Squat thoughts

[Pete]

Here's a bit from Clarence Bass about squatting, he uses a slightly different method, but may be of interest...
http://www.cbass.com/Squats.htm

[wannalift]

yeah i can post again. as usual thank you pete for the very informative article. he addressed many of the questions i had been asking myself about my technique. i think all i need to do is to adapt the highbar position and go for more of what feels right rather than what the mirror tells me.
train hard,
david

[Pete]

YAY!!! David you're back

[wannalift]

the latest;

okay, i used his advice and had a real good squatting session. first squat in a week; had to take last session off because my legs were worked over from the previous day. current weight 80 lbs. used a high bar position and the weight felt lighter. not nearly as much forward lean as before. kept my feet flat, but felt more of my push coming from the front of my foot than before. the result was that afterwards my legs actually felt worked over as opposed to my back taking most of the pain. i'm still pretty much breezing through the 20 reps, but i don't expect that to last for too many more sessions. i guess i'll stick with this technique until it fails me.
train hard,
david

[scaught]

I decided to be a man and start doing squats I did my first sets last night. First with nothing. Then with just the bar (standard 45lb bar), then the bar with 2 25lb weights, and finally did 3 sets/10 reps with 2 45lb weights. (I'm a weakling, don't make too much fun of me).

I feel pretty good about it. I think I had the weight a little high on my back. Theres an area near little bone on the base of my neck on my spine that's sore, but my legs feel a good burn today. I guess I need to ensure the bar is below that point. My lower back feels alright. I don't know that I'm at the weight where I should be really concerned with having a belt, but think I should definitely look into it. I'm inspired to keep it going. I felt 10 pounds of disco melt away.

I've been reading a lot of articles and threads here today, and a lot of them talk about avoiding "rounding your back". What exactly are they talking about? Bending over when going in and out of your squat? My impression of proper form at this point is to keep my back straight, but obviously at a bit of an angle. My next squat sets, I'll be looking at how far I'm keeping my feet apart and how straight my toes are pointing. Also, I was wearing some running pants, but think I need to wear shorts as my movement was maybe a bit restricted by the pants. Or I'll just go buck naked. That's not disco at all.

[bronco]

like you said, sounds like you had the bar a little too high. That should be easy to sort out though .

[tyciol]

Going below parallel, and finding an increased range of motion and range of motion with strength is a good goal in squatting.

At the same time, it's wrong to lambast people for not doing it. Some people simply can't get a large range of motion. This applies largely to people with large hamstrings/calves or with body fat in that area. If they go too deep, they will lose muscle tension in the quadriceps as they rest their weight on the muscle and fat behind the knee.

This isn't just bad for building the quadriceps muscle, but also because it exerts a dislocating force on the knee ligaments.

They would benefit more from doing heavier squats with less range of motion. If this reduces their body fat faster than it builds their hams/calves then they will be allowed a greater range of motion which they can work up to with lighter weights while still working heavy.

Safety and quad tension aside, there's not really a major necessity for going extremely deep. Consider, when your leg hits a ground in sprinting, how bent is it? Really, heavy squatting is a fine thing to do with limited range. It's just beneficial to also train light with a larger RoM as well, depending on your needs and health.

[Jonathan27]

So I have a question that I think fits into this thread.

I've always been way nervous to do squats. Every time I've tried, I think I've been resting it too high on my back and practically on my neck, and haven't been able to do much weight. For the past few years I've been sticking to leg presses, the hack squat machine, calf raises and dumbbell lunges.

After reading about squatting and getting information from this thread, I think I'm fairly well prepared to try them. However, I was wondering if it's necessary. Squats are made out to be pretty essential on here, and I was wondering if they are when I'm doing the exercises listed above. Should I try them out in place of the press machine, or is what I'm doing good enough? And if so, should I just start with a low weight and build it up to where I can handle large amounts?