RyanF
Member
***I've also posted this on fitocracy.***
It's story time.
The very first time I did squats as an exercise, I was 14 years old and doing martial arts. The instructor didn't say anything about depth one way or another, so I was blissfully unaware of how big a shitstorm was going on in the fitness industry on the matter. This was back in 2003.
^ Here's a reenactment.
After I stopped doing martial arts (not my choice, btw), it was about 2-3 years before I'd do squats again as an exercise. I remember being 16, seeing other people in the squat racks at my gym, and thinking: "I want to learnt o do that," although I was mildly terrified of the exercise. After a very long time of nagging the instructors at my gym to give me something new for legs (all they ever gave me in my programs was different leg presses, and I wasn't willing to try learning the barbell squat on my own for fear of crippling spine damage -- given my lack of awareness RE: posture, I'd say it's a good thing I didn't try learning them on my own back then, too), one of the instructors finally had me doing bodyweight squats...supersetted with leg presses. I don't recall her saying anything about knee health or depth, but she did tell me to sit back as I squatted, which made them very different to how I remembered them, and resulted in a much shallower squat.
It was still another couple years, when I was 19 and studying my Cert III in Fitness, before I started seriously including squats in my program. That was when I first started doing barbell back squats, and it's the first time I can recall really being influenced to believe that you shouldn't squat below parallel (although it was in the next year in my Diploma of Fitness that I was really drilled with day-in-day-out rhetoric about below-parallel squats causing your knees to snap in half and your grandmother to have a stroke and a sack of kittens drowning). 90-degree angles became like the 10 commandments, and anything deeper than that was automatically bad for the knees. We were taught all sorts of arbitrary things, and brainwashed to omit anything that contradicts what we'd been taught.
It was at the start of 2010 when, after 2 years of mocking the program, I decided to be fair and actually read Starting Strength. If you've read Starting Strength, then you know Rip's stance on squats: below parallel brings the hamstrings more into the squat, stabilising the knee, making squats safer in that deep position. This contradicted everything I'd been taught.
I now have a little over 2 years experience in squatting to parallel or lower, after 2 years of squatting above parallel. The partial squatters of the world generally believe that their way is safest. The full squatters of the world generally believe that their way is safest. Who's right? Who's wrong?
Well, actually, there's truth to both sides of the argument, and there are some glaring fallacies on both sides of the argument. The problem comes in assuming that a full squat is just a partial squat with more depth, and that a partial squat is just a full squat stopped prematurely. If you approach either of them this way, it's not going to be very good for you.
So, how do we full squat? We full squat (generally) by turning our toes out somewhat, driving our knees out and sinking our torsoes down between our thighs. The knees come forward as we descend, generally going past the toes by a couple inches. In front squats, overhead squats and high bar back squats, we'll generally aim to keep the torso upright. Now, if you were to let your knees get into position to allow for a full squat, and then stop at 90 degrees and come back up while your torso is still quite upright, then most of the bending will have occurred in the knees, with just a little bit of hip bend. There won't be much tension in the hamstrings because of this minimal hip angle, and overall the experience will probably be unpleasant. I remember seeing a video of Dan John teaching the squat, and he did a partial at bodyweight just by replicating an olympic style squat and then coming back up prematurely, and with no outside load his knees did not like it.
^ A standard ATG front squat. Note the knees are past the toes and the torso is upright. While the hamstrings can't get too involved in the front squat due to the more exaggerated knee angle comapred to hip angle, the further forward the knees go, the deeper the hips have to go in order to make much use of the hamstrings.
How then do we partial squat? Well, what I would consider to be a relatively safe partial squat will more resemble a low bar back squat squat, however with the knees further back. If you keep your knees behind your toes, then there's only so far down you can go without rounding your back in order to go deeper. The knees must travel forwards in order to allow for depth. In the partial squat, there's usually no need to turn the feet out, since your torso won't be sliding down between your thighs, although you can turn them out if it's more comfortable or to use more of your adductors. Keep your chest up, refuse to let your knees pass your toes, and push your bum back. Eventually you will hit a point where, in order to go any lower, you'll have to either let your back round or let your knees move forwards. If you don't push past this point and instead come straight up, then there will have been a fair amount of tension on the hamstrings supporting the knees. So long as the weight isn't too much, your knees will generally feel alright with this. Here's why the partial squatters generally think that squatting deeper will mean less hamstring involvement and consequently less knee stability: in order for them to keep their spine in extension, to go deeper from the bottom of their partial squat requires letting the knees come forward, which instantly takes tension off the hamstrings.
^ Not surprisingly, a good partial squat on the interwebs is hard to find. Look at the image on the left and imagine a barbell on her shoulders, with her otherwise being inthe same position. You know that she isn't going any lower without her knees coming forward or her toppling forward into a goodmorning or her lower back rounding and butt winking.
The partial squat here, which is how I spent 2 years learning it, is somewhat like a deadlift with the bar on your shoulders (not a goodmorning, though). It is not a full squat stopped early. Likewise, simply trying to go deeper into it will not suffice as a healthy full squat, because it is as deep as the hips should go, given the position of the knees behind the toes. It will use the hamstrings, and they can be very involved, indeed. Full squats will also use the hamstrings, however due to the knee position and back angle you will have to go deeper before they kick in. Is a properly executed partial squat safer than a properly executed full squat, or vice versa? I don't know. I'm not willing to tackle that one. But both lifts can definitely be done in a way that is comfortable on the knees, recruits the hamstrings and is relatively stable.
