Why's It Wrong to Round with Squats?

Training Bodybuilding
41

[quote]JLu wrote:
bushidobadboy wrote:
JLu wrote:
bushidobadboy wrote:
Invictica wrote:
Do you have an engineering/physics background. The way you draw your arrows is suspiciously similar to the ones I draw in Mechanics of materials…
/hijack

Yeah I started off as an engineer. Now I ‘engineer’ the structures and systems of the human body; it’s a lot more interesting and challenging, plust you actually get to talk to people rather than sitting behind a desk all day.

BBB

You’re a cool guy but this post is just ignorant.

Why? Both the engineering jobs I did involved sitting behind a desk, not really talking to people.

Engineer friends of mine always used to complain about having to deal with other engineers too, so I’m not only basing my comment on my own experience, but on that of others, too.

BBB

Well first you state an opinion as fact “it’s a lot more interesting and challenging”, interest and challenge are relative terms. And second you and your friends are the exception rather than the rule, the whole basis of engineering is working in teams and in conjunction with other people.

Whether or not you like those other people is a different story, granted there are many engineers out there who fit the stereotypical nerdy/skinny socially inept weirdo but every fields has it’s weirdos.[/quote]

Yeah dude, CTFD. Follow TC’s rule to happiness #6.

42

Hi, ive scanned this thread so I apologise if someone has said this but a lot of people have posterior tilt at the bottom of a squat due to various tight muscles. These could include hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes and deeper abdominals. Some PNF stretching would help greatly.

DJ

43

[quote]Dajvejive wrote:
Hi, ive scanned this thread so I apologise if someone has said this but a lot of people have posterior tilt at the bottom of a squat due to various tight muscles. These could include hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes and deeper abdominals. Some PNF stretching would help greatly.

DJ
[/quote]

I agree. I have a hard time doing PNF by myself though and feel that it’s best performed with a partner, especially for hamstrings.

Anyone have a link to a video to display PNF stretching for the OP?

Dajvejive , do you know how to perform PNF for the hamstrings w/out a partner? A link would be great if you know of one.

44

[quote]BulletproofTiger wrote:
Dajvejive wrote:
Hi, ive scanned this thread so I apologise if someone has said this but a lot of people have posterior tilt at the bottom of a squat due to various tight muscles. These could include hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes and deeper abdominals. Some PNF stretching would help greatly.

DJ

I agree. I have a hard time doing PNF by myself though and feel that it’s best performed with a partner, especially for hamstrings.

Anyone have a link to a video to display PNF stretching for the OP?

Dajvejive , do you know how to perform PNF for the hamstrings w/out a partner? A link would be great if you know of one.[/quote]

If you’ve got a "yoga strap (if not you could use anything from a belt, towel, jump rope, etc…), just look it around your ankle (or foot, I prefer ankle though) lay on your back and perform a lying hamstring stretch.

Once you feel tension in your hamstring (your stretch reflex has been triggered) hold the position for a couple seconds.

Now, try to bend your leg and push your heel down towards the ground, while holding onto the strap and not allowing your foot to move for 10 seconds.

Relax your hamstring and you should immediately be able to increase your ROM slightly.

You can then either hold that position until the muscle relaxes, contract the opposing muscle(s) to increase the ROM and hold that position for 20-30 seconds, or repeat the process to gain even more ROM.

Be careful though as you can really injure yourself with PNF if you push it too far. If you feel any actual pain, spasms, or numbness/tingling in the hamstrings do not push it any further, and you honestly should probably terminate the stretch.

Here is another option:

In addition to stretching (be it active, static, or PNF) soft tissue work (i.e. foam rolling) can also help to improve mobility noticeably.

45

[quote]Dajvejive wrote:
Hi, ive scanned this thread so I apologise if someone has said this but a lot of people have posterior tilt at the bottom of a squat due to various tight muscles. These could include hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes and deeper abdominals. Some PNF stretching would help greatly.

DJ
[/quote]

Strong idea here.

Also for those posterior tilters some other good ideas would be:

1] work on ankle mobility over the toes. tracing further over the toes at the 90’ area of the squat can help you sit “between” your heels/legs and keep the untilted hips. just include some ankle mobility as outlined by cressy in your warm ups.

