Should You Squat Deep?
It’s an eternal debate. Fortunately I have the answer, well at least my answer.
Before we get into the question of loaded squats, whether you choose to full squat in the gym or not everyone should be able to rest in an unloaded deep squat position. From here you can make a decision about adding load for performance.
SO.. “SHOULD YOU FULL SQUAT?”
This article is written to express why I believe that we’re cutting the careers and performances of our athletes and clients short when we avoid full range of motion strength work, specifically squatting.
The mission of RealMVMT is self-knowledge and mobility is one of the foundations of movement self-knowledge.
But first, what is a full squat and how should they be performed.
1. Hamstrings should cover the calves.
2. Knees should track over the toes.
3. Trunk position should be as upright as possible.
4. Tension should be created and maintained throughout the movement with no change in vertebral angles throughout the movement.
Now. I know you and your athletes can’t do this. But before we load up the leg press and quarter squats, lets breath a little.
If you’re going to do multiple session / years with an athlete, take a step back and decide on the legacy you want to create. In the short-term we may have to sacrifice some load or even continue with some heavy partials. But in the long-term we want smooth capable athletes.
If like most strength coaches you don’t know how to progress super-tight athletes into full squats then we can work on solving that skill deficit.
Everyone can full squat. The question is not are you able, but are you willing.
1. Full joint surface development
I see low incidence of cartilage and meniscal damage with the athletes I work with. I believe it is partly because we train through full range which means the joint surfaces get load and laid builds smooth, strong, even surfaces. This has been studied in arthritis and in weightlifting populations.
2. Muscle Activation
We need glutes and VmO’s. Glutes and VmO’s are most active in the top and bottom position of the squats. Many athletes with dormant glutes can get by doing partial squats without using that big thing at the back that fills their shorts.
3. Vertical jump
Full squats correlate to vertical jump. Partial squats don’t tend to correlate. Vertical jump is a measure of brute power to weight ratio and has been identified as the most relevant score from the NFL combine testing for likelihood of success in the NFL. I can even show you how accurate this is. I used this formula with strong correlation for medium height guys, slight adjustments needed for the super short / tall.
J Strength Cond Res. 2012 Dec Hartmann H1, Wirth K, Klusemann M, Dalic J, Matuschek C, Schmidtbleicher D.
Influence of squatting depth on jumping performance.
Hartmann H1, Wirth K, Klusemann M, Dalic J, Matuschek C, Schmidtbleicher D.
4. Hips Don’t Lie
If all athletes had the pelvic control of Shakira we would see a lot less injuries and better performances. She certainly has more mobility than our elite athletes need but some more dexterity around the hips would be great.
Why can’t our athletes control pelvic tilt? Why are they unable to stand or sit for periods of time without back pain? Why can’t they sit on the floor, or even lay on a hard floor, without pain?
They’ve lost range of motion at the hips. Range of motion in extension and flexion (as well as all the other ones) is greatly decreased in athletic population, especially soccer. The best place to start to regain mobility is through full range of motion strength work. Start light, increase progressively. Eventually we can add end range isometrics and ballistic work once we have our foundation of strength and tissue tolerance.
When I went through uni 95% of exercise science students, myself included, couldn’t rest in a squat. Now I run workshops around the world and there are usually only 0-3 people in the room that can’t complete the first level of our squat mobility progression. Is that because people are doing more mobility work? The tests for standing pike and splits help us to debunk that theory. So what is it?
People full squat now. Whether through cross-fit or strength and conditioning facilities it’s very common to see people full-squat in high quality training facilities, where it was once like seeing a unicorn, full-squats are back in quality training facilities.
Almost hitting depth, it just looks wrong. Drop the weight back or go through regressions. “Looks right, flies right,” Charlie Francis said it. When I see my athletes and coaches full-squatting I know we’re creating a competitive advantage.
Back to Shakira, we can learn to control the hips in range that we can reach. Hips locked in anterior pelvic tilt create degenerative backs. I’ve heard this story dozens of times over, my back doesn’t ache all day anymore after 5, 10, 15 years of pain. All that changed was range of motion at the hips.
5. Avoid Decapitation – Movement is medicine
My dad had a bad hip from when he was younger than I am now. He knew then it would be replaced and he was right. Since first hearing about his hip, I heard that it’s often hereditary. Now I don’t believe that but when I started to do full squats at around 22 I knew that could be something to help me avoid my dads fate. So far so good, I have no hip pain or other chronic pains anywhere.
MORE AND MORE RUGBY LEAGUE PLAYERS ARE RESIGNED TO GETTING JOINTS REPLACED. PATHOLOGICALLY RESTRICTED RANGE OF MOTION IS A COMMON THREAD AMONG THESE GUYS.
We’re also seeing more anterior capsule and hip dislocation injuries than in the past. I believe these are increased as a result of not loading the hips sufficiently through range.
6. The Evolutionary Angle
As a culture, in the west we are FULL OF SHIT. This was proven to me again yesterday with advertisements for 3 different methods of alleviating constipation.
Instinctively sitting in a full squat feels good. All non-european countries can and do use the full squat position everyday of their lives.
The full squat is key for pelvic floor and digestive function. In the RealMOVEMENT whole systems approach to athletic development we want to optimise the body in as many ways as possible. Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman is essential reading to understand this perspective.
Picture from CNN – Squat from Real MOVEMENT Project ;)
7. Tissue length and integrity
When first exposing athletes to full squats with any load, you can expect serious DOMS. The body is remodelling itself. That remodelling is an upgrade to the system. It’s the underpinning tissue length and integrity that we want our athletes to have to avoid muscle and tendon injuries. Training full range is now little debated for biceps and triceps or calves but still the question is posed for the knees and hips. Train full range of motion.
8. Muscle Mass
Adding to this concept of remodelling is that hypertrophy, muscle remodelling in response to load, is greater through full range of motion training than with partial repetitions. Even when more weight is handled in partial ranges full range of motion training create more hypertrophy. Charles Poliquin has been a big advocate of this shift back to full range of movement heavily influenced by the weightlifting based systems of the old soviet block countries.
Charles Poliquin helped a lot of athletes get bigger and with that they experienced new levels of success. The connection between bodybuilding and strength/ power is very clear.
9. Your shoe laces are tied together
Acceleration mechanics become improvable with healthy active hip flexion range. When the extensors are super tight, the feet aren’t going to come off the floor and running is going to look horrible. For some super tight athletes we might need more time accumulated in the end position to restore healthy active range so our athletes can run again.
10. Full Range Wins
I’ve worked with thousands of athletes from around the world. On average those who can full squat move and perform significantly better than those who can’t.
As we changed athletes from being unable to full squat to being able to full squat performance improved.
11. “Tight Body Tight Mind” Elliot Hulse
Partial range athletes are often more rigid in their minds and movements.
I’m going to the Woo Woo here but I believe in looking at systems that have been passed through millennia carefully. Asian culture, built around a whole systems approach, believes control through range of motion. They’re right and as my teams have improved their mobility they have opened up to other methods of performance and life enhancement and left behind more self-destructive habits.
CASE AGAINST:
1. Horizontal Vs Vertical Force Production In Sprinting
You might say that running sports need horizontal force. You’re right for top speed but wrong for acceleration, deceleration, contact and agility. The game is one and lost in the later.
I love the work of Frans Bosch and enjoyed spending a day learning about his work in a private tutorial while at the Roosters. What he talks about great for sprinters and IS relevant to Rugby League and complex field sports. But it’s relevance decreases in high load chaotic sports vs featherweights doing straight line sprinting. We should be programming for horizontal strength / force production but I’ll still take the athletes with the best squats, deadlifts and especially farmers carries because they will man-handle and break the sprinters.
2. Injury risk
I’ve never had an injury with my athletes doing full squats. Keep concentric time under 2 seconds and the risk is very low. Load creating compressive forced will be much lower than with partial reps. Progressing athletes through the appropriate loaded mobility work to get to full range squats will also do wonders for hip, knee and lower back health.
Unstable, unskilled athletes who have trouble executing a squat are going to have a lot of trouble being great athletes. If they are co-ordinated athletes in their sport but can’t get the squat pattern down then it’s the strength coach, not the athlete that has the deficit in ability
3. Unloaded Range
There are those that say YES Full Squat BUT without load.
They’ll use bands, rollers, flossing and other soft tissue work has reached epidemic proportions. I hear they’re working on a vaccine to stop the spread (hopefully more effective than flu shots).
Sure you can manipulate the central nervous system, play with pain response and push on tissues to gain range. But will that help you have Shakira’s dexterity or the joint integrity of a weightlifter? We need load and skill around our joints for them to function. In highly pathological joints manual therapy should be used together with progressive loading.
They also do very low intensity mobility drills popular in American athlete development systems. The ineffectiveness of this work without load can be seen every time you watch an elite rugby or soccer team warm-up. They’re doing drill after drill with the same restricted range of motion year after year. Effective mobility training has not reached 99% of elite team sports.
Still with persistence low intensity mobility can work for some athlete. BUT why would we stop at just being able to squat with no weight or overhead squat a broomstick? Why not progress to being capable of pistol squats, goblet squats and double bodyweight full squats? Being able to deal with more force in more positions is a more skilled and resilient athlete. Most athletes are a long way from their potential in leg strength and are therefore leaving speed and acceleration gains in the gym.
4. Partials = Performance
This is a strong case. In the high-jump you only take off from the last part of the range of motion of the knee and the hip. And yet elite high-jumpers still full squat. Are they lost?
For all the reasons above they still full squat. More than likely they will also do heavy partial reps. This work is used during the peaking phase of periodised programs closer to competition to make sure that the specific range for performance is maximally strengthened. I believe in partial repetitions and isometrics. They’ve been used throughout the ages when results were all that mattered. BUT.
If we only use partials then we are opening the door to injury and will require a lot more soft-tissue work to keep joints and muscles happy. Most athletes can handle 2.5-4 times bodyweight through partial range. If there is no foundation with 1-2 times bodyweight lifting then its more likely that injury will result from this partial range lifting.
Most athletes that don’t squat because their backs hurt have actually never done a squat. They’ve done heavy partials with poor form and muscle activation and then reverted back to leg press and knee extensions when the pain got too much.
5. Butt Wink
“Athletes can’t avoid butt wink so they shouldn’t full squat.”
The idea that we should avoid loaded flexion aka Stuart Mcgill’s research and believers is null and void for complex sport environments. In sports that involve wrestling or bending high loads under flexion are not just unavoidable they’re a critical aspect of performance, part of whether you win or lose.
People of ancient greeks and long before them lifted stones. They were right in doing so. We’re not made of tissue paper or sugar candy as Churchill would say, and so we don’t need to be concerned about gently loading the spine in positions that it will be aggressively loaded in during competition.
While I do use a lot round back pulling movements it’s not the goal while back squatting. So we build the mobility athletes need with full range strength work and and of range loaded movements and from there we progressively add more load until we have reached the desired level of athleticism.
Again I’m aware that true mobility development isn’t taught in strength and conditioning education so it’s understandable that most people don’t see this as an option and instead choose not to squat.
6. Femur Length
Yes some people are built to squat more so than others. My question is, if you used a hole in the ground toilet from 1 year old to now, would you be able to squat? I believe so. I don’t think there are people in China that have to hover squat over a whole.
For those that do have unfavourable leverages that grew up with the disfiguring daily use of chairs and toilets. Elevate the heels a little, lifting shoes will probably be enough when you add some load. You can also look at abducting the knees a little more, Klokov style, knees out. You will also notice that you need to max out your dorsi-flexion range and use your quads more to be able to get out of the whole with good form.
Not everyone is built to have a bolt upright chinese weightlifting squat but there are a lot less unique snowflakes who are unable to squat than what is being claimed. You can either look for solutions or look for excuses. Whichever you search for you will succeed.
STILL NOT MOTIVATED TO SQUAT DEEP AND HEAVY??