It's story time.
The very first time I did squats as an exercise, I was 14 years old and doing martial arts. The instructor didn't say anything about depth one way or another, so I was blissfully unaware of how big a shitstorm was going on in the fitness industry on the matter. This was back in 2003.
^ Here's a reenactment.
After I stopped doing martial arts (not my choice, btw), it was about 2-3 years before I'd do squats again as an exercise. I remember being 16, seeing other people in the squat racks at my gym, and thinking: "I want to learnt o do that," although I was mildly terrified of the exercise. After a very long time of nagging the instructors at my gym to give me something new for legs (all they ever gave me in my programs was different leg presses, and I wasn't willing to try learning the barbell squat on my own for fear of crippling spine damage -- given my lack of awareness RE: posture, I'd say it's a good thing I didn't try learning them on my own back then, too), one of the instructors finally had me doing bodyweight squats...supersetted with leg presses. I don't recall her saying anything about knee health or depth, but she did tell me to sit back as I squatted, which made them very different to how I remembered them, and resulted in a much shallower squat.
It was still another couple years, when I was 19 and studying my Cert III in Fitness, before I started seriously including squats in my program. That was when I first started doing barbell back squats, and it's the first time I can recall really being influenced to believe that you shouldn't squat below parallel (although it was in the next year in my Diploma of Fitness that I was really drilled with day-in-day-out rhetoric about below-parallel squats causing your knees to snap in half and your grandmother to have a stroke and a sack of kittens drowning). 90-degree angles became like the 10 commandments, and anything deeper than that was automatically bad for the knees. We were taught all sorts of arbitrary things, and brainwashed to omit anything that contradicts what we'd been taught.
It was at the start of 2010 when, after 2 years of mocking the program, I decided to be fair and actually read Starting Strength. If you've read Starting Strength, then you know Rip's stance on squats: below parallel brings the hamstrings more into the squat, stabilising the knee, making squats safer in that deep position. This contradicted everything I'd been taught.
I now have a little over 2 years experience in squatting to parallel or lower, after 2 years of squatting above parallel. The partial squatters of the world generally believe that their way is safest. The full squatters of the world generally believe that their way is safest. Who's right? Who's wrong?
Well, actually, there's truth to both sides of the argument, and there are some glaring fallacies on both sides of the argument. The problem comes in assuming that a full squat is just a partial squat with more depth, and that a partial squat is just a full squat stopped prematurely. If you approach either of them this way, it's not going to be very good for you.
So, how do we full squat? We full squat (generally) by turning our toes out somewhat, driving our knees out and sinking our torsoes down between our thighs. The knees come forward as we descend, generally going past the toes by a couple inches. In front squats, overhead squats and high bar back squats, we'll generally aim to keep the torso upright. Now, if you were to let your knees get into position to allow for a full squat, and then stop at 90 degrees and come back up while your torso is still quite upright, then most of the bending will have occurred in the knees, with just a little bit of hip bend. There won't be much tension in the hamstrings because of this minimal hip angle, and overall the experience will probably be unpleasant. I remember seeing a video of Dan John teaching the squat, and he did a partial at bodyweight just by replicating an olympic style squat and then coming back up prematurely, and with no outside load his knees did not like it.
^ A standard ATG front squat. Note the knees are past the toes and the torso is upright. While the hamstrings can't get too involved in the front squat due to the more exaggerated knee angle comapred to hip angle, the further forward the knees go, the deeper the hips have to go in order to make much use of the hamstrings.
How then do we partial squat? Well, what I would consider to be a relatively safe partial squat will more resemble a low bar back squat squat, however with the knees further back. If you keep your knees behind your toes, then there's only so far down you can go without rounding your back in order to go deeper. The knees must travel forwards in order to allow for depth. In the partial squat, there's usually no need to turn the feet out, since your torso won't be sliding down between your thighs, although you can turn them out if it's more comfortable or to use more of your adductors. Keep your chest up, refuse to let your knees pass your toes, and push your bum back. Eventually you will hit a point where, in order to go any lower, you'll have to either let your back round or let your knees move forwards. If you don't push past this point and instead come straight up, then there will have been a fair amount of tension on the hamstrings supporting the knees. So long as the weight isn't too much, your knees will generally feel alright with this. Here's why the partial squatters generally think that squatting deeper will mean less hamstring involvement and consequently less knee stability: in order for them to keep their spine in extension, to go deeper from the bottom of their partial squat requires letting the knees come forward, which instantly takes tension off the hamstrings.
^ Not surprisingly, a good partial squat on the interwebs is hard to find. Look at the image on the left and imagine a barbell on her shoulders, with her otherwise being inthe same position. You know that she isn't going any lower without her knees coming forward or her toppling forward into a goodmorning or her lower back rounding and butt winking.
The partial squat here, which is how I spent 2 years learning it, is somewhat like a deadlift with the bar on your shoulders (not a goodmorning, though). It is not a full squat stopped early. Likewise, simply trying to go deeper into it will not suffice as a healthy full squat, because it is as deep as the hips should go, given the position of the knees behind the toes. It will use the hamstrings, and they can be very involved, indeed. Full squats will also use the hamstrings, however due to the knee position and back angle you will have to go deeper before they kick in. Is a properly executed partial squat safer than a properly executed full squat, or vice versa? I don't know. I'm not willing to tackle that one. But both lifts can definitely be done in a way that is comfortable on the knees, recruits the hamstrings and is relatively stable.
(Almost.)
