How to Squat

On a completely unrelated thread, a reader asked this question:

I, like many others, have been taught similar squatting techniques as outlined in your book. However, I was given an article recently by a personal trainer who has CHEK qualifications like Alywn. It advocates going through the full range of motion (i.e. letting your hamstrings touch your calf musles) when squatting. The article, called “How to perform a squat”, can be found here. I would be very interested in your views on the article.

I downloaded the article, and it’s clear the author, Tony Boutagy, has a different view of squat technique. Here’s how he says you should start your descent:

The knees first move directly forward as far as possible. After the knee initiates the movement, the hips lower down as low as flexibility allows.

As I wrote in NROL, if you see an inexperienced lifter in the gym trying to teach himself to squat, you’ll often see that knees-first movement. Almost inevitably, the lifter’s heels will come up off the floor.

So I’ve been standing here in my office trying to squat with that knees-first technique, and I’ll concede this point: I’m able to get lower with my feet closer together than I can with my usual hips-first squat. I much prefer to use the wider stance and start the movement with my hips, or with simultaneous hip and knee movement, but that’s probably because I’ve been doing it that way as long I’ve been squatting.

Is there some potential to presenting the squat as a knees-first exercise? Maybe. My instinct is that it would be a lot harder for people to learn the squat without coaching if they saw it described with the knees-first action. But it’s not really an easy exercise to master without coaching, no matter how you describe it. 

I disagree with some of his other points, and find this argument absolutely absurd:

I have yet to see an obstetrician treat the newly born baby for patellofemoral pain on birth, which, according to some, should happen given that humans spend the first few months from conception living in a deep squat position in their mother’s womb! 

That’s because babies don’t have bony kneecaps. The cartilage hardens into adult-type kneecaps around age three. What infants and toddlers can do is completely different from what adults can do. 

And, honestly, I don’t see the point of making arguments like this:

The way I see it, if a trainee cannot perform a full squat, they are considered to be in the rehabilitative stage of training. This is because a full squat that is performed correctly indicates structural muscular balance in the lower limbs and sufficient flexibility of the ankles, knees and hips. If a trainee cannot perform a full squat with correct technique, specific flexibility and special exercises, such as split squats and step up variations, will be recommended to address the imbalances that prevent the client from full squatting.  

If I’ve accomplished anything in my dual career as a journalist and fitness professional, I hope I’ve encouraged nuance in our conversations about training. Nothing is black and white. There’s no such thing as one perfect technique that everyone should either master … or go into perpetual remedial training as a punishment for not being able to master that particular technique. 

When people start taking training seriously, they want to do the serious exercises. As fitness professionals, we can’t just say to them, “Sorry, but you’re not good enough to hang with us Kool Kids over here at the squat rack. Go back to the machines.”

Some guys, even elite athletes, will never get the hang of back squats with the full range of motion, as Mike Boyle has argued. His solution is to have them do front squats instead. 

I’m not trying to start an argument here so much as remind everyone that absolutes are counterproductive in any area, perhaps especially in the fitness industry. As Alwyn Cosgrove and others have said, when hardly anyone squats to begin with, do we really need to fight over things like this?

Tags: Tags: form, squats, training