong as fast and not optimally prepare you for other things that will need to be done once you gained some strength - for example unilaterals.
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I will paste here what Kelly Baggett says about that topic in the VJB :
WHY THE NEED FOR FULL RANGE MOVEMENTS??
Along these same lines many people will ask, “Since during a vertical jump one only descends into a ¼ squat position, then why should they do loaded squats with a full range of motion going past parallel?” Again, realize the purpose of strength training is to improve the general strength of the muscles involved. The fact is that a full deep squat is better at strengthening all the muscles involved in the vertical jump, despite the fact that one is capable of using much more weight in a ¼ squat. A full squat fully activates the muscles of the quadriceps and also strongly engages the hamstrings, glutes, and even calves. Not only does this build strength, but it also keeps the lower body in developmental balance and helps prevent knee injuries and muscle strains. A ¼ squat doesn’t strengthen the muscles of the posterior chain nearly as well and also puts a lot of stress on the tendons of the knee. However, there is a time when the ¼ squat can be effective. That is after a base of strength has been developed. The ¼ squat can then be used for short periods for further enhance strength development. If I could throw out one piece of advice to every young athlete in the world it would be, “Do squats and do them full and deep!”
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Thanks for posting this!
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James Smith (elitfts/college strength coach) on the matter- bear in mind when he says half squat he basically means 90 degree parallel squat, as most peope who do a half squat are actually doing a quarter squat. Also, he is defintlely not saying to half squat exclusively he is merely responding to the VJ. Not to mention, anyone with a product such as VJB would be foolish to prescribe half squats because 95% of the people using this program will turn this into a quarter squat.
"Thinker, do you think this statement is incorrect conisdering your posts on Half squat correspondence to vertical jump
4. "Forget about the more specific quarter squats and half squats. Many strength coaches falsely believe that quarter squats have more transfer to improving the vertical jump, because the load is greater and the range of motion resembles the motion to preload for jumping. Actually the opposite is true, A high vertical jump is highly correlated to a full range squat not to a quarter squat. Why? Because full range squats strengthen the VMO, while quarter squats and half squats do not do it. A strong VMO prevents the knees from buckling in during pre-loads and landings".
Well Joe, though I grow tired of correcting and clarifying issues that seem to me to be so glaringly obvious- I'll do it again here because Poliquin, or who ever said this, might very well mislead anyone who reads it.
I won't waste anyone's time by offering solely my opinion, however.
I'll speak from the empirical results I've obtained from my own training (see my training log if anyone is curious as to whether I actually practice what I preach because I Olympic squat double bodyweight and parallel box squat 2.3x bodyweight at 110kg bodyweight), my coaching of D-1 American footballers, my previous coaching of high school American footballers and PE students, (all of which totals in the hundreds of athletes) and paraphrase the work of Bosco, Colli, Bonomi, Duvillard, and Viru.
I will then allow the readers to decide who to believe because I would be selfish, despite the amusement it brings me, to discredit and annihilate the work of others here on the Q&A.
1. why do coaches repeatedly assume that a reduced amplitude exercise automatically indicates that a greater load is being lifted? while the reduced amplitude facilitates greater mechanical advantage to lift greater loads are the athletes being held at gunpoint to lift greater loads?
2. the shorter the amplitude of movement the greater the facilitation of higher rates of movement
3. Higher movement rates equate to higher training intensity via higher power output
4. Higher movement rates recruit the high threshold motor units and corresponding white fiber- the same fiber that is recruited via explosive VJ efforts
4. The full squat, while a fantastic strengthener of the leg extensors is inherently a slower movement to execute (load being equal).
5. The slower the movement the greater the likelihood of lower threshold MU activation and corresponding red fiber
6. The mechanical likeness of the half or quarter squat transfers much more positively to the VJ
So, in term of dynamic correspondence the half or quarter squat far eclipses the full squat in terms of number of criteria satisfied relative to VJ performance; however, in any regard the programming and organization of training must be optimized in order to yield meaningful outcomes and it is the complex of and sequence of means utilized that deserves far more attention than any single means in abstract.
Perhaps most importantly, the role of the VMO must be clarified via meaningful research:
E. Ta?k?ran1, Z. Dinedurga1, A. Ya?iz2, B. Uluda?3, C. Ertekin3 and V. Lök1
(1) Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Ege University School of Medicine, TR-35100 Bornova, ?zmir, Turkey e-mail: Taskiran@med.ege.edu.tr Fax: +90-232-374 6597, TR
(2) Department of Physical Therapy, Ege University School of Medicine, Bornova, ?zmir, Turkey, TR
(3) Department of Neurology, Ege University School of Medicine, Bornova, ?zmir, Turkey, TR
Abstract In this study, the effect of dynamic stabilizers on the patellofemoral (PF) joint was investigated in normal volunteers (group I) and in patients with patellar pain (group II) or instability (group III) by using computed tomography (CT) analysis and integrated electromyography (iEMG) of the quadriceps muscle. Nine subjects (16 knees) from group I, 10 patients (12 knees) from group II and 8 patients (12 knees) from group III were included in the study. CT scans of the PF joint with quadriceps contracted (QC) and uncontracted (QU) and iEMG of vastus medialis obliquus (VMO), vastus lateralis (VL) and rectus femoris (RF) were obtained with the aid of a specially designed jig at 0°, 15°, 30° and 45° of knee flexion. The same muscle contraction pattern simulating closed kinetic chain exercise was used for both CT and iEMG. The difference between the congruence angles (CA) and tilt angles (PTA) in QC and QU positions and VMO:VL ratio from the iEMG were calculated separately for each flexion angle. CA was increased in all groups with quadriceps contraction at 0° and 15° of flexion. PTA was decreased in group I and increased in groups II and III with quadriceps contraction at the same flexion angles. This difference was statistically significant in group III at 0° and 15° of flexion. Quadriceps contraction did not affect the patellar position significantly even in the instability group at 45° of flexion. In all flexion angles the balanced VMO:VL activity ratio was observed only in group I. In the other goups, VL activity was higher than VMO activity except at 45° of flexion. These findings do not support the hypothesis of dominant centralizing effect of VMO on the patella in extension, but the effect of the VMO may be more clearly demonstrated by measuring PTA in both QC and QU positions.
