Full squats for strength and development
By Keith Wassung
When you hear the word SQUATS do you think of an early eighties Dutch punk rock
band, or of one of the most demanding, resulting producing exercises known to
man? Hopefully you associate with the latter, but in any case the full squat is
one of the best overall movements for producing both strength and development
not only in the legs, but for the overall body.
Full Squats are something that you must learn to do with the mind as well as the
body. A proper combination of mental and physical energies will ensure that you
will be able to squat using a total effort and nothing less. I often look back
at my training log of 27 years and I observe an exact correlation between squat
progress and overall progress, meaning that I made the best overall gains in
strength and development when my squat was progressing the most. Another thing I
have always found to be true about squats is that you can almost always make
increases, for example, I have often gone into the gym, totally confident and
ready for my session--and I load the bar to do upper body work, such as bench
presses--and there are some days, when no matter how hard I try, no matter how
hard I push, the reps that I am attempting to make just wont happen. But with
the squat the desired reps almost always came. I think that is because the legs
are so much stronger than we even imagine and there is always some reserve
strength to get another repetition.
Squats and Systemic Growth
You may be wondering, "Just exactly how do squats promote growth throughout the
body?" To begin with, the squat involves multiple joints and muscles which in
turn increase the level at which the nervous system must coordinate movement in
conjunction with the lifter's muscle-skeletal system. In the squat there are
numerous muscles of the body working simultaneously to provide the stability and
mobility needed for this exercise. It has been estimated that there are up to
200 muscles involved in the squat.
The hormonal or endocrine system combined with the nervous system makes up what
is known as "neuroendocrinology". This term describes the relationship of
chemical substances that have both neural and hormonal functions. The endocrine
glands are stimulated to release hormones by a chemical signal received by the
receptors on the gland or by neural stimulation, which is what occurs during
weight training. Ever wonder why you feel particularly upbeat and euphoric after
a hard workout, even if you are physically drained? Its because of the increased
presence of hormones in your body, hormones that also influence our moods. This
is similar to the runners high experienced by long distance runners.
The increase in anabolic hormone levels observed after a hard workout can
increase hormonal interactions with various cellular mechanisms and enhance the
development of muscle protein contractile units. On neural stimulation from an
alpha motor neuron to initiate a muscle action, various signals (electrical,
chemical, and hormonal) are sent from the brain and from activated muscles to a
number of endocrine glands. Hormones are secreted during and after the workout
in response to the physiological stress of resistance exercise. This simply
means that the nervous, muscle-skeletal, and hormonal systems are responsible
for the effects promoted by exercises like the squat.
There are various hormones, which produce this effect, and the one that most
people are familiar with is testosterone. It's been demonstrated that
testosterone serum concentrations can increase with exercises such as the squat.
Squats can increase growth throughout the entire body because they use numerous
muscles and this means they stimulate more muscle fibers than say an exercise
such as a leg extension or a leg press. The greater the fiber recruitment, the
greater the process for potential growth and development in the muscle. Only
muscle fibers that are recruited by resistance training are subject to
adaptation and the more muscles used in an exercise like the squat the more the
muscle fibers are stimulated.
Preparations
Your squat workout should begin about an hour after the completion of your most
recent squat workout. Take the time to sit down with your training log and some
good post workout nutrition, and enter your last workouts sets and reps into the
log, along with any particular training notes for that day. Then, begin
outlining some training goals for the next workout. You have to set specific
goals and have a game plan to achieve them. Once your next workout outline is
done, write it on a post-it note, stick it on your day planner or your bathroom
mirror, any place where you can glance at it a couple of times each day and by
the time your next workout arrives, you will be mentally prepared to complete
the required sets and reps. Try to eat a high complex carbohydrate meal the
night before a squat workoutwhole-wheat pasta with a ground turkey and marinara
sauce works very well. Take the time to properly warm-up, which can consist of
some stretching and mobility exercises such as five minutes on a stationary bike
pedaling at a moderate pace.
Equipment
If you are going to make decent progress in the squat, you have to be properly
equipped and probably the most important gear is a decent set of shoes. I often
see people lifting in shoes that provide little in the way of support for the
foot and ankle, in fact most running shoes are mushy and cause the ankles to
buckle slightly inward as the lifter is descending with the bar. Buy a pair of
high-topped training shoes, preferably with the ability to tighten the lace
around the ankle. If you use the shoes only for your training, they should last
for years. Using a lifting belt is a personal decision, though it should be used
sparingly and mostly with heavy weights/low rep type sets. The last vital piece
of lifting equipment is a strong abdominal region. Having a strong,
well-developed trunk region will do wonders for your overall strength. Train the
abs in order to make them functionally stronger by doing exercises such as
weighted crunches, side bends and frog kicks.
