 The technique series is brought to you by barbell logic online coaching. Did you know that you can get a hundred percent free? Form check from one of our expert strength coaches seriously absolutely 100% free no credit card needed No questions asked. Just go to barbell logic comm slash technique and sign up for the free barbell logic experience now Do that right now and then enjoy the show barbell logic rewind This is the barbell logic podcast, I'm Scott Hamburg and this is Matt Reynolds and today we're going to talk about the squad We should have talked about it. I don't know back in July Yeah Maybe maybe the squad. Yeah Seems simple, right? But there's a lot to be said about this for sure We do four main lifts and the king of all these lifts is the squad We focus everything that we do around that thing everything we really about this everything we do might be an accessory to the squad Okay, it's fair. Maybe sure. I'll just sit back here and I'll just let you tell us about the squad So the place that you have to start with any of these lifts is we start with the three primary criteria and in one of our very first Podcasts we talked about the three criteria that we use to get strong in the most efficient manner Right and so those three criteria are all of our listeners should be saying this along with us Yeah, they know we use the most we want to move as much weight as possible over the with the most muscle mass Over the longest effective range of motion. That's right So if you think about for those of our listeners, you think about somebody maybe like your mom your mom And or someone just doesn't know you know and they walk in on January 1st because they've got a New Year's resolution and they walk into a gym and They don't know where to start and there are an infinite number of exercises they could do and You know, obviously, there's some free weights But your mom's probably not gonna even try to do the free weights but there are hundreds of exercise machines and There are potentially hundreds of cardio machines and right and where would you start? I mean, it's literally infinite and so We use these three criteria where we go, okay We're gonna have of all these infinite number of exercises we could choose from In order to get the most bang for our buck The greatest return on investment for the least effective dose that we love that training economy Yeah, the training economy we're gonna pick exercise that use the most muscle mass number one, right? So the easy way to think about most muscle mass is what exercises make the most joints move and Right again, I'm gonna just make this as simple as I can right though If I'm doing a one-arm dumbbell curl and only my left elbow is moving only one joint is moving Right because muscles only serve to extend or flex a joint That's something they're there or right or abduct or adductor rotate or whatever. So they make joints move That's what they do. That's right. They cross joints and some muscles cross more than one joint Some muscles only cross a sing a single joint But what I want to do in order to use the most muscle mass is I want to pick the movements that make the most joints Move and then I've used the most muscle mass. So something like a squat where the bars on my back. I Have six joints that are going through a pretty big range of motion both my hips Both my knees and both my ankles but not only that the prime movers of a squat are those muscles around the hips We'll get there in a minute But that's not where the bar sits the bar doesn't sit on my hips The bar sits up on the spine of my scapula just below the spine of my scapula, you know, just below the shoulders So then not only we have all these joints flexing that you already named But we have to then hold all of our spine and isometric contraction So all those muscles in our back are working really hard second to prevent the flexion actually our muscles can contract an Isometric contraction much harder than they can a concentric contraction, right? So the back the trunk Really performs isometrically in a squat and it doesn't in several of the exercises And so a squat's a good first place to start and then we go to that second criteria Where the most weight that's the easy one, right? So an air squat will not make me as strong as a 405 pound squat But okay, right. We need does that need any further explanation? I mean, it's pretty easy if the goal is to get strong, right? We've already talked through on the podcast why strength like why strength is better than it's the it's the go back to episode One one It's a wide strength Yeah, it's a foundational episode So we we know and it sounds awful by the way, you know that the quality Oh, I'm sure it's already is this guy better and of course we're a little better doing it. Maybe yeah We were we're sitting in a bathtub For the acoustics now, so like Burton Ernie Yeah, then the other thing that you think about with weight is like think about potential weight that you could use right? So can I squat more weight than I can leg extension? Yes, you bet you at least that in a trained individual, right? and so So I'm gonna look at well squat makes more joints move and I move a lot of weight with a squat And I want to move as much weight as I can No, hey, what about the high bar or west side guys wide stance and they move Chris Devin moves ton of weight Yeah, so well, that's the last Criteria we look at the most the greatest effective range of motion. Hmm So the greatest effective range of motion says well, it sounds like somebody's thought these three criteria through or