SO EVERYONE ALWAYS HAS TO SQUAT FULL RANGE ALL THE TIME??
No.
Partial squats have their place.
There will be around 5% of rugby athletes who will need a lot more time / load to change because of a decade or two of limited movement. Sometimes this athlete may not have the desire to regain the squat or time may not be on your side to change this athlete within the months / years you have access to them. 95% will lose if you apply this strategy across the board.
The debate will continue. Below are the life changing experiences of some of the RealMOVEMENT Mentorship Coaches Experiences with full squats.
Full range squat and partial range squat aren’t exactly interchangeable because they serve very distinct purposes. ATG squat is for general strength in full range of motion. I’m sure even the guys Rohan is battling with are trying to achieve “triple extension” but being strong in triple flexion should be a prerequisite! Partial range like Anderson squats or box squats are for specific adaptations either during a particular phase or even concurrently with full range. Anderson squat to overcome inertia at varying heights specific to athlete’s needs. Box squats to train speed and RFD i.e. dynamic effort method which is far more effective I’ve found than just trying to full range squat at 0.8m/s
Pat Lane – Sydney Roosters Strength Coach (190kg Back Squat at 89kg)
Pat Lane – Sydney Roosters Strength Coach (190kg Back Squat at 89kg)
After having an ACL recon at 16 ( patella tendon ) with two arthroscopes afterwards. I was told by my specialist not to squat. I grew up protecting that knee, didn’t kneel on it much as it hurt, possibly from the middle third of my patella tendon being removed.
Arthritis was developing, cold weather aching etc. I still competed in a lot of things but very poor knee mobility which also affected hips etc.
I’ve been squatting now for just over three years.. Knee has never felt better, hips are better & mobility is increasing alleviating pain I used to feel in several areas.
How dumb it was to stop moving my body the way it was designed to move! Full squats all the way.
Phil Evans – Performance Coach (140×3 Back Squat)
We have 3 fundamental positions
1- standing up
2 – lying down
3 – deep squat
Being able to achieve full resting deep squat will unlock a new capacity to rest and avoid sitting !!
Sitting is not a position we where ever designed for. Just look at the skin surface of your butt , it’s soft and smooth therefore I believe it’s not a contact surface. However the surface of your hands and feet are rough and hard as they are deigned to be in contact with the environment around us.
Adrian O Brien – Performance Coach, Ireland (Sub 11 100m)
When someone comes to me, my goal is always to give them what is needed to experience a full squat. I’ve had very few cases where it’s something that couldn’t be done with time and patience. I believe this feeling of a win is big enough right there to have an effect for the client (only looking at psychologically) before anything else is even considered.
Luke Sharp – Brisbane Performance Coach
I had played most age grade rep for NZ, schools, 16s, 19s etc and during this time had horrible Patella tendinitis. It continued throughout my whole career and I was only ever told to squat partially. I hated it but the pain was a deterrent enough to take the Physios, sports docs, surgeons etc advice. I had countless knee injuries but the 2 biggies were Patella tendon ruptures R (straight rupture & medial ligaments L was horrible a combo of pcl, quad & Medial) along with this was the damage done to meniscus. Both recon surgeries took about a year to come back from. I was told by every supposed skilled professional that I should never squat. By this stage I had enough of what the so called professionals had told me and took it on myself to regain my squat ass to grass. Paired with mobility i only did bodyweight and pistol squats for about 6months. Result a full ass to grass squat with minimal pain. I continued with adding load and was extremely patient to the point where I am at today. I am a big believer in joint fortification now through diet and movement and refuse to accept that athletes shouldn’t full
Squat because of my own experiences. My knees have never felt better. Yes I do get a lil arthritis now & then but I think I would be a lot worse off if I didn’t push through with my regaining squat range journey. I was always king of the gym in my teams and had a lot of
Power which I still wish I had today lol was it that i didn’t have the muscle mass in vmos, Hammies, quads to support the efficient neural strength/power I had. Who knows, maybe. However I truly believe now that if I squatted full range without the ego I may still be running out there on Saturdays.
Ezra Taylor – Brisbane (110kg Snatch)
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