Myosynthesis Forums

Hey Matt,

I posted this in your comments to the article you had about high-bar squats, but it seems like there may be further evidence that validates high bar squatting:

http://powerandbulk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic...471#645471

Now Paul doesn't outright state that high-bar squatting is better. In fact his article about raw squatting promotes low bar squatting. You can read it here:
http://functional-strength.blogspot.com/...-pt-i.html

But the statements regarding quad involvement relative to hamstring and glute involvement seem to lead toward that direction, assuming the statements reflect fact and are not an interpretation of something else entirely. If quads bear the brunt of the load in a squat (order of 49%), the hamstrings do not change materially in percentage of load borne regardless of depth, and the glutes become more involved as depth increases, then it stands to reason that a exercise matching this description would stimulate all muscles accordingly. Which would lead to strength gains (waving hands here).

Certainly any squat would match this to a wide degree, but the high bar deep squat would seem to be the optimal exercise to stimulate and thus strengthen all involved muscles. The quads would be a major driver anyways, the hamstring involvement would remain the same, and the glute involvment would increase given that the depth of the high bar squat is about as deep as one can go in any type of squat. And if it is the optimal exercise to strengthen those muscles, it may be why the carry over from this squat versus the low bar is much more profound. This seems to align with the principle of full-body ROM exercises being the optimal exercises for becoming stronger, and squats are definitely full-body ROM when done deep

This is really intriguing, assuming the statements are indeed true. I can't comment on knee safety in either squat since I have no experience with it or a violation of it, but I assume doing a squat correctly in context of bar placement on the body, should strengthen the target areas while being safe to execute.

I'm placing them as a volume workout for my 5/3/1 squat days. I'll see how it progresses. If it brings up my deadlift and lowbar squat everything will start to make sense again. I'm not treating it as a cure-all, but if it helps I'd be stupid not to try it.

Hey famendoza, how's it coming along? Sorry if you've written about it in your journal..

With the frequency training, I've gravitated towards the high-bar almost exclusively. Last week I hit a recent PR of an easy 170kg in training (no-no-no), using that style. I'm good for over 400 lbs at a peak.

I notice that I can play with the bar position, and high or low doesn't matter so much, but the stance on my strongest squats is narrow and the form emulates an OLer.

(08-07-2010 08:32 AM)ThePman Wrote: [ -> ]With the frequency training, I've gravitated towards the high-bar almost exclusively. Last week I hit a recent PR of an easy 170kg in training (no-no-no), using that style. I'm good for over 400 lbs at a peak.

I notice that I can play with the bar position, and high or low doesn't matter so much, but the stance on my strongest squats is narrow and the form emulates an OLer.

Have you noticed a strength carryover to your other standing lifts recently, like the deadlift, since you have been consistently training in a OLer style squat?
I remember you wrote about your test with the deadlift at 500lbs, which netted you 5 reps instead of just one. I would have figured leg strength and back strength would be contributions the OLer squat would have given you, but what about the grip?

I've been doing very little DL testing recently. When I have a good pulling day, I think I'm getting stronger, but heavy pulls are not compatible with regular squatting so it's been really hard to tell. The best pulling I've done lately has been 185kg for 3x3 hook-gripped on a 3" platform (no belt). I have to keep reminding myself that a hard pull workout needs to be a once-a-month kind of thing these days, or at the very least alternate weeks.

No idea where my top-end strength would be, probably still sitting around 250kg knowing my asshole pull. At this point I'm just trying to ease the squat back up, because in the long run that will help the pull more than the other way around. I'm to a point now where I'm almost confident enough to put 180+ on this quad without it blowing, but I'm also not taking any risks. That may be another month or two yet. Volume is doing its job well enough.

Anecdotes from the past couple of weeks of training:

- I'm comfortable in a narrow stance squatting, which is to say as narrow as my pulling stances, in both the back squat or the front squat. However for the overhead squat, a wider stance is necessary for balance. I have no balance issues in the front or back squat, and I feel very tight and strong when I have basically about a foot (outer heel edge to outer heel edge) in width, and no more.

- On all squats, feet are 30-45 degree angles. I find the more it goes towards 45 degrees, the more upright I can stay on the front squat. I tend towards 30 degrees on the back squat. The overhead squat in terms of foot angle is the same as the front, and it's strong when it is and weak when its not.

- My foot stance on the front squat is not an duplicate of my clean recovery. I notice my recovery foot placement has a material difference and is a wider stance than my front squat. I have no problems recovering so far however. Overhead squat and Snatch Balance have similar recovery foot placements to the Snatch. However, I don't see leg strength being a factor in Overhead recovery, more so the ability to maintain a tight torso and keep my elbows locked and shoulders shrugged. So while it matters in the Front Squat (because recent clean recoveries have been iffy and it wasn't a matter of torso strength there), it does less so in the Overhead. I will probably eat my words later on.

- My grip on the bar is thumbs around. Rippetoe was partially right that doing so encourages the trainee to have a tendency to "support" the bar with the arms. I'm doing high bar, so it's less prevalent to support using the arms, but I do find I still get tight sore elbows after a heavy set of three.

- I noticed with a high-bar position, I've lost the ability to determine the right bar path to go on the concentric. The last set of 130kg squats had two hard reps, followed by an "easy" rep. The definition of easy rep is any rep where there's no sensation that I will lose the rep because I'm stuck in motion. I remember leaning slightly forward to get it up there, but without a camera I can't tell if that's compensation, or that I was actually moving the bar up and down straight (aka correctly) on the last rep without knowing it.

- I don't remember where I read this (it was online that's for sure) but there's a loose correlation between back squats and the snatch. IIRC the correlation is that most people who train the snatch consistently can usually snatch 40% of their 1RM squat. Since I'm closing in on a recent max (150kg), it probably stands to reason that I should be grateful I'm snatching anywhere near 80kg, and that I was able to even get a 80kg snatch at all. Of course, the inverse is that I should probably be squatting more for my weight (87kg). I know it's passive and lazy thinking, but if I get my squat up, I should (waving hands here) see an increase in my snatch. Hopefully it happens and I don't just eat my words.

That's my contribution outside my training log for this month.

I'm embarassed to say this is the first time i have ever seen the idea of high bar squatting mentioned. that will teach me to have ignored the forums for several years.

(09-14-2010 09:25 PM)ArnoldBlack Wrote: [ -> ]I'm embarassed to say this is the first time i have ever seen the idea of high bar squatting mentioned. that will teach me to have ignored the forums for several years.

Perhaps, but you've probably been doing them for years all this time. It's the default place anyone's gonna put the bar if they want to work legs. There's just been an attempt in the past few years to categorize squats amongst newbie trainees given that they stumble upon Stronglifts or Starting Strength on the web, almost to divide up a really useful exercise as a political statement for some purpose or another.

I don't think I can even categorize mine either way. The bar position seems to float around with me, with heavier weights feeling more comfortable in the low position and getting a little more GM-ish. Even with a real straight-up OL/high-bar form, the actual mechanics of the lift aren't that different; my foot placement is the same regardless.

I can attest to the GM-ish nature of the high-bar squat, as yesterday mine turned out to be almost so on the HEAVY reps. One thing I found that alleviates my tendency toward crap form was to really drive the bar into my torso - low-bar or high-bar. The bar feels almost like part of my body then, which for some reason makes for an easier rep. It think it could also prevent me from raising my left heel off the floor, which happened more than once in the set I did yesterday. Both bar placements require than I tighten the shoulder correctly for this drive to work. I just need to have the discipline to do this all the time, as I get lazy as the squats get heavier and forget key pieces of info like this. I just want the damn thing to be over with!