2] take a slightly higher back bar position. It might help long bodies pull the bar weight further to the front of the heel and allow a more vertical back. Not as effective as better ankle mobility, mobile hamstrings or…

3] get olympic weight lifting shoes. you can get ironworks II’s for about $100. That extra inch on the heel makes ALL the difference on earth for tilters. Have not seen one prominent long-bodied “tilter” not quit tilting after a week in O lift shoes, barring one freak who basically looked like a genie lift with his crazy long torso.

In any event, have fun with PNF and shoe shopping.

-chris

46

Thanks Sentoguy

47

Hmmm… Don’t feel like putting up quotes for all the things i am responding to, but some thoughts:

  1. Engineers are mostly really annoying and fit into the stereotype. Not all of them are.

  2. A lot of engineering jobs are boring desk jobs from what I can tell, but it largely depends on whether you are on the theoretical or experimental side of things. From what I understand, with a BS you don’t get TONS of choice in this.

  3. In a stack of bricks, there is no way to transfer shear stress between bricks except friction. The fact that they slide is just a result of gravity. And there’s really no such thing as shear force. The external loading is the force. The internal forces are really just theoretical and are the result of stresses, which are real.

  4. Using a crane to model the human body is overly simplistic. In fact using your drawing to model the crane is also overly simplistic. Not trying to be a dick because I have no idea how it works specifically either. Realistically there is going to be both shear and compressive stresses on the spine with bending at the torso and loading.

  5. With rounding of the spine, it places extra stress on the disks. The more rounded, the more extra stress, so that is why you can get away with a little rounding. The disks are soft, the vertebrae are hard. If you bend the spinal linkage, which do you think is going to break first? The disk in the form of a bulge or herniation.

49

[quote]Fezzik wrote:
Hmmm… Don’t feel like putting up quotes for all the things i am responding to, but some thoughts:

  1. Engineers are mostly really annoying and fit into the stereotype. Not all of them are.

[/quote]
agreed

Depends on how closely you are tied to manufacturing. You generally get to get your hands dirty, build prototypes, troubleshoot field or line problems, est. But, even if you aren’t R&D is still fun.

Yes my point in using the bricks is that there is no real way for them to support shear loading.

There is a such thing as a shear load, it’s no less real that compression or tension. The only “theoretical” thing about it’s existance is that pure shear loading in impossible.

Last, the forces cause the stresses, not the other way around.

Yes, it is simplistic. That is the point of using a model to illustrate a point, if it was of equal complexity, there would be no point to using it. The point was, if you re-read, loads can be cantilevered using almost entirely tension and compression with structures that won’t support much shear load. And yes, any time any material is loaded in any direction there are going to be shear stresses.

[quote]

  1. With rounding of the spine, it places extra stress on the disks. The more rounded, the more extra stress, so that is why you can get away with a little rounding. The disks are soft, the vertebrae are hard. If you bend the spinal linkage, which do you think is going to break first? The disk in the form of a bulge or herniation.[/quote]

Once again, no. It is not “extra” stress. Only different types stress. It is the same load being supported, the same distance. In order for the total stress to change the stressed area would have to change. Rounding would seem to cause more shear stress and possibly un-symmetric compressive stress in the spine.

50

Okay, so keeping a “neutral” a spine as possible is the way to go? If there are issues, increase flexibility/mobility, practice 3rd world squat, etc.

Correct?

51

[quote]trextacy wrote:
Okay, so keeping a “neutral” a spine as possible is the way to go? If there are issues, increase flexibility/mobility, practice 3rd world squat, etc.

Correct?[/quote]

Correct. Also try front squats which… (taken from Nate Green’s most recent article): The latest issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research has a University of Florida study(1) with this conclusion: “The front squat was as effective as the back squat in terms of overall muscle recruitment, with significantly less compressive forces and extensor moments.”

(1) A biomechanical comparison of back and front squats in healthy trained individuals - PubMed

I think that article contradicts what a lot of you guys think, but I think it’s probably a well designed study for Nate to have included it in his article. It’s undoubtedly safer, but the article also says it’s as effective. Gotta go with what the research says :stuck_out_tongue: