all posts post new thread

Barbell Where to focus on Squats for athletics

Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)
highly dependent on the sport IMO. For most team sports I would value the skill over the weight.
Interestingly I've heard of some pro baseball teams that just ask their athletes for "1 lower body bilateral", set intensity and volume targets and let the athletes pick the exercise variation.

This may be a controversial statement but I don't think many athletes need to squat heavy as the deadlift IMO is a better strength builder, more bang for the buck, easier on the body, etc. Unless an athlete needs some mass I wouldn't really start squatting much.
 
wespom9 said:
This may be a controversial statement but I don't think many athletes need to squat heavy as the deadlift IMO is a better strength builder, more bang for the buck, easier on the body, etc. Unless an athlete needs some mass I wouldn't really start squatting much.
Click to expand...

I don't think a lot of athletes need to deadlift, either.

When I played football and rugby, we never did.

We still got plenty big and strong.

Throwers are probably the only athletes in the D1 weight room I recall seeing deadlifting.
 
Last edited:
@watchnerd agreed, I should have qualified that by saying if I had to do 1, I'm picking DL. We definitely don't "need" either, and most of my high school athletes (average 1.3-1.8x bw DL with the odd guy close to 2.0, wide range given some late developers) only do so early offseason for 4-6/7 weeks.
 
watchnerd said:
I don't think a lot of athletes need to deadlift, either.

When I played football and rugby, we never did.

We still got plenty big and strong.

Throwers are probably the only athletes in the D1 weight room I recall seeing deadlifting.
Click to expand...
Same, good or bad, very little deadlifting in sight back in the day.
 
wespom9 said:
@watchnerd agreed, I should have qualified that by saying if I had to do 1, I'm picking DL. We definitely don't "need" either, and most of my high school athletes (average 1.3-1.8x bw DL with the odd guy close to 2.0, wide range given some late developers) only do so early offseason for 4-6/7 weeks.
Click to expand...

Don Fairbanks said:
Same, good or bad, very little deadlifting in sight back in the day.
Click to expand...

What I really want is sled pushes back in my life. ;)

I've tried car pushes, but I've only managed to convince my wife to sit and steer twice -- now she just rolls her eyes.
 
BJJ Shawn said:
I definitely could be wrong. For me, most sweeps and takedowns feel like they use way more hips than anything, as it's generally about shifting your weight under your opponent. On a double leg takedown you shoot in, but the finish involves straightening your hips to bring your weight under your opponent. Biceps, i can see, but I guess I equate that to posterior since it's used for pulling and most of the pulling I do in BJJ is back heavy. In my head, I (inaccurately) equate posterior to pulling and anterior to pushing. My style involves much more pulling than pushing, but that could just be a preference in how I do it and not universal.
Click to expand...
Yes I trained for a few years, half my focus on no-gi and a blue belt in gi. A really good piece of advice I got years ago regarding control and being controlled was that "the person who controls the hips controls the game". That's been my anecdotal experience, and I agree with what you are saying.

@Pantrolyx also brought up a great point with the mobility/stability piece, strong hips don't mean too much if you can't move them well.
 
BJJ Shawn said:
I guess that should all be included in my question...how do you know if your sport is better served with full ROM squats? I could use myself as an example, but really I was interested in how one decides what the best thing would be assuming there's no pain.

If I AM going to use myself as an example, my sport of course is BJJ which it feels to me doesn't use the anterior chain muscles nearly as much as posterior chain so I'm not sure quad development helps nearly as much as hamstrings and glutes. I have no knee issues and no paint squatting full depth, but again this was more of a general question.



That's why I said" theoretically," because I have not done anywhere near enough squats to really know. This was just something that was bumping around in my nearly empty skull and thought I would put it to the group to give me opinions.

For me, personally, I don't want to think about depth since I don't compete and going ATG is easier to not have to worry about it than trying to stop at "legal" depth. I just didn't know if that is holding me back since I presume it *could* be keeping me from lifting as much weight vs a shallower squat.
Click to expand...
Going atg works all the muscles in the body. If you go way past parallel you will really work the hamstring, glutes, groin, back, shoulders, calves, and about every other muscle. Do 1/2 squats 3/4 squats, parallel squats, then atg and see what muscles ache. Full rom will always work more muscles than partial rom and will make you stronger.

I use high bar squats because that makes me stronger. Low bar I can squat more but that is because of leverage and not strength. Doing atg high bar makes you even stronger.

This BJJ video shows why and how to attack someone way bigger and stronger. Hard to attack the upper body when the guy can just bench press you off with one hand!


And the best guillotine choke BJJ out there, the Silver Fox.


I had to give up BJJ and MMA at the age of 55. Too many injuries from work. My right shoulder is complete trash.
 
Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)
Back
Top Bottom