Guy Walks Into a Squat Rack …

The biggest news last week, judging by the reaction on Internet strength-training forums, is Mike Boyle’s attack on conventional squats, particularly the part where he looks right into the camera and says, “Don’t do conventional squats anymore.”

Doesn’t get any less ambiguous than that.

Boyle’s rationale is that the weak link in squatting is the lower back, which he says is a poor transducer of power. The muscles of the legs are worked better in a split stance, where the back is less of a limiting factor. His preferred lower-body exercise is the rear-foot-elevated split squat, or RFESS. Most of us know it as the Bulgarian split squat.

I got the email from Mike the same day as everyone else. The difference is that I wasn’t really surprised by his position. When I was at TMUSCLE, I edited Mike’s article on split squats,…

Tags: Tags: deadlifts, mike boyle, split squats, squats, strength, training