something Yeah. Yeah, so the question you know that people are gonna be thinking about when you talk about Using exercises that that picking exercises and performing exercise in a way that uses the most muscle mass And with the greatest weight the greatest weight. Yeah, you're gonna have a lot of people ask well Yeah, but west side squats this much and Chris Duffin squats this much They take a really wide stance and they don't do it like you guys do and and why and so This greatest effective range of women why the troll this is You know spray your feet out, you know, but you borrow and you top your head and high bar it for big numbers Yeah Yeah, so the the thing that we have to understand what we're trying to do is that there's a difference between trying to make somebody generally strong and Trying to lift the most weight in a competitive performance event in a game in a game Right and so powerlifting actually gets rid of that greatest effective range of motion Criteria what they do is actually try to try to lift using the least legal range of motion Right The only criteria is move the weight most weight possible within the confines of the rules of their sport That's it. So if I'm six one and I take a really wide stance and I squat at six one and really wide stance I'm not six one anymore. I'm five seven right and the out of artificially shortened the legs and artificially short in the legs. Let's the bar move less So I could theoretically move More weight a less range of motion, but it's less work and it doesn't work generally as strong And so then the question is what are we trying to do? Well, we're trying to train force production. That's right force times distance that work number to be as high as we can we bring those feet in a little bit and Get that longest effective range of motion. I'm gonna stand all the way up. Sure and we want to squat below parallel How many potential? Novices are there in the world all of them Seven billion almost right. Yeah. Yeah almost billions. Yeah, how many Competitive how many people fans power lifters are how many people do you think have done LP? At least sort of I think broadly defined as doing it brought as broad as you want There couldn't be more than a million and a half people. That was a million probably right maybe and so When we use these criteria, right where the idea is the vast majority of people who are going to attempt this Their goal is not to become a competitive power lifters to become generally strong, right and with general strength increases come a quality of life increase for most of them a health increase you bet Then our goal is to get people generally strong to get generally strong We perform Exercises we perform the movements that use the most muscle mass But the most weight for the greatest effective range of motion and when we do those things We can take that infinite number of exercises in a gym All those machines all that cardio equipment all those dumbbells or the kettlebells all that kind of stuff And we can pair all the way down and we end up with four or five lifts That are the biggest bang for our buck that we get this training economy and the best of all the the biggest bang is The squad squad. It's a squad It's the hardest lift It uses the most muscle mass of anything Right in particularly the low bar squat uses the most muscle mass. So that's the other yeah, so yeah, there's so Let's just start with the squad Let's just start with any squad right the squad in general is gonna move the bar a greater effective range of motion than a dead Lift right and it's gonna lift almost as much weight as a dead lift Right, so you got all this work and all this weight and all these joints move through a big range of motion That's why it's the king of all exercise. It's goddamn. It's harder than anything else. Yeah Your body responds to it in a way that not that it won't respond to any other lift now from that point forward We look at the squat we go now. How do we perform the squat? Under the same three criteria because now there are Nearly an infinite number of ways we can perform a squat. They're bounded by a couple things There's physics. We live in the world that has rules. So gravity's pulling down So what so what's the first rule that's really inarguable with gravity and squat? You have to keep the bar of your men foot, right? Is that our have you heard that argued? I mean, that's not really argued. It's crazy that it was even argue with us about low bar versus high bar Your high bar advocates are still gonna say well the high bar still stays over the middle of your foot, right? So you keep the bar of your foot, right? So if you stand up and you lean forward to put the you can feel your weight shift to the balls of your feet You can imagine if you had a bar on your back weighed 405 You're fixing to go onto your face and if you rock back on your heels You can feel that you can feel that gravity vector move back the pressure on your foot tells you where your center gravity is You rock back and the pressure is even on the bottom of your foot your center gravity is right over your middle of your foot We want to keep that bar over the middle of your foot and that's how you know it's there You can feel the pressure on the bottom of your foot So a correct squat regardless of the style of squat Must stay over the middle of your foot. This is an arguable front squat high bar squat low bar squat box squat any of those squats Safety squat bar squat any of those goofy ass squats all stuff stay over the middle of your foot in order to work In the most efficient