Squats, Again!

Part 2: Keeping Everything In Line

Mark Brown

April 12, 2022

The last time I did a squat centric entry was at time when my squat was probably the least ascendant of my 3 main lifts. That has changed recently because of the focus that I have put on improving the lift, though unconscious of it at the time, and a cue I picked up on during training in February that helped my form allow me to get more work done. That cue is what the bulk of this entry will be about because it’s the most important reason for the increase. I’ve stated before I’m no expert on squatting but I think it’s important to pass on what I felt helped really push that lift higher.

To start I think it’s best if I go through the non-form related squat things I did to help increase squat over the period of January through early March 2022 at the gym. In addition to the main lift low bar and high bar straight bar squats I did, I emphasized upper back and hamstring development. I did that through barbell rows, barbell good mornings, and single leg leg curls after the traditional deadlifts that followed my main low bar squat lift on Mondays. On Fridays, I used sumo deadlift after my main high bar squat movement and followed that with cable rows, prone leg curls, adductor and abductor machines. I also found that my shoulder presses, especially standing overhead presses, were really helping upper back strength because of the way I always lifted from my collarbone all the way to the lock out position overhead every time. Traditional deadlift and leg press helped keep developing the quadriceps as well, of course. It didn’t hit me as to why the effort level to complete the previous weeks squat weights was decreasing. Each week it seemed like it wasn’t as max effort as the week before. The moment crystallized when I squatted 405 pounds for the first time since November 2021 with under max effort on March 8.

March 21, 2022 was the first time using my cambered bar to squat since October or November 2021. A cambered bar squat places the weight slightly in front of the body and at the waist when doing the lift. The first couple sets I was back on my heels and the reps really weren’t good. I was off balance. It wasn’t until I started on my set at 355 that I leaned forward slightly to put the weight in line with my quadriceps and I found my position was a lot stronger. I produced better quality reps after that. I start there when writing about form because that cue was one I had realized weeks before in the gym in February. I can’t give an exact squat session that I give credit to for it. I noticed that I was in my most powerful position was the the straight bar I was using to squat with was directly over my legs. That allowed me to perform the lift as best I could given the weight on my shoulders. More importantly, I was able to do 12-16 3 rep sets in the 90% 1RM range without undue back strain. In effect, by squatting with the load directly over my legs I was both stronger and in a safer position even though I was lifting near max intensity twice a week.

Is any of that an epiphany to me? No. Even though I have squatted twice a week since fall of 2020, that internal reminder hasn’t always gone off. In many ways, it’s the most important thing when dealing with a squat, especially because gravity has a big say in whatever happens. The cue was brought even more to front of my mind while performing standing overhead press with a barbell. Completing that lift with the bar even slightly in front of me made that task much harder. I thought about that a minute and applied that to a squat rep and it helps everything make sense. I was able to go back to those squats I did in February where everything was in line and it all clicked in my head.

What makes this realization more interesting is that it helps me understand squatting better on the whole. There are tons of ways to do barbell squats with a straight bar and each has a specific reason why one would do them. Understanding them will help someone program the right squat for them or a client. Seeing where the bar is over the legs on the various squat options helps a lifter get what the point of the lift is and how to get there. Low bar squats produce more action from hamstring and glutei at the bottom end than a high bar squat. When seeing, or in my case feeling, the difference it really made me concentrate on keeping my legs under the bar. The difference doesn’t visually look like much but the feeling is quite stark. Front squats have always been trouble for me in part because my front rack position is very wide. To keep the bar over the legs in a front squat, one must have a much more vertical back position. To make that happen the knees move first and the hips follow, a reverse from either of the back squats I mentioned prior. The movement is a killer quad centric squat and is a must do for Weightlifters because clean and jerk and snatch all come from the front rack position. I have difficulty keeping the bar over my legs when performing a front squat. To put it in perspective, my 1RM for a low bar squat is 415 pounds and I don’t trust myself to do 185 pounds on front squat. The same thing applies for zercher squats because they are also done from the front.

When squatting a lifter is always dealing with the twin factors of weight and gravity. If a lifter’s position is good and the bar is where it needs to be but the weight is too much or close to it, it’s possible to complete the lift. The lift may look and/or feel off but it got done then racked properly. Any complications from completing said lift come from the load being too great to be done 100% properly. If a lifter’s bar position is compromised for some reason, then they will be dealing with both of them at the same time. That is a losing proposition almost every time. The primary reason for that is that gravity enhances the feeling of the weight on the body. There are tons of videos on Youtube that involve squat fails. The primary type of squat fail that I see in those videos is when the bar position drifts towards the knees. Those clips usually end with someone having the bar hit them on the back of the head as their body hits the floor ass end up. This failure is what happens when the bar being in front of the legs meets a weight that is too heavy for legs the push up. There are a few other factors that make this kind of failure catastrophic but those don’t have anything to do with bar alignment or weight. The other negative consequences are the damage done to the central nervous system (CNS), spine and/or muscles by completing the lift with that kind of rep. Those kinds of pain can linger for a lifetime in the worst case scenario. Rounding the back on squats and deadlifts isn’t always terrible but I don’t particularly advise doing it a lot. Letting the bar drift backward without support can have the a lot of the same damage if a lifter tries to save the lift. More often than not the lifter just looks silly for trying to defy gravity. Easiest thing to do in those cases is to go down to the safety pins slowly if in a power rack or let it go if out in the open. If the lifter in this case doesn’t do either of those solutions, they will end up going ass up like the others. Front squats are the safest in regards to failure because the way out of a failed lift is to simply drop the bar while making sure the lifter’s legs are out of the way.

The overarching point of this entry is that the weight on the bar is enough to overcome on its own. There is no need to add the force multiplier effect of gravity on that weight. Keeping the weight in line with the legs on the way down to the hole ensures that the lifter is in the strongest possible leverage position and removes gravity from the lift for the most part. Since the vast majority of lifters will only use a straight bar, that means the the bar and plates needs to be over the the quadriceps. The biggest reason for the development of my squat over the first couple months of 2022 has been because I was about to do tons of reps, 858 total with vast majority of them at above 75% as of Week 11, without doing too much wear and tear to my back because I was more aware of my bar position.