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Post by captnJ on Sept 28, 2004 7:31:03 GMT -5
Post your questions here, i will try to answer.
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Post by Oracle on Sept 30, 2004 4:31:25 GMT -5
i do the parallel squat, i find the most difficult part is the upward lift from the crunched position at the bottom and the lift is the most demanding on my lower back; lower back fires off the lift followed by the legs. I hope this is the correct movement. anyway, the only way to go heavier is practise, practise and more practise.
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Post by Univarse9 on Oct 5, 2004 13:05:05 GMT -5
Just confirming if I've got this right.
1) Unrack bar. Take at most one step back.
2) Check leg stance. At least shoulder-width.
3) Check posture and correct if necessary.
4) Ensure shoulders and hips go down simultaneously.
5) Minimize movement past knees.
6) Head for parallel.
7) Picture driving legs through floor.
8) Repeat.
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Post by captnJ on Oct 5, 2004 19:23:58 GMT -5
i do the parallel squat, i find the most difficult part is the upward lift from the crunched position at the bottom and the lift is the most demanding on my lower back; lower back fires off the lift followed by the legs. I hope this is the correct movement. anyway, the only way to go heavier is practise, practise and more practise. If you cant get out of the "hole" i.e the bottom position of the squat. Its similar to not getting the bar of the chest in the bench press. Its usually due to 1. Its too heavy... or 2. You are not fast enough or 3. The torso i.e lower back and abs are not strong enough to support the nar and you crunch over forward at the bottom postition. if (1) { lower weight.. duh you may think.. but the place to be stuck is not at the bottom. All good squatters can get the weight out of the bottom because they know hoe to use the stretch reflex. Personally i get stuck at about 6-8 inches out of the bottom. Thats where i fail if i fail a squat. } else if (2) { work on speed squats on a low box. sit on the bench/box those girly step aerobic benches are great for this) for 2 sec then explode up. This teaches you to NOT use the stretch reflex at the bottom position and then when you DO have the stretch reflex you will squat better. } else if (3) { do lots of weighted ab work as well as lots of lower back work. } as for practice... well only perfect practice makes perfect, everybody's technique goes to crap when the weight gets heavy. Ill talk about technique in answering Universe's post.
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Post by captnJ on Oct 5, 2004 19:36:55 GMT -5
Just confirming if I've got this right. 1) Unrack bar. Take at most one step back. 2) Check leg stance. At least shoulder-width. 3) Check posture and correct if necessary. 4) Ensure shoulders and hips go down simultaneously. 5) Minimize movement past knees. 6) Head for parallel. 7) Picture driving legs through floor. 8) Repeat. 1) dont squat facing a mirror, you body needs to learn how to function by its own kinestetic awareness. 2) line up in line with center of bar. 3) if the weight is REALLY near max, i prefer to put the bar a bit lower and feet a bit further back and ARCH teh bar out so i dont even need to take some steps back. This is because we dont ha ve a monorack which moves the hooks out of the way. you better be able to arch the bar out else you have no business squatting that weight. However if you want to walk out, yes 2 small steps should be enough. 4) Air in belly before unracking weight. DO NOT look down to check stance. you need to practice till u dont need to look. (this is not hard) stance is dependent on trainging goal and body type. Wider- more hips and butt and hamstrings. narrower, more quads. Shorter limbs- narrower is more comfy, longer limbs, wider with toes pointed a bit more out. (NOT ALL THE WAY OUT like ive seen some do in a smith machine... argh dont get me started) 5) There should be NO MORE corretion of posture. With feet set, air in belly and head up you should be ready. If not, put the bar back and set again. Theres nothing wrong with that. 6. dont just head for parallel, Push your hips BACK FIRST. HIPS MOVE BEFORE knees!!! this will satisfy woth of your points 5 and 6. REACH back with your butt as far back as it will go. Thsi will be hard at first and especially hard at the bottom position. This means your hamstrings are too weak. train em as hip extensors NOT KNEE FLEXORS yup that means leg curls are not useful. reach a depth that is comfortable, for some they cant go to paralle at the beginning since hams are too weak, soem cant go rock bottom cos flexibility not there yet (esp for long limbed ppl). ont the way up the thinking is "HEAD BACK" NOT head up... that just means you are looking at ceiling hahaha. But head BACK. That throws the head and shoulders backward. this is the correct way to get out of a squat. If you just try to go "up" you will end up witha good morning since the hips will go up first. Most squats are lost going froward. But if you head BACK, imagine throwing the weight off you backward then you will rise up straight. If you can't, lower back is weak, do more good mornings. GO and try this. In between reps NEVER breathe out, exhale shallow and tight and then inhale again, if there is any sor tof weight at all, it will crush you if you exhale and then there WONT BE a follow up rep:( go and practice, we all need it! regds Jonathan NOTE: obviously its really hard to diagnose problems over the internet. I cant help as much as in a in person session ok:) but after all thats why people pay me haha. But i do love to teach whatever i know.
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Post by Oracle on Oct 5, 2004 20:13:44 GMT -5
thanks for the advice. yes, when descend down, i usually take a loong sweet time. As what i saw in Coleman's 800lb squat, he went down and up for 1 rep within 1 secs. i took nearly 4 secs for 1 cycle; checking my posture on the mirror, see if the bar touch the power rack's support beam which mean i have touched the parallel position, etc.
Will try to speed up my squat. i find that lower back strength is very crucial in doing squat. by the end of the descend; i would have crunched my body onto my thigh, then the uplift is first on the lower then followed by glute and hamstrings.
I will have to use knee wraps as i am equally worried about my knee conditions; too much heavy squatting and wear out my cartilage. Thank goodness for glucosamine.
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Post by Univarse9 on Oct 5, 2004 22:54:12 GMT -5
Ah-ha! That's the part I forgot.
1) Air-in-belly. 2) Hip back, not down.
Will keep that in mind when I do squats later.
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Post by Oracle on Oct 6, 2004 3:22:09 GMT -5
did the fast squat today as what u'd mentioned and i must say my squat improve quite abit. no delays, no pausing, just go and go and go. together with the knee wraps, i managed to do 6 reps for 4 plates a side. The loud grunting part also helps in pushing myself. thanks goodness the gym was empty this afternoon. Thanks, CaptnJ!
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Post by captnJ on Oct 6, 2004 5:19:08 GMT -5
did the fast squat today as what u'd mentioned and i must say my squat improve quite abit. no delays, no pausing, just go and go and go. together with the knee wraps, i managed to do 6 reps for 4 plates a side. The loud grunting part also helps in pushing myself. thanks goodness the gym was empty this afternoon. Thanks, CaptnJ! mmm ok thats good work. But when i mean fast i mean with only like 70% of your max or less. THATS REALLY FAST. with 4 plates... unless your max is 650lb++(6++plates a side) it wont be that fast. and i mean fast with low reps per set. maybe 8 sets with 2 reps with 1min rest between. you want to BLAST the weight up EVERY rep. i think by the 6th rep you are not blasting up liao... it will be slower. haha im not too sure about grunting also... you got to keep the air tight:) right now you are STRONG but not FAST. If you add speed to that strenght you will be even more powerful and have a better squat. my max is 485 i speed squat with about 280-300. focusing on accelerating the weight out of the hole. thats how i get to be strong without being very huge... its SPEED:) also very applicable for atheletic performance... oracle, if you notice the thread aobut sbj, you are the guy who can squat but are not fast...(no offence hor) you need to work on speed and you'll never fail sbj again:) keep up the good work, jonathan
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Post by Univarse9 on Oct 6, 2004 8:09:57 GMT -5
I'm considering switching over to ATG squats. Good idea, or bad?
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Post by captnJ on Oct 7, 2004 1:41:53 GMT -5
I'm considering switching over to ATG squats. Good idea, or bad? depends, some people cant do them esp the long limbed short torso types. So if you are one of those dont feel bad if you cant get down all the way. Many of my athletes are basketball playes, for those long guys, parallel with a wider stance and toes pointed out is pretty good already. ATG is fine if you can do them comfortably. you see, if you get good at ATG squats, your parallel squat will improve too, and Vice versa. so mix it up maybe one week each type is a pretty good way to start.
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Post by Oracle on Oct 7, 2004 3:05:00 GMT -5
mmm ok thats good work. But when i mean fast i mean with only like 70% of your max or less. THATS REALLY FAST. with 4 plates... unless your max is 650lb++(6++plates a side) it wont be that fast. and i mean fast with low reps per set. maybe 8 sets with 2 reps with 1min rest between. you want to BLAST the weight up EVERY rep. i think by the 6th rep you are not blasting up liao... it will be slower. haha im not too sure about grunting also... you got to keep the air tight:) right now you are STRONG but not FAST. If you add speed to that strenght you will be even more powerful and have a better squat. my max is 485 i speed squat with about 280-300. focusing on accelerating the weight out of the hole. thats how i get to be strong without being very huge... its SPEED:) also very applicable for atheletic performance... oracle, if you notice the thread aobut sbj, you are the guy who can squat but are not fast...(no offence hor) you need to work on speed and you'll never fail sbj again:) keep up the good work, jonathan no problem, man. i have learnt alot from you in squating and benching since i interact with u from forum.hardwarezone.com. early this year, my squat is those horribly wrong knee-stick-out-first procedure. since the correction from you and reading from deepsquatter.com, i have improve significantly. Now trying to condition myself with more speed squat.
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Post by Univarse9 on Oct 7, 2004 4:25:47 GMT -5
depends, some people cant do them esp the long limbed short torso types. So if you are one of those dont feel bad if you cant get down all the way. Many of my athletes are basketball playes, for those long guys, parallel with a wider stance and toes pointed out is pretty good already. ATG is fine if you can do them comfortably. you see, if you get good at ATG squats, your parallel squat will improve too, and Vice versa. so mix it up maybe one week each type is a pretty good way to start. I'm considering switching over to ATG squats because I tried them for the first time today and I found them to be way faster to execute, more stable and easier on the back. Looks like I'm going over to the ATG camp. ;D
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Post by captnJ on Oct 7, 2004 4:35:35 GMT -5
I'm considering switching over to ATG squats because I tried them for the first time today and I found them to be way faster to execute, more stable and easier on the back. Looks like I'm going over to the ATG camp. ;D Ok atg i presume a pretty narrow stance, but still, use both kinds of squat, neither is really "Better" but they both bring each other up. Is there any reason you sould not want to do both? Wider stance parallell squats activate the hips butt and hams more and narrow stance sq temd to be more quad dominant. they are BOTH GOOD... I fail to see why you want to choose 1 over the other... they both help in total development...unless you ahve a previous unjury or muscle imbalance or hamstring injury or soemthing that would prevent you from using both types... in general though the wide stance parallel squat allows u to use more weight.
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Post by Univarse9 on Oct 7, 2004 6:52:58 GMT -5
The reason why I want to switch over to ATG is because it appears my back isn't growing as fast as my legs, so parallel squats for me are getting increasingly harder to balance. I almost fell forward yesterday, good thing my calves pulled me back.
I am still doing stuff like good mornings and deadlifts to build up the back, but for now, I wish to switch over to ATG to continue progress on my legs.
This is my eigth training week, and I take a break for the whole of next week before restarting again.
Okay, this just popped into my head at the last minute. Could CNS tiredness have something to do with this?
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