manner against gravity if gravity is going to pull straight down The bar needs to move straight up against gravity directly over the middle of the foot and that's inarguable now the question is this How do we adjust the squat to go back to criteria number one To be able to use the most muscle mass right So our argument is Is that when you do the low bar squat? The first thing that we're going to do is we're going to take that bar if somebody goes in and you take some fifth grader And you say like you just go squat right? He's going to go put a bar on top of his on top of his traps At the base of his like a yoke Like a yoke not just a fifth grader or anybody an untrained squat That's where they put it just feels like that's where you should get and the first thing they're gonna Ah, that hurts. Where's that pad? Bump on the back of my neck it hurts like well, that's not where the bar goes So we put the bar below just below The spine of the scapula. So if you reach over you take your offhand you reach over there You can feel a horizontal ridge of bone on your your Your shoulder blade back there shoulder blade and you can dig your fingers under it and that that place right there That's where we put the bar Yeah, so most people like go back to the kind of idea of our moms walking into a gym and trying to figure out What exercise to do our moms know that there is such a thing as a shoulder blade or a scapula Most of them are only aware of sort of the medial Inferior aspect of the scapula. Would it feel like that's true? They know where the inside of your shoulder blades are and the bottom of your shoulder blades The thing that we typically do now is we'll actually pull somebody off the front row. We'll take that Scapula and we'll actually put it on their back. We'll put it on their back We'll go here's right here. This is the thing right and so and so we show This is where the bar goes when we put the bar at that point just below the spine of the scapula Then that's the lowest point on the back that the bar can be without Rolling down the back in the middle of the squat, right the musculature of the posterior delts in the upper back The rhomboids will create a shelf for that bar to sit on It really doesn't even matter how muscular you are, right? We've seen these like skinny little girls and it sits on those things and they're okay. They're fine So that bends somebody over now think about this if the bar is up on your traps up high And it has to stay over your midfoot then your then your back is going to be more vertical Your back is going to be more upright And as the bar comes down your back You've got to bend over more to keep the bar over the middle of your foot, which means If your back has been over more your back is more horizontal You have more moment to overcome on the back, which means the back gets more work No, the argument from the chiropractor and physical therapist and all those sort of people is a holy You're going to your backup doing that only what i'm trying to do is i'm trying to make your back strong Right, we want to train the back and the only way you can do that is put stress on it That's to load the back I hope you're enjoying this episode in the technique series of the barbologic podcast You know at barbell logic We believe that barbell based strength training is literally for everyone And that the only thing holding most people back from all the incredible benefits that come from it is good technique Inconsistency and we can help with that too and whether you're just getting started or you've been lifting for a while It's difficult to know if you're performing the lifts correctly Or if there's anything you can do to make your lifting better We have tons of free resources online from basic how-to videos It'll get you lifting safely and efficiently right away the podcasts articles and videos that will help you troubleshoot common errors All you have to do is visit barbell logic.com slash Technique to see our best technique focused content in one place And while you're at it you can sign up for a consultation with a barbell logic coach This is a free form check and a chance to ask an expert all your training related questions There's no reason you should be struggling to get started or to make progress Check out barbell logic.com slash technique for more information and sign up for the barbell logic experience again It's a hundred percent free There's nothing better for your training than knowing you're lifting safely training efficiently and on the right track All right, let's get back to the show I have heard more times in the last couple years that squats are bad for the knees nearly as much As I hear that back squats are bad for the back and you should front squat Well, if you just front squat, it's okay. It won't hurt. You won't you won't load your back. No, I'm trying to load your back I'm trying to put moment force. I'm trying to put rotation I'm trying with the barbell to fold your ass in half with the barbell and make you fight against that because When you fight against that, you know what happens You get generally strong your back gets strong and when your back gets strong your back gets Oh my god less vulnerable to injury not more vulnerable to injury the bar position the placement of the bar on the back It literally that entire geometry of the squat stems from that if the back if the bar is up high The back is more upright if the back is more upright in order to keep the bar of the middle of foot Something else has to go forward The knees end up going forward and so now I get more moment on