Also review:
http://www.jbjs.org.uk/cgi/reprint/79-B/1/13.pdf
while the VMO is found to support against lateral patellar shift between 0 and 15 degrees knee flexion(http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0268003399000893) and 0 and 30 degrees of knee flexion (http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=20292159)/'patellar centralization' as well as prevent against patellar subluxation, there are certainly far more less demanding means of training it other than Olympic style squats- SUCH AS EXERCISES PERFORMED OVER THE AMPLITUDES OF MOVEMENT THAT THE VMO HAS BEEN PROVEN TO BE MOST ACTIVE.
Weightlifting full squats demand a degree of mobility far beyond that which is required during the execution of most sport acts and certainly far beyond the working range of many athletes who might otherwise enjoy a full sporting career never having been cut short because they do not possess the requisite flexibility to squat like a weightlifter with limit loads.
The majority of non-weightlifters, in fact, would be foolish to risk the possible structural trauma that is presented as part of a cumulative result of squatting maximal loads through the entire amplitude concurrently with varied gradations of sport practice.
Anyone who states the contrary cannot possibly understand the training problems inherent to working with athletes year round whose practice of SPP yields a high structural demand to the legs and knees specifically.
--------------------------------------
Pedestrian Explanation
Why squat deeper than half way down if it's not necessary to support all aspects of heightening sport results, including VJ score? "
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Weightlifting full squats demand a degree of mobility far beyond that which is required during the execution of most sport acts and certainly far beyond the working range of many athletes who might otherwise enjoy a full sporting career never having been cut short because they do not possess the requisite flexibility to squat like a weightlifter with limit loads.
The majority of non-weightlifters, in fact, would be foolish to risk the possible structural trauma that is presented as part of a cumulative result of squatting maximal loads through the entire amplitude concurrently with varied gradations of sport practice.
Anyone who states the contrary cannot possibly understand the training problems inherent to working with athletes year round whose practice of SPP yields a high structural demand to the legs and knees specifically.
This quote tells me, that Mr. Smith is unable to teach an athlete a full squat. It does not even have to tell me, he basically even said so himself since he believes that most athletes that seek his advice are not flexible enough to do more than a half squat. Can someone please tell me why we should even read beyond that? Or am I misinterpreting things? If so I apologize, since I find that post to be adding very little of substance to the discussion.
Other than this, since I openly admit not to have the experience of coaching anyone let alone athletes whose practice of SPP yields high structural demand to legs and knees, I will ask YOU, bb2020, since you posted this quote, to elaborate on the topic of the risk of structural trauma that presents itself from full squatting + sports, but not with half squatting + sports.
And if the argument runs that the difference is in lifting submaximal loads instead of maximal loads: Who here is planning to do that exclusively? I am sincerely interested since I will follow that training log very mindfully.
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Well, I know many people, mostly due to how he writes not what he says, do not particularly like JS, so i guess ill try to speculate on this. As far as the flexiblity thing, maybe he speaks that way because he coaches a whole team. There are much more important things to be accomplished with the little time he has than teach form and work on specific flexibility for a lift that has no barring on the football field.
Football is a year round sport. Im assuming the demands he talks about are mainly the sport specific stuff that they do year round(drills passing leagues) along with more specific stimulus such as sprints and jumps. Like adarq said earlier, he tends to have problems with his hips easily if he squats below parallel. Obviously problems still can happen at or slightly above parallel, but I guess the room for error is so much less at such a low depth.
Also, plenty of people lift submaximal loads exclusively. I would say the criteria is
Max effort= above 90%
Sub max= below 80% (80-90% is gray area i think)
A lot of people, especially who's sport isnt weightlifting, can make huge gains stick from 75%-80% range with the correct volume and with the use of other high intensity stumulus(sprints,jumps), especially those non advanced lifters.
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I think ure looking at the problem from two different angles.
as steven-miller was saying in another post about motivation, choosing what to do, investing time in your trianing and so on, its one thing to coach yourself when u have all the time in the world, u can ask urself to be motivated and u actually care about improving, esp for VJ or non-competitive athletes (we can assume that, if nobody's gonna pay u for training, u have some sort of passion and dedication about it), and TOTALLY different to train others, when u go on with different problems such as: time, lack of motivation to do every single drill perfectly, boredom, non-adherence, lack of confidence, non-trust, plus u simply dont have the ability to control every single second from your athlete's life.
I used to think the same, if you dont go 110%, whats the point of training? but then when u coach athletes and they dont turn up because they decided to go out, or they simply dont wanna do a drill because 'it's hard', what do you do?
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Well you beat them up, fuck their girlfriends, and get on with your life. :highfive:
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Well, I know many people, mostly due to how he writes not what he says, do not particularly like JS, so i guess ill try to speculate on this. As far as the flexiblity thing, maybe he speaks that way because he coaches a whole team. There are much more important things to be accomplished with the little time he has than teach form and work on specific flexibility for a lift that has no barring on the football field.
I acknowledge the difficulties inherent in teaching a large group of athletes at the same time. Certainly not an easy task. If choosing less effective, but easier exercises is the answer can be debated though. But that is not for this discussion, right?
Football is a year round sport. Im assuming the demands he talks about are mainly the sport specific stuff that they do year round(drills passing leagues) along with more specific stimulus such as sprints and jumps. Like adarq said earlier, he tends to have problems with his hips easily if he squats below parallel. Obviously problems still can happen at or slightly above parallel, but I guess the room for error is so much less at such a low depth.
I don't know adarqui's specific situation with his hips and how he used to squat when the injury happened. That being said, you cannot possibly compare an athlete that already had an injury before, that is still bugging him, with perfectly healthy athletes like you and me. Just because adarq has hip pain when he squats deep, does not mean that you or me have to squat high.
Regarding room for error - which error is that you are talking about? Are we actually discussing whether such a simple movement as the squat is too technically demanding for an ATHLETE to execute correctly? Please pardon me, but if an athlete is unable to execute a correct squat with adequate instruction, I argue that this has to be a horrible athlete and far from the norm. I say that the same applies to for example the powerclean and powersnatch.
Also, plenty of people lift submaximal loads exclusively. I would say the criteria is
Max effort= above 90%
Sub max= below 80% (80-90% is gray area i think)
A lot of people, especially who's sport isnt weightlifting, can make huge gains stick from 75%-80% range with the correct volume and with the use of other high intensity stumulus(sprints,jumps), especially those non advanced lifters.
If I do 20 reps with 75% of my 1rm then yes, this will certainly lead to adaptation. But that is not submaximal by my definition of the word and it is certainly not linked to a lower chance of injury.
And by the way, what is an advanced vs. non advanced lifter to you?
I think ure looking at the problem from two different angles.
as steven-miller was saying in another post about motivation, choosing what to do, investing time in your trianing and so on, its one thing to coach yourself when u have all the time in the world, u can ask urself to be motivated and u actually care about improving, esp for VJ or non-competitive athletes (we can assume that, if nobody's gonna pay u for training, u have some sort of passion and dedication about it), and TOTALLY different to train others, when u go on with different problems such as: time, lack of motivation to do every single drill perfectly, boredom, non-adherence, lack of confidence, non-trust, plus u simply dont have the ability to control every single second from your athlete's life.
I used to think the same, if you dont go 110%, whats the point of training? but then when u coach athletes and they dont turn up because they decided to go out, or they simply dont wanna do a drill because 'it's hard', what do you do?
Good post and I agree that those are different scenarios. I don't have experience with the "being a coach and training groups" scenario. But I guess you have to make sure that your athletes understand why the stuff they should do is important for them and that accomplishing it will lead to them performing substantially better. If they don't care about that, you can't do much about it. Making the training easy but extremely ineffective is however not a good solution because it will amplify the conviction of the athlete that training in the weight room is a waste of time and that he should better go partying.
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Ive actually seen damn good athletes who struggle with proper squat technique and clean as well..
Anyways, gonna leave it as it is. Squat how you do and ill squat how ill do. I nor any athlete need to squat below parallel and vice versa. Again, im not talking about squatting quarter squats, i mean i favor thigh parallel squats for the majority of my training IE powerlifting depth(lower than half squat). And you obviously prefer deeper, so be it to each his own.
also, are you a big RIPPTOE guy? JW, like some of his vids, just cant get him over saying that VJ cant be improved.
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Ive actually seen damn good athletes who struggle with proper squat technique and clean as well..
Anyways, gonna leave it as it is. Squat how you do and ill squat how ill do. I nor any athlete need to squat below parallel and vice versa. Again, im not talking about squatting quarter squats, i mean i favor thigh parallel squats for the majority of my training IE powerlifting depth(lower than half squat). And you obviously prefer deeper, so be it to each his own.
also, are you a big RIPPTOE guy? JW, like some of his vids, just cant get him over saying that VJ cant be improved.
If damn good athletes struggle with proper squat technique than their instruction is probably not up to par.
Regarding Rippetoe, I like that he makes clear predictions of what can be achieved with his program thus making it evaluable by everyone, I like that he wants things to be done right and does not just come up with some wishy-washy way of saying "do what works best for you", I like that he has good arguments why he thinks his method of training a beginner is the best, I like that he takes into account various stages of training advancement, which he also defined objectively with Lon Kilgore, and organizes training accordingly.
I think defining these stages the way he did along with his extremely detailed description and instruction of how to execute the basic barbell exercises and how to coach them are his most important contributions to the field. It's not so much his Starting Strength method that is so important, although I find it to be extremely good and I am sure that the modifications in the upcoming 3rd edition are going to make it even better, but it is those universal principals that he described and made practically applicable.
Regarding him and VJ: He never said that VJ cannot be improved. He said that it cannot be improved above a certain level, which is a rather obvious point to make. His suggestion or observation was, that it won't usually go up higher than 30% of the initial height. He therefore takes into account the genetic disposition of an athlete for this kind of task, in which he is doing right I think. The 30% are of course a somewhat arbitrary number and can certainly be disputed. But I think this might actually be a somewhat accurate approximation of what will be achieved on average. We all know some examples of people who increased their ability by more than 30% (mind you, we are talking SVJ here), but those are a minority.
I would not necessarily listen to Rip for advice on people who want to increase either sprinting speed or VJ, but he will tell you that himself. One should however listen to what he has to say about training for novices in general, which is his forte, and also about what he has to say on barbell exercises.
That does not mean that he is right and everyone else is wrong, but if you want to make up your mind about certain things you would be wise to read what he has to say.
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Weightlifting full squats demand a degree of mobility far beyond that which is required during the execution of most sport acts and certainly far beyond the working range of many athletes who might otherwise enjoy a full sporting career never having been cut short because they do not possess the requisite flexibility to squat like a weightlifter with limit loads.
The majority of non-weightlifters, in fact, would be foolish to risk the possible structural trauma that is presented as part of a cumulative result of squatting maximal loads through the entire amplitude concurrently with varied gradations of sport practice.
Anyone who states the contrary cannot possibly understand the training problems inherent to working with athletes year round whose practice of SPP yields a high structural demand to the legs and knees specifically.
This quote tells me, that Mr. Smith is unable to teach an athlete a full squat. It does not even have to tell me, he basically even said so himself since he believes that most athletes that seek his advice are not flexible enough to do more than a half squat. Can someone please tell me why we should even read beyond that? Or am I misinterpreting things? If so I apologize, since I find that post to be adding very little of substance to the discussion.
Other than this, since I openly admit not to have the experience of coaching anyone let alone athletes whose practice of SPP yields high structural demand to legs and knees, I will ask YOU, bb2020, since you posted this quote, to elaborate on the topic of the risk of structural trauma that presents itself from full squatting + sports, but not with half squatting + sports.
And if the argument runs that the difference is in lifting submaximal loads instead of maximal loads: Who here is planning to do that exclusively? I am sincerely interested since I will follow that training log very mindfully.
Yeah, I guess John Smith is a complete retard coaching-wise. I mean, he can't even teach a full squat! What a worthless coach.
Or maybe the guy who coached Maurice Greene, Ato Boldon, Carmelita Jeter and a bunch of sub-10 guys and a couple of 400m Olympic champs has realized throughout his decades of coaching that YOU DON'T HAVE TO SQUAT TO BE A GREAT ATHLETE. If it's going to distract from the main focus of training, why bother?
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I will paste here what Kelly Baggett says about that topic in the VJB :
WHY THE NEED FOR FULL RANGE MOVEMENTS??
Along these same lines many people will ask, “Since during a vertical jump one only descends into a ¼ squat position, then why should they do loaded squats with a full range of motion going past parallel?” Again, realize the purpose of strength training is to improve the general strength of the muscles involved. The fact is that a full deep squat is better at strengthening all the muscles involved in the vertical jump, despite the fact that one is capable of using much more weight in a ¼ squat. A full squat fully activates the muscles of the quadriceps and also strongly engages the hamstrings, glutes, and even calves. Not only does this build strength, but it also keeps the lower body in developmental balance and helps prevent knee injuries and muscle strains. A ¼ squat doesn’t strengthen the muscles of the posterior chain nearly as well and also puts a lot of stress on the tendons of the knee. However, there is a time when the ¼ squat can be effective. That is after a base of strength has been developed. The ¼ squat can then be used for short periods for further enhance strength development. If I could throw out one piece of advice to every young athlete in the world it would be, “Do squats and do them full and deep!”
That's his opinion, but science (if you count using an EMG as science) and personal experience shows half squats (not 1/4 but same idea) hit the pchain quite well.
http://www.t-nation.com/testosterone-magazine-623#inside-the-muscles
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I agree with you JCsBck, but Bret Contreras is a complete idiot. Don't trust anything he says.
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Right, so to lift the most weight max weigh listen to guys like ripptoe and westside
to jump the highest, sprint the fastest, or become overall better athletes, along with balancing the demands of becoming better sportmen, listen to James Smith, Tom mylinski, Charlie Francis, Buddy Morris, etc.
For everything in life, listen to Adarq
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Yeah, I guess John Smith is a complete retard coaching-wise. I mean, he can't even teach a full squat! What a worthless coach.
Or maybe the guy who coached Maurice Greene, Ato Boldon, Carmelita Jeter and a bunch of sub-10 guys and a couple of 400m Olympic champs has realized throughout his decades of coaching that YOU DON'T HAVE TO SQUAT TO BE A GREAT ATHLETE. If it's going to distract from the main focus of training, why bother?
No, you don't need to squat, you can be a great athlete if you have good enough parents, too. So why don't we all choose ours instead of becoming stronger, seems like the best idea.
That's his opinion, but science (if you count using an EMG as science) and personal experience shows half squats (not 1/4 but same idea) hit the pchain quite well.
http://www.t-nation.com/testosterone-magazine-623#inside-the-muscles
Of course half squats will hit the p-chain as well, I don't need EMG "research", that has a ton of problems, to tell me that. There is hip extension involved, so you will activate the according muscles. You will still have a better strength exercise with a full squat.
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Of course half squats will hit the p-chain as well, I don't need EMG "research", that has a ton of problems, to tell me that. There is hip extension involved, so you will activate the according muscles. You will still have a better strength exercise with a full squat.
Of course the full squat is better assuming you could do the same amount of weight on a full squat as you can on a half squat, but you can't, so half squat wins.
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I will add a few points to ponder:
First, with regards to adarq's hip issues and the relative health of SM and bball, just because there is no pain it does not mean that there is no trauma. it just means that the damage has not hit a pain receptor yet.
From a personal example I used to squat in a wide PL stance. When I was young my hips were fine once I had years of squatting that way under my belt i started having hip issues which came from my squatting style. Other people who squat that way have the same experience. So you can not assume relative joint health based upon lack of pain. There can still be trauma occurring. (note I am not saying squats are bad for the hips or knees, just that absence of pain does not indicate joint health)
Second, the squat, no matter how you execute it, is always going to be a GPP exercise. When your SPP is very intensive on the joints, as football is, it is best to select GPP movements that have the least impact on joint integrity.
Your average college football player practices about 3 hours a day, regardless of what ncaa tells you, and practice is generally contact. With such a high volume of high intensity work (sprinting, running routes, etc) coupled with the high volumes of collisions careful attention must be placed on GPP exercise selection. Remember football has a 100% injury rate. When you are in an environment like that AND you are coaching 25-50 guys at a time, the omission of a full squat may make more sense. It has nothing to do with coaching ability and more to do with taking a step back, looking at the situation your athletes are in, and making an informed and rational decision.
First look at sporting needs. There is no doubt the squat is a great general strength exercise for the hips and quads and general strength is a foundation for other qualities to be built from. Plus Football requires a lot of general strength as you have to move guys that weigh 300 lbs. Then you must look at how the coaching staff handles practices. Some coaches run high tempo and high intensity practices. In ice hockey Todd Mclellan and mike babcock run practices pretty much at game speed while Andy murray runs a very slow paced practice. So as a strength coach for todd's team does less intensive workouts to account for the intensity while andy's strength coach adds in much more conditioning and high intensity stuff. Is one strength coach better than the other? no. They are just accounting for the coaching style of the head coach. Some football coaches run high paced practices with hard hitting and others are slower easier practices. So that influences your movement selection as well.
So for james smith we must ask who is the head coach?
Dave Wannstedt
What is Dave Wannstedt's pedigree?
The answer will give you an insight into how hard their schedule is.
It is jimmy johnson.
How were jimmy's practices?
"Del Rio remembers when he was in Dallas in Jimmy Johnson’s first year, he had 21 consecutive days of two-a-day practices. "
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Yeah, I guess John Smith is a complete retard coaching-wise. I mean, he can't even teach a full squat! What a worthless coach.
Or maybe the guy who coached Maurice Greene, Ato Boldon, Carmelita Jeter and a bunch of sub-10 guys and a couple of 400m Olympic champs has realized throughout his decades of coaching that YOU DON'T HAVE TO SQUAT TO BE A GREAT ATHLETE. If it's going to distract from the main focus of training, why bother?
No, you don't need to squat, you can be a great athlete if you have good enough parents, too. So why don't we all choose ours instead of becoming stronger, seems like the best idea.
Yeah cause god knows you can't become stronger without ATG squatting. Elite athletes do strength exercises, they ARE STRONG, but many of them don't do full squats. In fact, I wonder how many Olympic athletes do real, honest-to-god full squats in their training, lifters aside. Or how many players within a given pro sport.
Do you think Rajon Rondo full squats when he trains? How about Vince Young? How about Chris Johnson? How about Cristiano Ronaldo? Dwight Howard? Jason Kidd? Andre Agassi, back in the day? How about Lindsay Vonn? I don't know, but I highly doubt it. Why should they invest time, energy and mental focus in steven-miller-approved full squatting? They spend all their time and energy doing important things, like getting better at their sport.
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Of course the full squat is better assuming you could do the same amount of weight on a full squat as you can on a half squat, but you can't, so half squat wins.
No, they don't, but I do not expect you to comprehend that.
...
That was actually a very good and insightful post!
What we have to deduce from that is, that the work-out of a college athlete will usually be somewhat different than what I or many other hobbyists will be doing, mainly for recovery reasons. So "effective" training will look different for those two populations and we should not necessarily look at what coaches of the other group are doing to determine what will be the best course of action for oneself.
Yeah cause god knows you can't become stronger without ATG squatting. Elite athletes do strength exercises, they ARE STRONG, but many of them don't do full squats. In fact, I wonder how many Olympic athletes do real, honest-to-god full squats in their training, lifters aside. Or how many players within a given pro sport.
Do you think Rajon Rondo full squats when he trains? How about Vince Young? How about Chris Johnson? How about Cristiano Ronaldo? Dwight Howard? Jason Kidd? Andre Agassi, back in the day? How about Lindsay Vonn? I don't know, but I highly doubt it. Why should they invest time, energy and mental focus in steven-miller-approved full squatting? They spend all their time and energy doing important things, like getting better at their sport.
Elite athletes are often very strong/fast/amazing because of other reasons than training - at least to a substantial degree. That is also the reason why mentioned people might not even be familiar with a weight room. That however does not mean that the same source of action (becoming stronger being secondary to 6 days a week skill training for ones sport) is indicated for you and me to optimize results.
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Right, so to lift the most weight max weigh listen to guys like ripptoe and westside
to jump the highest, sprint the fastest, or become overall better athletes, along with balancing the demands of becoming better sportmen, listen to James Smith, Tom mylinski, Charlie Francis, Buddy Morris, etc.
For everything in life, listen to Adarq
i agree with this post, especially the last line.
As much as james smith bugs me, he is a damn good coach, and he did have some very impressive videos of his own performance, I remember a good broad jump vid, decent vert, and some insane high rep pullups for a guy his size.
The rest listed, of course are excellent coaches as well.
I believe in the "there's a squat style that is best for you" approach for athletic performance improvement, which is obviously different than rippetoe's stance. For example, I would never try and force high jumpers into a deep squat.
pc
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Of course half squats will hit the p-chain as well, I don't need EMG "research", that has a ton of problems, to tell me that. There is hip extension involved, so you will activate the according muscles. You will still have a better strength exercise with a full squat.
Of course the full squat is better assuming you could do the same amount of weight on a full squat as you can on a half squat, but you can't, so half squat wins.
x2, "better" is the keyword here.. if you compare all of the aspects, such as what james smith basically did, half squat is obviously "better" for athletic performance by principle.
regardless, improving your half squat strength or ATG squat strength still lead to the same end result. Again, it's just some athletes will be able to utilize ATG squatting more effectively than others. If I tried to get Eddie deep squatting, we'd still be doing mobility & squats with a dowell/45 lb bar, he's not built for it, most people into vert/basketball are not built for it.
The vast majority of people who are REAL basketball players, are not built for ATG squatting. Long legs, short torso, very lanky, small chest cavity, the end.
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I will add a few points to ponder:
First, with regards to adarq's hip issues and the relative health of SM and bball, just because there is no pain it does not mean that there is no trauma. it just means that the damage has not hit a pain receptor yet.
From a personal example I used to squat in a wide PL stance. When I was young my hips were fine once I had years of squatting that way under my belt i started having hip issues which came from my squatting style. Other people who squat that way have the same experience. So you can not assume relative joint health based upon lack of pain. There can still be trauma occurring. (note I am not saying squats are bad for the hips or knees, just that absence of pain does not indicate joint health)
Second, the squat, no matter how you execute it, is always going to be a GPP exercise. When your SPP is very intensive on the joints, as football is, it is best to select GPP movements that have the least impact on joint integrity.
Your average college football player practices about 3 hours a day, regardless of what ncaa tells you, and practice is generally contact. With such a high volume of high intensity work (sprinting, running routes, etc) coupled with the high volumes of collisions careful attention must be placed on GPP exercise selection. Remember football has a 100% injury rate. When you are in an environment like that AND you are coaching 25-50 guys at a time, the omission of a full squat may make more sense. It has nothing to do with coaching ability and more to do with taking a step back, looking at the situation your athletes are in, and making an informed and rational decision.
First look at sporting needs. There is no doubt the squat is a great general strength exercise for the hips and quads and general strength is a foundation for other qualities to be built from. Plus Football requires a lot of general strength as you have to move guys that weigh 300 lbs. Then you must look at how the coaching staff handles practices. Some coaches run high tempo and high intensity practices. In ice hockey Todd Mclellan and mike babcock run practices pretty much at game speed while Andy murray runs a very slow paced practice. So as a strength coach for todd's team does less intensive workouts to account for the intensity while andy's strength coach adds in much more conditioning and high intensity stuff. Is one strength coach better than the other? no. They are just accounting for the coaching style of the head coach. Some football coaches run high paced practices with hard hitting and others are slower easier practices. So that influences your movement selection as well.
So for james smith we must ask who is the head coach?
Dave Wannstedt
What is Dave Wannstedt's pedigree?
The answer will give you an insight into how hard their schedule is.
It is jimmy johnson.
How were jimmy's practices?
"Del Rio remembers when he was in Dallas in Jimmy Johnson’s first year, he had 21 consecutive days of two-a-day practices. "
Excellent post...
edit: I remember jaron (jason?) gilbert had a really impressive half squat vid, which took some heat, because of all of the ATG maniacs.. that dude was very explosive, nice vert too.
on somewhat of a tangent that needs no response:
btw, a few other members who have experienced hip pain are Vag (not built for ATG squatting), spikejon (i forget his SHR but his squat form was great), and Adam from tvs (rippetoe style squat). Not saying everyone will get hip issues from it, but, adam is a great example, because his form was damn near perfect and he was definitely built to squat in that manner. His hip pain became pretty intense from what I remember.
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Yeah cause god knows you can't become stronger without ATG squatting. Elite athletes do strength exercises, they ARE STRONG, but many of them don't do full squats. In fact, I wonder how many Olympic athletes do real, honest-to-god full squats in their training, lifters aside. Or how many players within a given pro sport.
Do you think Rajon Rondo full squats when he trains? How about Vince Young? How about Chris Johnson? How about Cristiano Ronaldo? Dwight Howard? Jason Kidd? Andre Agassi, back in the day? How about Lindsay Vonn? I don't know, but I highly doubt it. Why should they invest time, energy and mental focus in steven-miller-approved full squatting? They spend all their time and energy doing important things, like getting better at their sport.
Elite athletes are often very strong/fast/amazing because of other reasons than training - at least to a substantial degree. That is also the reason why mentioned people might not even be familiar with a weight room. That however does not mean that the same source of action (becoming stronger being secondary to 6 days a week skill training for ones sport) is indicated for you and me to optimize results.
What? Sure, you need good genetics to be an elite athlete, but beyond that, how other than a decade plus of busting their asses in training do you think elite athletes get strong/fast/amazing? I squat because, like you say, I'm a hobbyist. I like to squat full and feel better about myself when I do than when I catch myself "cheating" on reps. And make no mistake, squatting is a fantastic exercise for developing leg strength. Duh. I would probably keep squatting full if I were to throw myself more completely into mastering a particular sport, for those reasons. But I don't for a second think that squatting is some kind of magical exercise that becomes infinitely more valuable when done through a larger range of movement.
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**Forgot landon evans great stuff on elitefts. Also forgot Alex V=beast and i guess that kelly guy knows stuff too
soo in no particular order, everyone that aspires to training themselves and train for sports or a particular sport athlete, ready as much as you can from-
James Smith,
Tom mylinski,
Landon Evans
Charlie Francis,
Buddy Morris
Alex V
Kelly B
and more..
To develop a 40+ inch running vertical jump, and to learn how to dress during training sessions, among other things, ask adarq
Anyways, good posts and good thread. Very good points Alex. How do you personally squat now? how do you coach your athletes to squat?
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edit: I remember jaron (jason?) gilbert had a really impressive half squat vid, which took some heat, because of all of the ATG maniacs.. that dude was very explosive, nice vert too.
Gilly is 6'6" and has very long limbs. He is not built for squats at all. He could jump through a roof at 295lbs
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**Forgot landon evans great stuff on elitefts. Also forgot Alex V=beast and i guess that kelly guy knows stuff too
soo in no particular order, everyone that aspires to training themselves and train for sports or a particular sport athlete, ready as much as you can from-
James Smith,
Tom mylinski,
Landon Evans
Charlie Francis,
Buddy Morris
Alex V
Kelly B
and more..
To develop a 40+ inch running vertical jump, and to learn how to dress during training sessions, among other things, ask adarq
Anyways, good posts and good thread. Very good points Alex. How do you personally squat now? how do you coach your athletes to squat?
I use a few varieties based on what I am training for. Olympic ATG style on a quad emphasis. Currently using a rippetoe type squat cause I am focusing more on the pchain. For glute emphasis I do a loaded potty squat. Basically I try to pick the right tool for the job. Those are the 3 types of back squats I've done in the past 6 months
I let depth be dictated by mobility and performance. if they get into a hyper lordotic or kyphotic position I have athletes squat higher so they stay neutral. Proper performance is always better than depth. The way I see it is that as long as the target group is getting stringer I don;t lose sleep over depth. Of course mobility work is always included but depth is less important than strengthening the appropriate muscles properly.
I guess that is why I am more on the fence about every exercise. Don't get married to any one dogma. Olympics are good, so are jump squats, powermetrics (REA), Squat high, squat low. Look at the complete picture of every athlete and pick the movements and methods that best suit their needs and goals.
You can get a high school lifter squatting properly and successfully use DE, REA, and jump squats in place of olympics and easily achieve the same results.
I recall the old coach Ian King saying that the older he gets the more his answers begin with "it depends" because it does depend. You dont exercise in a vacuum. Head coaching style, injuries, previous training experience, sport demands, time constraints (ever try to teach 100 kids to squat ATG when you only have 1 hour?), size of the group, head coaches needs, discipline of the group (try to control a team with a soft head coach... impossible), and more...
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what is a potty squat?
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what is a potty squat?
1/4-1/2 squat
sitting back
shins stay vertical
spine stays neutral
it is kinda like the top of a westside style box squat with your feet at olympic style width.
It is all about isolating the glute and getting it to control the hip
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Of course the full squat is better assuming you could do the same amount of weight on a full squat as you can on a half squat, but you can't, so half squat wins.
No, they don't, but I do not expect you to comprehend that.
You're right, lets just add more ROM to every exercise and disregard the weight used because more ROM is always better.
The only reason you think the full squat is better is because of the added ROM. You have no experience with " full squatz increazed vertz by 8 inches while half squat only did 6 inchez'
Let's start deadlifting standing on 12 inch boxes.
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You're right, lets just add more ROM to every exercise and disregard the weight used because more ROM is always better.
The only reason you think the full squat is better is because of the added ROM. You have no experience with " full squatz increazed vertz by 8 inches while half squat only did 6 inchez'
Let's start deadlifting standing on 12 inch boxes.
If it is useful ROM (unlike in your example), it is indeed always better to go over full ROM as long as other technical demands are also taken in to consideration. Sure, there will be points to argue about. I can hardly see such things related to depth of the squat. You obviously can, but you also don't squat, so...
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AlexV nailed it: It depends, it depends, it depends, it depends.
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Just saw this thread and thought I'd throw out a comment. IMO a lot of the debate is over interpretations in the definition of what is a half squat vs full squat. For me a full squat is legal powerlifting depth...at parallel or just below. Olympic lifters have their own definition of squats. I've never recommended full ATG olympic style squats unless people just like doing them.
I'm pretty sure James Smith is referring to the same thing in what he calls a half squat.
I could live with that squat for anyone. That squat Jarron Gilbert did I'd consider that a good squat.
The thing is I know from experience when the average bro gets in the squat rack he tends to perceive things differently than what is really taking place. For most people a "full squat" is what an olympic lifter would call a half squat and going even to parallel is against the natural tendency of most people. I've been in enough high school and college weight rooms, gyms and I've seen enough video of people misinterpreting things that I would never tell anyone to do a half squat, especially on the internet. Because I know without fail most will be doing something resembling a 1/8 squat without about 100 more pounds than they can safely handle and at worst tear their back to hell and at best get little benefit from the exercise. Just a couple of weeks ago I saw a bro load up about 405 lbs on the squat rack when he was capable of doing maybe half that correctly. I turned away for a few moments before hearing a loud CRASH as the weight crushed him to the pins. That's not an uncommon occurence at all.
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Just saw this thread and thought I'd throw out a comment. IMO a lot of the debate is over interpretations in the definition of what is a half squat vs full squat. For me a full squat is legal powerlifting depth...at parallel or just below. Olympic lifters have their own definition of squats. I've never recommended full ATG olympic style squats unless people just like doing them.
I'm pretty sure James Smith is referring to the same thing in what he calls a half squat.
I could live with that squat for anyone. That squat Jarron Gilbert did I'd consider that a good squat.
The thing is I know from experience when the average bro gets in the squat rack he tends to perceive things differently than what is really taking place. For most people a "full squat" is what an olympic lifter would call a half squat and going even to parallel is against the natural tendency of most people. I've been in enough high school and college weight rooms, gyms and I've seen enough video of people misinterpreting things that I would never tell anyone to do a half squat, especially on the internet. Because I know without fail most will be doing something resembling a 1/8 squat without about 100 more pounds than they can safely handle and at worst tear their back to hell and at best get little benefit from the exercise. Just a couple of weeks ago I saw a bro load up about 405 lbs on the squat rack when he was capable of doing maybe half that correctly. I turned away for a few moments before hearing a loud CRASH as the weight crushed him to the pins. That's not an uncommon occurence at all.
Just recently a guy ruined a bar in the gym I train at by loading up to 530 lbs for his 1/4 squats, getting out of position and letting it drop on the pins from pretty much shoulder height. I heard from the trainers but I am pretty sure I know who the guy is and he is not weak. He is actually a very, very good sprinter whose coach told him he wouldn't need full squats since he does not need the ROM for his sport. Thing is the guy is really a very advanced athlete in his events (long jump and 100 m) and to get a decent training effect for his GPP from 1/4 squats he needs to go heavy. Turns out maybe too heavy than what he can actually handle safely. I hope he is alright.
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Just recently a guy ruined a bar in the gym I train at by loading up to 530 lbs for his 1/4 squats, getting out of position and letting it drop on the pins from pretty much shoulder height. I heard from the trainers but I am pretty sure I know who the guy is and he is not weak. He is actually a very, very good sprinter whose coach told him he wouldn't need full squats since he does not need the ROM for his sport. Thing is the guy is really a very advanced athlete in his events (long jump and 100 m) and to get a decent training effect for his GPP from 1/4 squats he needs to go heavy. Turns out maybe too heavy than what he can actually handle safely. I hope he is alright.
Yeah it can be hard to control so much weight. I've seen a few oly lifters black out doing jerk drives (basically 1/4 a quarter front squat). They're often done from a dead stop on a rack too like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuHqseSSyRM&feature=related
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Just out of curiosity, anyone have idea of those that have achieved elite(37+) via mainyl low bar vs highbar
High bar
kingfish
rip?
low bar
uh?
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If I remember correctly, Stefan Holm was doing low box step ups (I assume for specificity) but his back squats actually looked very deep (to recruit more fibres etc. like KellyB would say I'd assume). Just more food for thought.
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Yeah I guess it doesn't really make sense for unilateral jumpers to do 1/4 squats with heavy weights if they can do the same weight with step-ups, since the step-ups are more specific.
So it's full squats to build muscle and step-ups for specificity.
