Squats

[Robin723]

Ive been working out for the past few years now and Squatting is still something I'm not sure that I'm doing right. I have heard from some people not to go too low and I've heard from others you should go beyond parrellel. Anyone know which is better or proper?

[Szust]

Olympic squats have you nearly hitting your rear end on the floor, and it's actually worse on the knees to stop at parallel. Anywhere between there it's totally up to you, but it's always more impressive to have an extra low squat.

[Ben Moore]

and it's actually worse on the knees to stop at parallel.

Where did you hear this? I've been squatting to parallel for years and have great knees.

[Szust]

Where did you hear this? I've been squatting to parallel for years and have great knees.

Hmmm... I've heard from people around here actually. Oh well. Another notion dispelled.

[Ben Moore]

Not saying I"m right. I could possibly be an anomoly, but I was more interested in if you actually had any research to back up the claim.

[HP666]

http://www.wannabebigforums.com/showthread.php?t=100067

Also very important.......
http://www.geocities.com/~slopitch/drsquat/fredknee.htm
Frederick C. Hatfield, Ph.D., MSS
International Sports Science Association

Partial Squats: Contrary to popular belief, squatting above the parallel position -- knees at approximately 90 degrees flexion -- is actually more dangerous that going to parallel or below. There are two reasons for this. When you look at the structure of the knee, you’ll note that at about 90 degrees flexion, the tibia’s sloped shape allows it to shear upwards and over the femur. This causes a lot of compressive force against the patella, and pulls forcefully against the posterior cruciate ligament. These potentially destructive forces become significantly less as you descend further into the squat postion, largely due to the fact that the tibia’s surface isn’t as sloped posteriorly, where it articulates with the femur. The second reason is that, because of better leverage while doing partials, you’re obliged to use a far heavier weight in order to gain any sort of adaptive overload on the muscles involved -- dangerous to the entire shoulder girdle, neck, low back and knees.


And also read this......

http://www.protraineronline.com/past...pr03/squat.cfm
Robert Libertine Starr PhD
Big Sky Strength & Conditioning Group

Myths of the squat. Squatting below parallel is dangerous to your knees. After thirty five years of squatting I can tell you for a fact, if you do not squat below parallel you will shorten up the flexibility of your knee joint and you will injure yourself eventually. Far too often I have seen people pile on the weight and do a half knee bend and that’s just not going to cut it. Make sure that you warm up first and feel that your are ready. Squatting is like going to war you must attack it!

[Newtt]

A lot of times guys squat ATG, yet they have terrible flexability and lower back rounding is very pronounced in the hole. Try to get hip mobility and hamstring flexability up so you can ATG squat while maintaing an arched lower back.

[brihead301]

Check out "starting strength" my Mark Rippetoe. It's only available online, but it has excellent explanations on form for all the major barbell exercises.

Also check out Sensei's Squat Rx videos available on this forum.

[HP666]

Also check out Sensei's Squat Rx videos available on this forum.

That's the top link on my post above.

[brihead301]

I missed that