the knees if the bar comes down the back Ben's the back over. Oh, you know what happens the ass sits back My butt sits back and it puts more moment on the hips Leverage, right? It's not quite the same thing as torque But most of the people that are listening in that and they think about this rotational force like a torque wrench It's kind of a similar concept, right? So when the when the rump goes back you lean over more There's more more moment on that back segment. That's right. Yeah, so let's let's flesh that out real quick So the hamstrings cross Two major joints, right the hamstrings cross the hips And they originate at the ischial tuberosity Right at the at the seat bones at the sit bones at the plate when you're sitting on a chair Not your tailbone But where you can actually feel your butt bones on both the right and left side Touching the the chair right now. You can feel it. That's where they originate. And so they cross the hip But then they don't end on the femur They cross the knee as well And they insert the semi Tendonosis and semi-memornosis insert on the tibia and the biceps femoris inserts on the fibula if I'm right So the hamstring makes the hips go from flexion to extension. It straightens the hips And it makes the knees go from extension to flexion It bends the knee in a squat when you're standing up because the hips are in extension And the knees are in extension Then it is essentially shortened superior on the on the its origination, right? And it's is that right? Yeah, and lengthened on on the far side But as you bend into your squat And the hips begin to bend and go into flexion and the knees go into flexion The hamstrings Lengthen on one end and shorten on the other end, which means ultimately the hamstrings stay the same length Which means they don't in fact Contribute to hip extension as much as they function isometrically they hold your your knee joint together, right? Sure Right, so the hamstrings if you load those hamstrings correctly you tip that the ischial tuberosity away from the knee Hamstrings get really tight and long And they take and they take that all that load so that your ACL doesn't have to right sure Sure, that's certainly they they keep the tibia from sliding forward is one of the things that the hamstrings going to do So this guy who doesn't even have an ACL and one of your knees can still squat that low bar squat sure And so what we're able to do is we're able to again place that those long moment arms on the hamstrings on the hips Uh, and so that the glutes adductors adductors growing inside of the thighs Are able to contribute to hip extension as much as possible. Now think about this think it just even if you don't know your anatomy Think about the size of the musculature on the inside of your thighs On the back of your thighs and on your butt Right, that's a lot of muscle If I decide to not squat the way we're saying and to high bar squat and put the long moment arm at the knee from the knee to the bar path Then that takes all that moment and transitions it off of the hip and onto the knee now Here's thing the quads are big old muscles too not that big though not compared to the hamstrings and the glutes and the adductors Everybody remembers from fifth grade that your glutes are the biggest muscle in your body Everybody remembers laughing about that. That's right We're trying to do a low bar squat because it uses the most muscle mass Because we put the bar in a low bar position and allows us to sit back bend over Take a lot of that Moment force that leverage off the knee place it on the hips Where the greatest musculature is and because i'm using the greatest musculature the most muscle mass the greatest effective range of motion I in I can then lift the most weight Now let's focus for a second on the greatest effective range of motion. Why don't I squat all the way down to my feet? Why don't I do astro grass squats ain't effective? Why? Why is it less effective? Why is the greatest effective range of motion? Not The greatest range of motion. Well your hamstrings you your hamstrings can have to get The hamstrings will be shorter In an astro grass squat Then in a low bar Squat stop just below parallel. Here's why I think that is because it points that ischial tuberosity Back posteriorly and as you go all the way down that thing points down And the is the ischium turns and becomes closer to the knee And so if the knee and the ischium are closer together the hamstring has to be shorter We we want people to fix their back angle Right and then hit below parallel and then drive the hips back up to get astro grass They can't keep that back angle right because their their chest would be below their knees Right, but I think that's where the fact that they get more vertical as they break parallel there in that astro grass squat I think is where those hamstrings end up getting slack Right the would get slack Yeah, because the two joint muscles have a lengthening and a shortening on one end or the other So you're buying some and one on one side and losing some on the other side with those regardless It may or may not be a wash, but it's not a complete loss like it is across one joint Right. Yeah, that's interesting sense And so so how the hell does somebody squat? Can we say anything about that? So if you want to go do a low bar squat? We've already talked about putting it below the spine of your scapula now you walk it out of the rack And what the heck are you going to do? Yeah, I'm going to break it your knees and hips simultaneously the exact same time So the knees and the