Paralysis by Analysis, Part 2

Most of you think that Part 1 doesn’t apply to you since I was targeting beginners, yet I’ve gotten questions on sets and rep schemes for curls and RDLs. Most programs are more complicated than they need to be. By only making a program more complicated when it has to be in order to advance strength, you’ll avoid worrying too much about it.

Yet almost all of you worry too much about your technique, particularly the low bar squat. The low bar squat isn’t as simple as going down and then coming back up; it’s harder than a power snatch or clean. But once you do some reading and research it, and the other barbell lifts, aren’t terribly hard. Don’t over complicate back angles, knee movements, and elbow positions. Most of you do, and it makes my job as the teacher via website more complicated. If I want to discuss what the knees are doing at the bottom of a squat, then all the Starting Strength fans get all worried and start analyzing their lifting footage. When I teach, I will give all of the technical details that I can, but I’ll take a step back and simplify it.

With coaching, we use “cues” to get the lifter to make a correction. Cues should apply a conceptual lesson and be a reminder for the practical lesson. All of you who have taught yourself how to squat lose out on the practical lesson and may miss out on at least half of the conceptual. But don’t worry! It’ll be okay, I promise. There are some very basic cues for each lift that will eliminate at least 75% of your problems.

Regardless of the type of squat, shove your knees out and think “mid-foot”. Shoving the knees out facilitates depth because the femur is no longer getting pushed into the Anterior Superior Iliac Spine (ASIS), or the hip pointer. Rippetoe detailed this in full in his “Active Hip” article. The femur can now move in a range of motion outside of the ASIS and get better depth. More importantly, the external rotators of the hip are contracted since the hip is in external rotation, and the adductors and, to a lesser extent, the hamstrings are stretched and under tension. Contraction in the external rotators and tension in the adductors means there is more tightness and muscle action around the hip, which makes for a stable, stronger squat. Yes, there are some frivolities between high bar and low bar (and even the wide stance high bar positioned lean-over-with-vertical-shins-as-if-we’re-wearing-a-squat-suit-even-though-we’re-lifting-raw squat, which is ridiculous), yet if all squatters focus on shoving the knees out, they are going to get stronger better than had they not. The “mid-foot” is directly in front of the heel of the foot (if you place your finger at the front (or arch side) of where your heel begins, that’s it). By imagining the load balanced on that point, the bar can track up and down over that point easier regardless of where the bar is positioned. This will help prevent backward and more specifically forward movement (that brings the lifter on their toes and jerks the knees forward at the bottom).

When deadlifting, it’s best to start with the bar over the foot and drag the bar up the shins and thighs. Getting the scapula over the bar is ideal, but that adds a third thing to think about. Instead, just set up with the bar over the mid-foot (often where the laces are tied), touch the shins to the bar, and drag it up the legs. Of course you should be squeezing your chest up and trying to have an extended back — this should be obvious — but worrying about the angle of the back and muscle activation is just going to complicate things. If the bar is dragged up the legs and doesn’t flop forward, then it’s going to be pretty damn efficient. If you can consistently do these two things (start with bar over mid-foot, drag it up legs), then you can start worrying about the frivolities. However, you’ll find there aren’t many of them.

Pressing merely requires a that your elbows are underneath or slightly in front of the bar at the start, and a vertical bar path. If you’re doing touch and go, you’ll have to think about bringing the bar straight down from the top — “keep it close” is a good cue that implies the bar should be close to the face.

These are all very simple cues. Before you even begin to think about worrying about what’s going on with your squat, make sure that you are addressing these cues. If your knees are shooting forward at the bottom of the squat, and you aren’t shoving the shit out of your knees and thinking mid-foot, then once you cue those two things, it’ll probably clear itself up. If you can’t keep the deadlift on your shins at the start of the pull, then you need to cue the “bar over mid-foot” and “drag against legs” cues. The fact that the bar is flopping away from you means that either your butt is too low or the shoulders aren’t extending, but you worrying about that is irrelevant if you’re not following the first two simple cues.

Most of you over complicate things because you try and learn how a system works by memorizing the “cause and effect” of the parts. You see the knees going forward and here an authority say, “The back angle is too vertical” so you associate all forward knee issues with a vertical torso. Or you see a thread on someone who was leaning over way too much in their squat and worry that you are too. Keep in mind that you aren’t the coach. You have to learn how the system, in this case the body as a whole, functions within each movement instead of how the body parts function in a specific scenario. In the squat and deadlift the trunk, thigh, and shin segments are all related. In the squat, a vertical torso will not have as much flexion at the bottom compared to a torso with more angle. This effects the musculature of the hip, but also the positioning and musculature around the knee. But that’s all fucking irrelevant because you’re not the coach.

Trying to make an analysis, especially on a video on the internet of someone you don’t know, is probably only going to confuse you and that person. And I’m not even getting to the situations when there are 5 things wrong in someone’s squat and the interwebz tells them how to fix 9 things. A lifter should only think about a maximum of two cues when they lift; anything else fucks things up. If the above cues are followed, then most problems will be non-existent or not a big deal.

Stop worrying so much about what your technique looks like and how it compares to other people. Just make sure it has a baseline of efficiency. You’ll be okay. I promise.