Iron Game
Veteran
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Keep your chest up, as with all exercises with a good arch in the lower back.
· Slowly lower in a controlled fashion until you reach the bottom of the movement, you should be lowering the bar not letting gravity do all the work for you.
· Aim for your backside to touch your heels and pause.
· Drive up with the glute, as you’re coming up, drive the hips forward and stand upright.
· Make sure you don’t come up on your toes, instead drive from the mid to the heel of your foot.
· Keep your head and your eyes upwards throughout the movement, otherwise your chest will begin to drop and your back shape will soon follow.
Ok, the squat. The second of the ego lifts.
To be honest if there's any exercise or only one exercise that I could ever do, it would be the squat.
Brilliant exercise, good mid-section activation and obviously overall total leg development from it. It is to me, probably king of all the exercises even over deadlifts.
Now, again there’s lots of problems that come with this, usually the biggest thing is that people don’t control the weight, they let the weight control them and they bounce out of the hole in the bottom or they plain just don’t go deep enough.
It has a reputation for being a knee destroyer and it is unfounded. If the exercise is done correctly, if anything it will strengthen knee integrity it will not weaken it and it will not cause you problems. Problems with the knee come from incorrect load position of the bar on the back and people leaning far too forward. Too much speed and bouncing out of the hole, or not deep enough.
What you’ve got to understand is the knee joint floats. As your leg bends, the knee joint starts to wrap around the knee and so the deeper you go, the more evenly the load is dispersed across the kneecap. If you only go halfway then the kneecap is only touching at certain points and it’s very much the same effect as a stiletto heel, in that all the load and weight is transferred through those few finite points. You’ve then also got the point of dealing with the breaking of the weight and then the drive in return. So if you go full range, that pressure is spread completely over the whole kneecap and there’s less wear and tear and less potential damage. Like I say, the only thing people tend to do that’s well wrong is they have the bar too high on their neck and they lean too far forward, and they end up squatting with their back and not with their legs.
It’s not important how deep your head goes, it’s important how deep your arse goes. The main thing is to keep upright and drop your arse. In fact a lot of people will get to a certain depth and they think they’re going deeper when all they’re actually doing is leaning forward because they’re using their head to gauge depth instead of using their backside.
Another thing to remember with the squat is the further over the front of your toes your kneecap goes, the more stress and load you will put on your kneecap. A lot of people struggle with sitting back in the squat and loading the glute correctly. As I say, done properly it’s the king of exercises as far as I’m concerned.
Ok, chest up as with all these exercises. Good nice arch in the lower back, slowly lower down until you reach the bottom of the movement. Now personally I put my backside on my heels, pause and then return. If however you find that your arse is rolling out from underneath you then that’s the limit of your range because you haven’t got flexibility in your hamstring. So you need to work on increasing that flexibility, and then you’ll be able to go deeper in the squat.
Make sure you don’t come up on your toes, and that you drive from the mid of your foot to the heel of your foot. Now good way to check bar position and how you’re loading is to literally put a plumb line on the end of the bar. Just a piece of string with a weight on the end. Have someone stand to the side of you or video it, see where that line cuts through your thigh and foot. Now that string should cut through the mid thigh and the mid of the foot. If it does you are in the proper position and the load is going the right way. If it’s forward of that, you will endanger your kneecap integrity.
And that’s it. It’s drive up, drive with the glute, drive the hips forward as you come up and stand upright. Now, don’t just lift your head in the squat but look up because if you start looking forward and looking down your back shape will follow. So even if your head is lifted but your eyes drop, your chest will drop so keep your eyes up as well. It takes a little bit of getting used to if you’re not used to it but trust me in time you’ll develop more power and more strength. So it’s down, full range, under control and drive out.
And like other exercises we’ve discussed, it’s not about the weight on your back it’s about the load on the muscle and a lighter weight under control and done correctly will be far more effective in building muscle mass than sticking loads of plates on there and doing the exercise craply. The other thing as well, the more effective you can make the lighter weights, the longer you're gonna last in the gym because there’s less wear and tear on you.
Posted By Big Bear, Feb 24, 2014
- - - Updated - - -
Keep your chest up, as with all exercises with a good arch in the lower back.
· Slowly lower in a controlled fashion until you reach the bottom of the movement, you should be lowering the bar not letting gravity do all the work for you.
· Aim for your backside to touch your heels and pause.
· Drive up with the glute, as you’re coming up, drive the hips forward and stand upright.
· Make sure you don’t come up on your toes, instead drive from the mid to the heel of your foot.
· Keep your head and your eyes upwards throughout the movement, otherwise your chest will begin to drop and your back shape will soon follow.
Ok, the squat. The second of the ego lifts.
To be honest if there's any exercise or only one exercise that I could ever do, it would be the squat.
Brilliant exercise, good mid-section activation and obviously overall total leg development from it. It is to me, probably king of all the exercises even over deadlifts.
Now, again there’s lots of problems that come with this, usually the biggest thing is that people don’t control the weight, they let the weight control them and they bounce out of the hole in the bottom or they plain just don’t go deep enough.
It has a reputation for being a knee destroyer and it is unfounded. If the exercise is done correctly, if anything it will strengthen knee integrity it will not weaken it and it will not cause you problems. Problems with the knee come from incorrect load position of the bar on the back and people leaning far too forward. Too much speed and bouncing out of the hole, or not deep enough.
What you’ve got to understand is the knee joint floats. As your leg bends, the knee joint starts to wrap around the knee and so the deeper you go, the more evenly the load is dispersed across the kneecap. If you only go halfway then the kneecap is only touching at certain points and it’s very much the same effect as a stiletto heel, in that all the load and weight is transferred through those few finite points. You’ve then also got the point of dealing with the breaking of the weight and then the drive in return. So if you go full range, that pressure is spread completely over the whole kneecap and there’s less wear and tear and less potential damage. Like I say, the only thing people tend to do that’s well wrong is they have the bar too high on their neck and they lean too far forward, and they end up squatting with their back and not with their legs.
It’s not important how deep your head goes, it’s important how deep your arse goes. The main thing is to keep upright and drop your arse. In fact a lot of people will get to a certain depth and they think they’re going deeper when all they’re actually doing is leaning forward because they’re using their head to gauge depth instead of using their backside.
Another thing to remember with the squat is the further over the front of your toes your kneecap goes, the more stress and load you will put on your kneecap. A lot of people struggle with sitting back in the squat and loading the glute correctly. As I say, done properly it’s the king of exercises as far as I’m concerned.
Ok, chest up as with all these exercises. Good nice arch in the lower back, slowly lower down until you reach the bottom of the movement. Now personally I put my backside on my heels, pause and then return. If however you find that your arse is rolling out from underneath you then that’s the limit of your range because you haven’t got flexibility in your hamstring. So you need to work on increasing that flexibility, and then you’ll be able to go deeper in the squat.
Make sure you don’t come up on your toes, and that you drive from the mid of your foot to the heel of your foot. Now good way to check bar position and how you’re loading is to literally put a plumb line on the end of the bar. Just a piece of string with a weight on the end. Have someone stand to the side of you or video it, see where that line cuts through your thigh and foot. Now that string should cut through the mid thigh and the mid of the foot. If it does you are in the proper position and the load is going the right way. If it’s forward of that, you will endanger your kneecap integrity.
And that’s it. It’s drive up, drive with the glute, drive the hips forward as you come up and stand upright. Now, don’t just lift your head in the squat but look up because if you start looking forward and looking down your back shape will follow. So even if your head is lifted but your eyes drop, your chest will drop so keep your eyes up as well. It takes a little bit of getting used to if you’re not used to it but trust me in time you’ll develop more power and more strength. So it’s down, full range, under control and drive out.
And like other exercises we’ve discussed, it’s not about the weight on your back it’s about the load on the muscle and a lighter weight under control and done correctly will be far more effective in building muscle mass than sticking loads of plates on there and doing the exercise craply. The other thing as well, the more effective you can make the lighter weights, the longer you're gonna last in the gym because there’s less wear and tear on you.
Posted By Big Bear, Feb 24, 2014
