I am at college playing football at the d2 level and have a bit of experience in power lifting during the off-season, as such box squats are nothing new to me. The other night I went into the gym to get an extra lift in and saw a group of guys from my team doing squats that they held in the hole for 10 full seconds before reversing them.
These guys are notorious for having horrible form and no clue what they are doing, so I went up and asked them what they were doing and who told them to squat this way, they responded by saying that their high-school pl coach taught them this. I thought they were full of crap and the idea of holding a squat that long didn’t make any sense to me. It wouldn’t logically make someone more explosive in my opinion. Wanted to see what some of the vets thought about this from an powerlifting/athletic standpoint.
It is a way to eliminate all remnants of the stretch reflex of the quads to get out of the hole and to build bottom power. When I was oly lifting, my coach would have us do these sometimes, stopping at rock bottom. If their form is horrible it might actually help them (if they know what they are doing) as it forces you to support the weight for an extended period of time in a mechanically disadvantageous position, the same position where forward drifting is most likely to occur. 10 seconds seems a bit long as we usually gave it a three-five count. From an athletic training point of view I think it is something you should think about doing if your form blows or for something different every once in awhile.
Well, paused lifts are supposed to help strengthen the bottom of a lift by removing the stretch shortening cycle (SSC). But as far as I know it’s 4 secs at most. I’m not sure of the explosiveness aspect, but it might help as there’s no “elastic energy” component to help with the lift, and so you need a higher rate of force development to get the bar moving.
But from an athletic standpoint, I’m not sure of it’s application. After all, stuff like plyometrics is used to maximise the SSC rather than negate it.
[quote]rugb328 wrote:
I am at college playing football at the d2 level and have a bit of experience in power lifting during the off-season, as such box squats are nothing new to me. The other night I went into the gym to get an extra lift in and saw a group of guys from my team doing squats that they held in the hole for 10 full seconds before reversing them.
These guys are notorious for having horrible form and no clue what they are doing, so I went up and asked them what they were doing and who told them to squat this way, they responded by saying that their high-school pl coach taught them this. I thought they were full of crap and the idea of holding a squat that long didn’t make any sense to me. It wouldn’t logically make someone more explosive in my opinion. Wanted to see what some of the vets thought about this from an powerlifting/athletic standpoint.
Thanks,
Rugb328
[/quote]
I do squats from pins, starting at parallel - so I can practice exploding out of the bottom and not having a stretch reflex help me. Only every 3-4 weeks though.
But sitting on a box for 10 seconds with a heavy weight on your back is retarded, I agree.
i was having trouble folding at the bottom with heavy weight. my coach had me do some heavy front squats to about 2" lower than normal and pausing at the bottom for a 3 count before exploding up. it helped cure my folding problem, that and more heavy core work.
[quote]xander_92 wrote:
As everyone else said…10 sec is probably too much…PL coach told me to do 3 sec pauses at the bottom while squatting…his explanation was…
“going down to parallel and directly shooting up isn’t powerlifting…your real strength appears after those 3 seconds.”[/quote]
your powerlifting coach would be an idiot if he said that. sure you got it right? sure you didn’t confuse the bench press and squat? no rule in powerlifting (in any organization) requiring any pause whatsoever in the squat. pause squats have their place as a training methodology, but the quote above on its own merit is hogwash.
Well, there is some truth to his statement, but it seems a little misguided. If you start from a dead stop on the squat below parallel (pin squats), you will remove the stretch reflex from the movement, making it require starting strength more. For athletes, stretch reflex is a necessary thing to utilize and train because it requires power and force, two things that athletes want.
While I do believe that there is room in an athletes training for dead-stop training, I think that it’s more important to train utilizing the stretch reflex on the squat.
[quote]ebomb5522 wrote:
Well, there is some truth to his statement, but it seems a little misguided. If you start from a dead stop on the squat below parallel (pin squats), you will remove the stretch reflex from the movement, making it require starting strength more. For athletes, stretch reflex is a necessary thing to utilize and train because it requires power and force, two things that athletes want.
While I do believe that there is room in an athletes training for dead-stop training, I think that it’s more important to train utilizing the stretch reflex on the squat. [/quote]
I agree with everything you said (I basically implied the same) except for the “there is some truth to the statement”. There is NO truth to the statement whatsoever. Starting strength and dynamic strength and all the permutations in between are all necessary for strength development. To imply that powerlifting only begins after those 3 seconds (as a pause in the bench press) in the squat, is patently false. No one pauses in a squat in a competition. No one! But yes, there is value to training that element of strength. The statement “as is” written is patently false and wrong.
All that’s going to do is teach you to be slow on the reversal when in fact, you need to be quick.
Not to mention you are in a pretty vulnerable position in the hole and to over exaggerate it that much is really misguided and just begging for injury.
It’s right up there with squatting from pins. It makes no sense whatsoever for a PL.
Absolutely retarded idea, especially for football players.
I can see a 1-3 second pause or box squats for a PL but for football players you want a stronger stretch reflex and aren’t worried about being able to pause.
Plus the stretch reflex should only last about 1-2 seconds in most people. What is the point of adding an extra 8 seconds. This only decreases the load a lot more. Why not drop the weight down more and do a 20 second hold? Its just stupid.
MAYBE the thinking behind it was that since football players at the line are in a squat position for anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds before the snap, perhaps the thinking is to have them get used to pausing in the hole so they can stay explosive once the play begins?
Just trying to make sense of it, not saying I agree with it.
[quote]ultimatethor wrote:
To play devil’s advocate…
MAYBE the thinking behind it was that since football players at the line are in a squat position for anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds before the snap, perhaps the thinking is to have them get used to pausing in the hole so they can stay explosive once the play begins?
Just trying to make sense of it, not saying I agree with it.[/quote]
Well, I would love to see the stance they were teaching if this were the case.
[quote]ultimatethor wrote:
To play devil’s advocate…
MAYBE the thinking behind it was that since football players at the line are in a squat position for anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds before the snap, perhaps the thinking is to have them get used to pausing in the hole so they can stay explosive once the play begins?
Just trying to make sense of it, not saying I agree with it.[/quote]
If anything it would make much more sense for them to get in their stance for 10 seconds, and then push a sled or prowler 10yards instead of training this way on squats.
[quote]ultimatethor wrote:
To play devil’s advocate…
MAYBE the thinking behind it was that since football players at the line are in a squat position for anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds before the snap, perhaps the thinking is to have them get used to pausing in the hole so they can stay explosive once the play begins?
Just trying to make sense of it, not saying I agree with it.[/quote]
you would build the stretch reflex by naturally getting into a biomechanical advantageous position. you wouldnt lose it.
Sometimes training like that is used for power activities. Lets say theres 3 forms of jumping
a static jump (ie starting from the bottom with a 4 sec pause and exploding up)
countermovement jump (starting from top–> eccentric followed by a quick concentric phase)
Drop jump (starting from a box and jumping down and straight back up)
In theory your lowest jump should be the static and your highest should be your drop jump. I cant remember the exact difference but its something like an extra 10% higher for each one. If there is a lareg discrepancy between them you can generally see whats your weakest link. For example if your CMJ was 30% higher than your SJ then training from the bottom and exploding up may be useful. If there wasnt much difference between DJ and CMJ then obviously your quick phase SSC is crap and you need to build it up
Something like that anyway so i can see why they may have been using it. But as mentioned 10 sec is a bit exaggerated
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
xander_92 wrote:
As everyone else said…10 sec is probably too much…PL coach told me to do 3 sec pauses at the bottom while squatting…his explanation was…
“going down to parallel and directly shooting up isn’t powerlifting…your real strength appears after those 3 seconds.”
your powerlifting coach would be an idiot if he said that. sure you got it right? sure you didn’t confuse the bench press and squat? no rule in powerlifting (in any organization) requiring any pause whatsoever in the squat. pause squats have their place as a training methodology, but the quote above on its own merit is hogwash.
[/quote]
well I do know that…but not in my country…PL competitions here require a 3 sec pause in deadlift lockout before lowering the bar slowly…3 sec pause at bottom bench press position…and a 1 sec pause for the squat…at least those are the rules for the competition coming up this August.
so i can see why they may have been using it. But as mentioned 10 sec is a bit exaggerated