King Squat! | A Signature Squat Technique
Published: Sat, 07/03/21
The squat is a technically complicated bio-mechanical movement that offers a thousand opportunities to perform incorrectly. The biggest sin in all of squatting when trainees perform what I term "The ‘good morning' to parallel" squat," a bio-mechanical abomination wherein the squatters first movement is not to squat down = rather to bend forward. The trainee takes the bar out of the squat cage, ‘set ups' and breaks their knees to commence their descent at which point they begin a controlled forward bend done in conjunction with a shallow squat.
The goal of the good-morning-to-parallel squat is to involve and recruit as many muscles as possible to assist the (weak) legs in accomplishing the assigned task, i.e., squat down to parallel or above with as much poundage as possible. The idea of the good-morning-to-parallel squat is to "help" the legs, weak in relation to stronger lower back and hip muscles, as much as possible. This technique seeks (unconsciously) to prevent the squat from being
thigh isolative.
Abomination taught as Gospel: the forward lean good-morning-to-parallel
The above photo sequence perfectly illustrates all that is wrong about "squatting" and the teaching of the squat. Let's rip this apart: photo #2 shows that the movement shown above is way more "bend forward" then "squat down." Photo # 3 has payload (barbell) way ahead of hips (disastrous) and knees are forward and no doubt collapsed inward. Depth is insufficient. In the good-morning-to-parallel, the barbell travels in an arc: in a proper squat, the barbell
moves up and down: if the elite squatter leans forward with his payload, as in photo # 2 the weight will take the torso to the floor uncontrollably. Squats are meant to be ‘thigh centric' whereas the abomination pictured above is some sort of weird lower back exercise with a minimum of thigh muscle stimulation The proper squat is preceded by a perfect set-up and the perfect set-up for a barbell front or back squat is preceded by a perfect technical understanding and
subsequent execution. I will not allow students to back squat until they master proper no-weight squatting - how can you squat properly with a barbell if the individual is incapable or unable to squat properly without weight? The main reason we stress barbell front squat is the front squat demands an upright torso and renders the lean forward horror that we see in photo #2 impossible.
I wanted to share a couple squat clips with you emphasizing our signature squat technique.
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Thanks
Stacy Gallagher
Get Strong! Live Long!