Squatting with Raised Heels vs. Flat

Training Bodybuilding
21

[quote]dnlcdstn wrote:

[quote]forbes wrote:
heels elevated will allow a more upright torso and therefore more quad activation. So if you have a hard time activating your quads in the squat, elevate your heels.[/quote]

I don’t disagree with you, but I don’t understand how this helps. I and most that I train with tend to fall forward on all squat variations. Wouldn’t this make it worse. Someone straighten me out b/c my quads suck and I could use all the help I can get.[/quote]
Working on ankle mobility will help you stay more upright as well in flat footed squats.

22

[quote]Matsa wrote:
It depends on how you’re built and so on. Some people benefit from elevated heels and some people don’t, some are actually hindered by it. Like Forbes said, they can make it easier to keep the torso upright among other things.

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]forbes wrote:
heels elevated will allow a more upright torso and therefore more quad activation. So if you have a hard time activating your quads in the squat, elevate your heels.[/quote]

Yes. However, if you plan to compete in PLing, don’t get in the habit of doing this. For BBing purposes, nothing wrong with it. [/quote]

Care to elaborate on this so I don’t misunderstand you? It sounds a little strange to me since it’s not exactly uncommon for powerlifters to use shoes with elevated heels.[/quote]

It’s simply a habit thing. If you’re used to having heels elevated, then in comp you naturally won’t, so you can use maximum weight, it will cause technique problems for lack of practice. I’ve honestly never heard of powerlifters using elevated heels, where’d you hear/see that?

23

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]Matsa wrote:
It depends on how you’re built and so on. Some people benefit from elevated heels and some people don’t, some are actually hindered by it. Like Forbes said, they can make it easier to keep the torso upright among other things.

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]forbes wrote:
heels elevated will allow a more upright torso and therefore more quad activation. So if you have a hard time activating your quads in the squat, elevate your heels.[/quote]

Yes. However, if you plan to compete in PLing, don’t get in the habit of doing this. For BBing purposes, nothing wrong with it. [/quote]

Care to elaborate on this so I don’t misunderstand you? It sounds a little strange to me since it’s not exactly uncommon for powerlifters to use shoes with elevated heels.[/quote]

It’s simply a habit thing. If you’re used to having heels elevated, then in comp you naturally won’t, so you can use maximum weight, it will cause technique problems for lack of practice. I’ve honestly never heard of powerlifters using elevated heels, where’d you hear/see that?[/quote]

They dont. Ever. Weightlifters (olympic lifters) wear shoes with heels.

24

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]Matsa wrote:
It depends on how you’re built and so on. Some people benefit from elevated heels and some people don’t, some are actually hindered by it. Like Forbes said, they can make it easier to keep the torso upright among other things.

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]forbes wrote:
heels elevated will allow a more upright torso and therefore more quad activation. So if you have a hard time activating your quads in the squat, elevate your heels.[/quote]

Yes. However, if you plan to compete in PLing, don’t get in the habit of doing this. For BBing purposes, nothing wrong with it. [/quote]

Care to elaborate on this so I don’t misunderstand you? It sounds a little strange to me since it’s not exactly uncommon for powerlifters to use shoes with elevated heels.[/quote]

It’s simply a habit thing. If you’re used to having heels elevated, then in comp you naturally won’t, so you can use maximum weight, it will cause technique problems for lack of practice. I’ve honestly never heard of powerlifters using elevated heels, where’d you hear/see that?[/quote]

They dont. Ever. Weightlifters (olympic lifters) wear shoes with heels.
[/quote]

European powerlifters use heeled shoes to squat. Maxim Barkhatov, Oleksiy Rokochiy and Vladimir Bondarenko are some of the powerlifters I know that use heeled shoes.

25

[quote]ron-e wrote:

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]Matsa wrote:
It depends on how you’re built and so on. Some people benefit from elevated heels and some people don’t, some are actually hindered by it. Like Forbes said, they can make it easier to keep the torso upright among other things.

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]forbes wrote:
heels elevated will allow a more upright torso and therefore more quad activation. So if you have a hard time activating your quads in the squat, elevate your heels.[/quote]

Yes. However, if you plan to compete in PLing, don’t get in the habit of doing this. For BBing purposes, nothing wrong with it. [/quote]

Care to elaborate on this so I don’t misunderstand you? It sounds a little strange to me since it’s not exactly uncommon for powerlifters to use shoes with elevated heels.[/quote]

It’s simply a habit thing. If you’re used to having heels elevated, then in comp you naturally won’t, so you can use maximum weight, it will cause technique problems for lack of practice. I’ve honestly never heard of powerlifters using elevated heels, where’d you hear/see that?[/quote]

They dont. Ever. Weightlifters (olympic lifters) wear shoes with heels.
[/quote]

European powerlifters use heeled shoes to squat. Maxim Barkhatov, Oleksiy Rokochiy and Vladimir Bondarenko are some of the powerlifters I know that use heeled shoes.[/quote]

Then I stand corrected. I only knew of the stuff in american powerlifting. Thanks for the info

26

Very impressive squatting…assuming he has raised heels there, obviously a quad dominant squatter with his stance and such. So I suppose I’ll adjust my statement slightly: train how you plan to compete. If you’re going to squat/deadlift with raised heels, train like that (don’t see why you would deadlift like that though…not even sure if you’re allowed to change shoes mid competition, had never thought of that).

Naturally, us raw squatters will want to focus more attentions on our quads than geared squatters, since we almost always have narrower stances.

27

I can’t do proper squats injury free unless I elevate my heels.

If I -don’t- elevate my heels and really go ATG, squatting gives me sciatica-like symptoms for about a week, its endlessly frustrating. No amount of Cressey-endorsed core strengthening, mobility work or foam rolling has solved this for me (yet).

I’d give my left nut for someone else to pipe up and say they’ve had the same problem and discovered a solution.

28

[quote]dnlcdstn wrote:
Somebody hit me over the head cuz I still don’t get how it helps you stay upright. If you had a problem leaning back too much I could visualize that. I actually thought about elevating my toes with plates instead. [/quote]

I’ve used two plates for each fott and bare feet. Works well. Not used to elevated shoes yet although they keep a few pairs in my gym.

29

There is a worry about your arches with plates under your heels, obviously not a worry if using olympic shoes for the same effect.

30

[quote]plateau wrote:
There is a worry about your arches with plates under your heels, obviously not a worry if using olympic shoes for the same effect.[/quote]

If this is the case than I can see smith machine back squats (heels raise) as a good way to preexhaust. You’d use lighter weights (relatively speaking) so the arch of your feet would incur less stress. But then again I have no idea HOW dangerous elvated heel squatting is so maybe even the lighter weights is a bad idea.

31

The one thing about elevated heels on front squat (for me) is the fact with heavy weight sitting on your shoulders, the act of stepping back onto the plates to get into position seems kinda risky. Just worried a misstep+bar slippage I could potentially injure myself.

32

[quote]therajraj wrote:
The one thing about elevated heels on front squat (for me) is the fact with heavy weight sitting on your shoulders, the act of stepping back onto the plates to get into position seems kinda risky. Just worried a misstep+bar slippage I could potentially injure myself. [/quote]

You’re already on the plates by the time you get around to racking the bar up to your shoulders. My feet are the first thing that I get set up when doing smith front squats with elevated heels. It just takes a little bit of tinkering during the initial set-up when you first get to the machine to find the sweet spot for your stance.

33

[quote]SSC wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
The one thing about elevated heels on front squat (for me) is the fact with heavy weight sitting on your shoulders, the act of stepping back onto the plates to get into position seems kinda risky. Just worried a misstep+bar slippage I could potentially injure myself. [/quote]

You’re already on the plates by the time you get around to racking the bar up to your shoulders. My feet are the first thing that I get set up when doing smith front squats with elevated heels. It just takes a little bit of tinkering during the initial set-up when you first get to the machine to find the sweet spot for your stance.[/quote]

Ah, was this discussing in reference to smith machine squatting? I was referring to free squatting.

34

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]SSC wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
The one thing about elevated heels on front squat (for me) is the fact with heavy weight sitting on your shoulders, the act of stepping back onto the plates to get into position seems kinda risky. Just worried a misstep+bar slippage I could potentially injure myself. [/quote]

You’re already on the plates by the time you get around to racking the bar up to your shoulders. My feet are the first thing that I get set up when doing smith front squats with elevated heels. It just takes a little bit of tinkering during the initial set-up when you first get to the machine to find the sweet spot for your stance.[/quote]

Ah, was this discussing in reference to smith machine squatting? I was referring to free squatting.[/quote]

Yeah, if you were to do it often I would suggest investing in weightlifting shoes to avoid an accident.

On an aside if you have a pair of work boots, they typically have raised heels like a weightlifting shoe so you wouldn’t have to buy a second pair

35

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]SSC wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
The one thing about elevated heels on front squat (for me) is the fact with heavy weight sitting on your shoulders, the act of stepping back onto the plates to get into position seems kinda risky. Just worried a misstep+bar slippage I could potentially injure myself. [/quote]

You’re already on the plates by the time you get around to racking the bar up to your shoulders. My feet are the first thing that I get set up when doing smith front squats with elevated heels. It just takes a little bit of tinkering during the initial set-up when you first get to the machine to find the sweet spot for your stance.[/quote]

Ah, was this discussing in reference to smith machine squatting? I was referring to free squatting.[/quote]

Whoops, somehow saw thought you wrote Smith in that… guess I need to take a nap.

In that regard, I would be a bit weary, especially with an exponential amount of weight.

36

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]Matsa wrote:
It depends on how you’re built and so on. Some people benefit from elevated heels and some people don’t, some are actually hindered by it. Like Forbes said, they can make it easier to keep the torso upright among other things.

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]forbes wrote:
heels elevated will allow a more upright torso and therefore more quad activation. So if you have a hard time activating your quads in the squat, elevate your heels.[/quote]

Yes. However, if you plan to compete in PLing, don’t get in the habit of doing this. For BBing purposes, nothing wrong with it. [/quote]

Care to elaborate on this so I don’t misunderstand you? It sounds a little strange to me since it’s not exactly uncommon for powerlifters to use shoes with elevated heels.[/quote]

It’s simply a habit thing. If you’re used to having heels elevated, then in comp you naturally won’t, so you can use maximum weight, it will cause technique problems for lack of practice. I’ve honestly never heard of powerlifters using elevated heels, where’d you hear/see that?[/quote]

Ok, I understand now. I knew that raised heels were very uncommon (non-existant?) among multiply lifters but I still assumed some people used it in single ply or raw competitions in US. There are a few decent to good powerlifters where I train and almost all of them actually wear shoes with raised heels, the most common is Adidas Ironworks from what I remember (not that it matters).

I also know that some of Sweden’s best squatters use these kind of shoes too and I think it’s the same way in Norway and Finland. I’m just telling you this to explain why I reacted to what you said, it just doesn’t go along with what I’ve seen.

[quote]ron-e wrote:

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:

They dont. Ever. Weightlifters (olympic lifters) wear shoes with heels.
[/quote]

European powerlifters use heeled shoes to squat. Maxim Barkhatov, Oleksiy Rokochiy and Vladimir Bondarenko are some of the powerlifters I know that use heeled shoes.[/quote]

You can also add Wade Hooper, Brian Siders and Shane Hamman (but Shane was also a weightlifter). I think that norwegian freak kid CYC use them too.

And BONEZ, weightlifting shoes aren’t the only heeled shoes, there’s actually heeled shoes that are made for powerlifting. Those usually have a bit lower heel and have higher tops. Safe-USA, Inzer and Crain are some brands that sell these. A lot of the IPF lifters still seem to use weightlifting shoes though so I assume the difference isn’t exactly huge.

37

[quote]Intermezzo wrote:
I can’t do proper squats injury free unless I elevate my heels.

If I -don’t- elevate my heels and really go ATG, squatting gives me sciatica-like symptoms for about a week, its endlessly frustrating. No amount of Cressey-endorsed core strengthening, mobility work or foam rolling has solved this for me (yet).

I’d give my left nut for someone else to pipe up and say they’ve had the same problem and discovered a solution.
[/quote]

I don’t want your nut…but I have had the same problem…it makes 5/3/1 a sumbitch.

The only thing I have found that helped was doing my heavy deadlifting with a trap bar…made a huge difference in making my lower back stronger…regular ART and massage also made a big difference.