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Just out of curiosity, anyone have idea of those that have achieved elite(37+) via mainyl low bar vs highbar
High bar
kingfish
rip?
low bar
uh?
kingfish is the only person that I know off and whose progress and means to it are somewhat (but not perfectly) pursuable from here and TVS that actually got his SVJ to 37" or higher. That tells me some things about either the general wisdom of how to approach training (for example to make training decisions based upon which of the alternatives you like best while at the same expecting perfect results) OR about the improvements possible in this area. Neither of these things is something people like to hear about, so I will leave it at that.
One also has to observe that kingfish did amazing progress from a reported mid 20s SVJ to I believe around 38", but that it also took him many years to accomplish this. And also that he seems to be a great exception from the rule based on all the VJ enthusiasts on the related forums and their below-elite results, based upon your categorization at least.
Rip had incredible success also, but his situation does NOT apply to the majority of people here since he started with a high RVJ already when he was I believe 14 years old. Anyone remotely familiar with the typical hormonal changes that go on from this age up to the early 20s might become skeptical whether the same progress would be possible for someone who is not a teenager anymore and starts from rather low VJ and thus seems to be less talented in the first place. One also has to take note of his not-elite (again, based upon your definition) SVJ.
In conclusion and based upon these two examples it seems to be far fetched to say that the usage of the high-bar squat does correlate with better success in VJ training, especially in face of the fact that so many more people use the high-bar variant and don't get to the level you described as elite. On the other hand there is tychver, who stopped training for VJ years ago and yet has to show a respectable running and standing jump - below elite by your definition, but pretty good for someone with his build and not even trying anymore to jump high. He squats low-bar, ATG and does olympic weightlifting. You could also take me as example of someone with below elite results, but there are still not so many people around here or TVS with a 36" SVJ, are there? Not even two years training time, interrupted by three volleyball seasons where only little athletic training took place, is not excessive either, or would you say so?
So the small number of people that used the low-bar squat in the first place did not get to elite results yet, but can still report good progress, in fact better than the majority of people using the high-bar variant.
Now, I would not conclude anything from this. But anecdotally it should tell you that doing squats low-bar and below parallel is not the antithesis to athleticism.
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I agree and its what ive been saying all along, no squat is the holy grail, pick a variation and get strong :strong:
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I agree and its what ive been saying all along, no squat is the holy grail, pick a variation and get strong :strong:
YES, simplify this shit for the dumb ppl, like me
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I like mid-bar. I think that's what I'm doing... it's still pretty high though. Usually I squat with the barbell on the very top of my traps. Now I put the barbell an inch lower because it's a lot more comfortable and I can lift easier. It kind of rests behind the very top of my traps. But it's still DEFINITELY not resting on my rear delts, not even touching the top of them. I use a narrow stance and go near-ATG. I break parallel all the time, but only maybe every 5th rep do I hit rock bottom. Actually, I'm uploading a video of it right now in HD :)
Will be in the pics/vids section.
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Oh, btw, i think the low bar squat translates a bit less to the VJ. However, since you can use more weight in the low-bar, it pretty much evens out. IMO you'd probably be at the same spot VJ-wise with either approach...
example:
A - After 3 years, Squat high-bar 405lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"
B - After 3 yeras, Squat low-bar 440lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"
Choose on preference.
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Oh, btw, i think the low bar squat translates a bit less to the VJ. However, since you can use more weight in the low-bar, it pretty much evens out. IMO you'd probably be at the same spot VJ-wise with either approach...
example:
A - After 3 years, Squat high-bar 405lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"
B - After 3 yeras, Squat low-bar 440lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"
Choose on preference.
well, i slightly disagree.. depends on how you actually perform the low bar/high bar squat.. if it's low bar PL, then i think it has less transfer regardless.. i feel squatting with more "forward knee shift" transfers better to svj/rvj.
pc
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Oh, btw, i think the low bar squat translates a bit less to the VJ. However, since you can use more weight in the low-bar, it pretty much evens out. IMO you'd probably be at the same spot VJ-wise with either approach...
example:
A - After 3 years, Squat high-bar 405lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"
B - After 3 yeras, Squat low-bar 440lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"
Choose on preference.
well, i slightly disagree.. depends on how you actually perform the low bar/high bar squat.. if it's low bar PL, then i think it has less transfer regardless.. i feel squatting with more "forward knee shift" transfers better to svj/rvj.
pc
Agree 100%, bar placement does not dictate the many other factors that determine the knee, hip, ankle, angles. I have had several lifters who are able to stay more upright during a squat with the lower bar placement, actually getting more quad involvement than they do with the higher bar placement that forces them to lean forward more and end up failing at the low back first, rather than the legs.
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Oh, btw, i think the low bar squat translates a bit less to the VJ. However, since you can use more weight in the low-bar, it pretty much evens out. IMO you'd probably be at the same spot VJ-wise with either approach...
example:
A - After 3 years, Squat high-bar 405lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"
B - After 3 yeras, Squat low-bar 440lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"
Choose on preference.
well, i slightly disagree.. depends on how you actually perform the low bar/high bar squat.. if it's low bar PL, then i think it has less transfer regardless.. i feel squatting with more "forward knee shift" transfers better to svj/rvj.
pc
Agree 100%, bar placement does not dictate the many other factors that determine the knee, hip, ankle, angles. I have had several lifters who are able to stay more upright during a squat with the lower bar placement, actually getting more quad involvement than they do with the higher bar placement that forces them to lean forward more and end up failing at the low back first, rather than the legs.
So everyone's different levers and center of balance almost make this factor impossible to debate about. Or so it seems to me anyway. the knee, hips, ankles, angles movement will be different on different people then. adarq, divide people into two groups, tall and lanky and the short and stout group(I think he does anyway)..but there are probably many more
So what was said before still stands. whatever is comfortable to you is the best. Just gain strenf and you will :ibjumping:
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I think it's good that the legs are put through a heavier weight by using the low bar techique because more recruitment adaptations can occur CNS-wise. That's why sometimes partials are a good thing: more weight.