SQUAT TECHNIQUE
Squatting is a very natural movement; In most of the world especially Asia and
Africa people squat to rest, to eliminate, and to perform many tasks including
giving birth. I was in the gym last week and a guy approached me and told me he
was frustrated with his lifting, etc. I asked him about squats and he told me
that he was unable to squat. I told him that must be really tough when you have
to have a bowel movement! Human bodies are designed to squat! Having said that,
there is a certain learning curve associated with the full squat and its very
important to learn and implement the technique correctly. There is an abundance
of squatting technique information available in books, videotapes and websites,
but the best way to learn is in person. If you need to improve your squat form,
find an experienced lifter somewhere near you and ask them for help and advice.
You may have to drive several hours to find someone, but it will be time well
spent. The experienced lifter does not have to be a world-class athlete to give
you quality instruction. You will find that the majority of experienced lifters
are very generous with their time and will gladly help someone who truly has the
desire to learn. Be sure you listen and take notes on the instruction you
receive. You may even want to offer to pay for a steak dinner afterwards.
I advocate the full barbell squat as one of the core exercises in most any
weight-training program. If you are an aspiring powerlifter, then you will need
to spend some time performing squats in a powerlifting style in order to prepare
for competition. I believe that the full squat will be of tremendous value in
laying down a proper strength foundation. There are individuals who may have
structural problems (knees, back, etc) which prevent them from squatting at the
present time. If this is the case, then those problems need to be properly
evaluated and some type of corrective or rehabilitative action taken. When it
comes to your health, dont be afraid to get a second or even third opinion. I
don't have a whole lot of confidence in health care professionals whose only
advice is to avoid exercise or activities as I fail to see the positive benefits
of physical atrophy of the human body.
Many fitness experts warn against performing squats past the point of parallel
for fear of potentially damaging the knees. As a general rule I disagree with
those experts though there are certainly individual exceptions. When the full
squat is performed correctly and with total control through a complete range of
motion, the knees are strengthened, not weakened. According to the American
Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, an estimated 50 million North Americans have
suffered or are suffering knee pain or injuries and six million of them will
visit a doctor for knee problems each year. The majority of these problems are
degenerative in nature and are the result of disuse of the knee joint. Squatting
keeps the knee joints mobile and free of pain. Several joint facets on the
inside of the kneecap are used only when an individual performs a complete
squat.
When the squat is performed to a parallel depth, it is the knees, which take the
majority of the stress involved in stopping the downward momentum of the squat.
When the squat is performed to a full depth, this same braking stress is
transferred to the larger, powerful muscles of the hips, hamstrings and
buttocks. It is obvious that the squat must be performed with a great deal of
control and that any type of rapid rebounding, whether it is done at parallel or
at full depth will be detrimental to the knees.
The full squat is very similar to the way a baseball catcher squats down to
receive a pitch, with the exception that your feet are flat on the floor, rather
than on your toes. I keep a baseball mitt in my gym bag and I often take it out
and have people practice the catchers squat when instructing on squat technique.
To perform the squat, take a medium stance with your toes pointed slightly
outward. Place your hands on the bar at approximately shoulder width, get
underneath the bar, take a deep breath and expand the chest and stand up with
the bar. Take small steps backwards until you reach the place that you wish to
squat. Your head should be looking straight ahead with your eyes fixed on a
point directly in front of you. If you begin by bending at the knees, your knees
will go beyond your toes, which can put them at risk. Sit back, keeping your
upper body as upright as you comfortably can, and keep your knees over, but not
beyond your toes. Descend into a full squat, staying tight and controlling the
weight all the way down without bouncing at the bottom. Then stand up strongly,
pushing against the weight and exhaling as you rise. . Keep your abdominal
muscles and lower back tight and contracted throughout the movement. Whether you
are doing 5, or 20 reps, think about doing 5 sets of perfect singles or 20 sets
of perfect singles this will help you maintain proper form throughout the entire
set.
One final technique tip: The toughest part of the squat is from about 30 degrees
to the bottom. One method to help get through this is the use of your arms to
assist the lower body in driving the legs past this sticking point. As you are
descending with the bar and reach approximately the 30 degree point, begin
pressing upwards with your arms just as if you were doing a behind the neck
press. Continue to push upwards as you reach the bottom and begin driving
upwards. At about the 30 degree mark (this will vary from one person to another)
you can relax the pressure as you feel yourself getting past the sticking point.