hips break at the exact same time and and this is where their feet Their heels are going to be about shoulder width apart right and their toes are going to be out about 30 degrees Right, and would you say their heels are going to be like under their armpit? Uh, that's fair. I guess if you say hey, I want you to stand a shoulder width apart They stand too narrow right like most of the time. I've noticed that why is that I don't know They don't know where their shoulders are I think so. So I I think if I tell them Hey, you know kind of put your heel under your armpit. They tend to get closer to right Right. So yeah, your toes are going to be out at 30 degrees. We know that your knees Want to track the same direction as your toes. We want our knees to go out Knees a wonderful hinge joint. It's not made not made to have torsion. So you walk the thing out Yep, the spine below the spine of the scapula. Yep Heels shoulder width apart toes out 30 degrees Yep, big breath. We'll talk about the valsalva in an upcoming Podcast you break at the knees and hips at the same time ass back like you were going to do a standing long jump Right, sure knees and knees and hips break at the same time ass back knees out nipples down That's it While keeping your back flat I tell them put your shoulder blades in your back pockets. Hold that and work at the knees and hips So yeah, I mean whatever we've all got our so the idea is everyone knows Even my mom knows you're not supposed to round your back on a on a squat But she also thinks that that means that she has to keep her chest pointed at the wall in front of her And that's not the same thing. Gotta be a coach Yeah, if you're in person I'll put my hand on the small your back and my and I tell them hold this your back is a beam I've shoved my finger in the hip joint. I'm like, you're gonna pivot here, but your back is a beam You've got a really good cartoon that I stole a little cartoon picture that you use online That's like actually shows a guy like here's a rounded back and here's an arched back Sometimes I just don't even think they know what that means. Yeah, and so I get it, you know And so uh, sometimes I'll say like if you pour water on your back I want it to hold I want the water to sit and pool when we do those things And we squat we go down ass back knees out nipples down We set our back We set the back angle in the first third of the descent and we set the knees Forward and out In the first third of the descent and the knees don't move for the rest of squat And the back angle doesn't move for the rest of squats So the back angle for those of you guys watching on video the back angle goes like this It goes all the way down and it comes all the way up same angle same angle same angle And then stands up at the end and that's it So easy the thing that makes it do that is the infamous hip drive The hip drive allows you to maintain the back angle and make sure That the moments that the muscles around the hips are the thing that's doing the primary work If I come up out of the bottom of the hole by lifting my chest and scooping my butt underneath me Your knees are going to shoot forward if you're right and I take a lot of that all that moment Or all that leverage off of the hips and put it on the knees where I don't actually want it So that's how we squat now. Here's the bigger question. What is the effect of this lift? On your training on your life on your of the squat for most people as well It's probably the hardest thing they've ever done. It is for me and you know, I want to talk about the stretch reflex So, you know, most people we get do exactly what you're talking about They were too fast and they bounce off their knees. Look, if you're gonna if you're bouncing you're bouncing off something The problem is if you're bouncing off your knee tendons and your quads Now what I have to do is I have to walk you back through and I have to slow it all down Right and I take the bounce completely off. You know, I have to do that Because they can't feel that in the bottom the weight shifts from their midfoot to their toe Right baller foot and the barbell slides forward and then pops back up and so I okay Now I've got to make sure you can feel That you're on your midfoot all the way down and all the way back up and all the way down all the way and then I All right, let's speed that up 10 and another 10 so when we get to a point where they can actually bounce off there Off their adductors glutes Hips right, whatever we were just I was just talking to chase, you know, when he comes up He locks the bar. He locks his squat out so hard the bar is just Straddling I was like, man, you're your knees, buddy. Like that ain't gonna be good eventually. He's like, yeah, my knees hurt Yeah, he's too violent in his he's just too explosive. Yeah, and he's 42 And he's got these seven beautiful little blue-eyed toe-headed kids. Yeah, and a knee replacement Good, that's a squat man. I love it. So that's how you squash everybody That's what you do the first the right out of the gate every session Yeah, the rest of your life forever forever the king of lifts Well, this is the barbell logic podcast I'm scott hambrick and this is matt reynolds You can follow reynolds at reynolds strong on instagram and i'm at scott underscore silver strength there too So thanks so much for listening. Go give us some reviews Go to itunes and give us five stars if you like it Please subscribe if you're an occasional instrument go hit that subscribe button And tell a friend about us. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye