This is about the best lift of my training career so far! (doesn’t take much to break a record at this early stage in my training)
Let me start by saying that I believe everyone should squat and be able to squat deep. It’s fine to start light or use no weight at all but for me one of the biggest signs of ageing and physical degeneration is loss of the ability to squat.
How deep?
I was once taught not to go too deep. Shallow squats cause uneven joint cartilage and are more likely to cause both knee and back problems. The back suffers on shallow squats because you need significantly more weight to get even close to the same amount of muscular work which unfortunately will ultimately help you less with getting faster and jumping higher. It’s ok to use some partial range squats but if you’re avoiding full squats because your hips are locked and you’re just too weak to stand up from all the way down there then you’re really missing something in your training.
Can you get strong on just box squats / powerlifter squats?
No doubt but I believe you will have less carry over to sporting success and injury prevention than if you work in full range. Hips that work in full range make for healthy athletes!
Beginners should be working on technique with sets of 5-8 until they can do a body weight (on the bar) full squat.
Average – Anything above 1.5 x BW on an olympic lifting style squat is a good lift.
Good – Above 1.75 x BW – this is where I sit at the moment and it’s helped me to put 7 inches (17cm) on my vertical jump and get under the 1 sec mark for the 5m (hand pad release electronically timed)
Excellent – Above 2 x BW – this would be a world-class lift for most athletes
World Class for all sports – Above 2.5 x BW
If you want to learn how to squat or get pumped up about lifting big watch the clip below!
Made with Bullet