I only use this on the last few reps of a heavy set or when I was squatting in
competition. I know this sounds a little odd but give it a try.
Squats and Flexibility
The primary reason for problems with squatting is lack of flexibility in the
hips, knees, soleus, calves and ankles. This can easily be resolved by
performing high repetition deep knee bends (another word for squats) with
bodyweight only. When I began incorporating high repetition bodyweight squats
into my training regime, I immediately noticed a difference in my lower body
training. I recovered more quickly from leg workouts, all of those little pops
and cricks that have been with me for years disappeared and I was able to run
and play sports without discomfort in my knees, ankles and feet.
The second thing you can do is to develop a habit of squatting instead of
sitting whenever you can. Obviously, you cannot do this at a business meeting or
at church, but you can work it into daily habits such as petting the dog or
picking up something from the ground. Do this a dozen times a day for about two
months and you should notice a marked increase in your comfort and confidence in
the bottom portion of the squat.
High Repetition Squats
I first became aware of the value of high repetition squats (20 or more reps)
when I was serving aboard a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine. We had very limited
space and my workout area was in the missile compartment, between two ICBM tubes
and a set of forward storage lockers. There was just enough room for a loaded
Olympic barbell with perhaps four inches of clearance in the front and in the
back. There was no room for any kind of squat racks, so I would round up 2-4
guys to work as spotters and would deadlift a loaded barbell to lockout, then
would have my spotters grab hold of the ends, then I would let go of the bar,
crawl underneath it, assume the squat position at the bottom, stand up with the
weight-then do my set of squats, then reverse the procedure to set the bar back
on the deck. This process obviously limited the amount of weight I could use, so
I had to settle for high repetitions. At the time, I figured that although the
high reps were better than nothing I would still lose ground in terms of
strength and development. Much to my surprise I found that my legs, my overall
strength and my overall body grew like they never had before. From that moment
on, high rep squats became a staple in my training program
20 rep squats are tough and demanding, both physically and mentally. They
require total focus and concentration and an all out effort. When I am doing 20
rep squats, I find that when I hit number 13 or 14, it is impossible to think
about doing another 6-7 reps. I can only focus on getting just one more rep,
then one more, then just another one until all of the reps are completed. You
may have to use certain mental tricks such as counting the reps backwards or
mentally grouping the reps in twos or threes to complete the entire set. As
tough as they are, your body will eventually grow accustomed to them and will
actually thrive on them. I have found that when people can break through the
pain barrier on 20 rep squats, they are then able to train harder on other
exercises probably because they finally are aware of what hard work and
intensity is all about.
You can perform high repetition squats alone or you can combine them with low
and medium rep programs. Just about any routine will work provided you work hard
and give it time. The key to growth is progression and overload. I don't care
how a workout makes you feel, how pumped you get, how much your thighs burned,
etc. if you are not adding weight and reps to the exercise over a period of time
then you will make little if any progress. My first recorded squat workout was
65lbs for eight reps and it was hard and heavy. A little over thirteen years
later, I did 600 for eight reps and it was just as hard and heavyweight is a
relative issue.
The majority of people reading this could probably take their best squat for 4-5
reps and with some goal planning, hard work and determination, squat the same
weight for 20 reps by the end of the year. This would be more geared to the
beginner to intermediate lifter. This will change your entire body, and not just
the legs--this will of course take adequate food, water and rest. A 160lb guy
could easily add 10-15 SOLID, lean pounds of muscle after a year, and there is a
HUGE difference between gaining 10-15 pounds and gaining 10-15 lean pounds. You
will also find that 20 rep squats will change your base metabolic rate, which
should allow you to burn fat more efficiently 24/7. There are not many people
who are willing to do this, but the rewards will be worth it.
You have to develop and maintain the proper mental toughness and discipline
which is necessary for you to reach your own potential. This toughness is
largely the ability to deal with pain, fatigue and discomfort associated with
hard and progressive training. There are tens of thousands of people who want
better strength, development and conditioning and they are totally committed to
spending two or more hours a day, six days a week in training, they are willing
to buy supplements, equipment, they are willing to do just about anything except
to include and embrace pain, fatigue and discomfort as necessary in their
training. In fact, everything they do, everything they buy, every excuse they
make is to avoid pain, fatigue and discomfort at all costs. The closest thing
that I know to a "lifting secret" is this: Once you are willing to be
uncomfortable at times in your workout, it does not take long for you to get
used to it, in fact you may look forward to it and thrive on it. This is when
you will embark on the journey to achieving the potential that lies within you.
I hope a few people take this challenge.
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