Strength & Health October 1970
The gym was a beehive of activity as quite a few members of
the local high school football team were doing a bomb-blitz-type program in
order to be ready for the upcoming pre-season practice. I noticed Charlie over
on the lifting platform offering advice to the young trainees.
“Coaching now, huh?”
“Oh, not really. A few fellows were asking me about full
squats for football.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Not much, since I don’t know that much. I told them that I
do squats and haven’t had any problems with my knees. That seems to be their greatest
concern. What should I tell them?”
“Well Charlie, since it’s obvious that many of the younger
fellows coming in here will be turning to you for some sound advice, perhaps I’d
better give you some information on which to base your suggestions.”
“Good idea, I hate to be left without an answer.”
“I bet you do.” He sat down on the incline bench and gave me
his full attention. “The full squat has been under attack ever since Dr. K.K.
Klein wrote his piece of research in the early ‘60’s. Doctor Klein said,
simply, that full squats stretched the ligaments and tendons around the knee
joint and made that joint more susceptible to injury, especially in contact
sports.”
“Wow, and I’ve been having these guys do them.”
“Hold your horses, I’m not finished. Later research has
contradicted this study. It has been found that full squats, when performed
correctly, actually prevent knee injuries.”
“How can two pieces of research prove opposite points?”
“There is a lot more to research than merely reporting
facts. There is always a certain amount of bias influencing any study, plus
there are weak points in any study that other researchers can pick up and
refute.”
“Which piece of evidence do you go by?”
“I base my ideas on the full squats more on what experienced
coaches tell me. They have shown, as have weightlifters, that full squats are
safe if they are done correctly. In fact, they can be helpful in preventing
knee injuries.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but I guess I must. Am I doing my
squats correctly?”
“As I haven’t watched you squat for a week or two, I’ll wait
till I see you do them today before I answer that. Today is a squat day, isn’t
it?”
“As a matter of fact, I have two more sets of hi-pulls and then I’ll be ready.”
“Fine. I have a phone call to make and then I’ll skip right
back and watch you.”
As I got back to the platform Charlie had set the bar on the
power rack at shoulder height and had loaded it to 125.
“Ready to observe?”
“Ready”
He took the bar off the rack, puffed a few times and dipped
to parallel. He came up quickly, puffed, and did four more similar movements.
He looked over at me hopefully. “Okay?”
“Nope.”
With a disgusted expression, he took off his belt and sat
down beside me.
“Who taught you to squat like that?” I asked.
“Joe Dobbs.”
Joe Dobbs is a linebacker on a pro football team. He trains
with us just before summer camp. He weighs 265 and could hunt bear with a
switch. Most of the fellows follow him around like puppy dogs listening to his
grid-iron war stories.
“No reflection on Joe, but Joe is a football player an you
are training to be an Olympic lifter.”
“So, we both need leg strength, right?” Charlie had a point
and knew it so continued to push it across. “If he is getting his legs stronger
with this style, then I should be able to do the same. Tell me that’s not true.”
He sat back, crossed his arms and looked extremely content.
“Charlie, you will get your legs stronger doing squats like Joe
Dobbs, but Joe does not need strength in exactly the same areas as you do.”
He unfolded his arms. “Explain.”
“In order for you, or any Olympic lifter to recover from a
deep squat clean or squat snatch you have to have thigh and gluteus strength to
bring you out of a rock bottom position. You never touch that position with
your half squats that you are doing now. Also, you have your feet very wide.
This throws the stress more on the lower back than on the legs. This is an area
that the Olympic lifter works with other exercises. The reason he does squats
is to strengthen the legs, not the back.”
Charlie looked a bit puzzled. “Then why does Joe do them
that way?”
“Because he was taught that way when full squats were taboo.
Besides, he is getting sufficient leg work for his sport. Joe Dobbs never, or
almost never, comes out of a full squat position with a barbell loaded to twice
his bodyweight on his chest – like lifters do. I might add that Joe would be
far better off doing full squats, but he has been quite successful with his
program so isn’t too keen on changing.”
“Go over what I should do again.”
“Step-by-step. First, set the bar high on the back, above the traps so that the
legs will be doing the bulk of the work. Second, set the feet in a stance that
you assume when you squat clean a weight. If your feet hit fairly wide at the
bottom of the clean do your squats from that stance. You want them to relate as
closely as possible to the lift itself. Third, go down slowly and do not rebound
at the bottom, then come up as rapidly as possible. This is the key to
protecting the knees. Rebounding is the culprit when it comes to injuring the
knees.”
“Then I shouldn’t bounce? I can do more that way.”
“Perhaps you can’t now, but I can assure you that if you
begin stopping at the bottom you will be able to do much more in no time. And
you will never have to worry about hurting the knees.”
“How long should I pause at the bottom?”
“Just a dead stop is sufficient. Also, you should stay solid
and tight at the bottom, don’t relax.”
“What else did you see?”
“You don’t need to huff and puff so much for each rep. If you were knocking out
10-20 reps it would be different, but you are only doing fives. Take a breath
at the start of the squat, hold it while you go down and up, then exhale and
inhale again.”
“I’m going to start over. Stay and watch!”
“Certainly”
This time he set the bar high on his back, set his feet
slightly wider than shoulder width with his toes pointed slightly outward, took
a breath, went to the bottom, stopped and came back erect. He shot a quick
glance over and asked, “That better?”
“Much better. Try and look up a little more next rep. it
helps to keep the back flat.”
He knocked out four more reps, loaded the bar to 150 and sat
down on the incline bench.
“Well Charlie,” I asked. “how did those feel?”
“Fine. I just hope that I don’t drop the weight back too
much.”
“I don’t think that you will. Anyway it’s more important to
work the Olympic lifting muscles than just to handle big weights. I would
rather have you doing five deep squats with 225 for 5 than 275 for 5 in the manner
you were just doing them. This way we know how strong you legs really are. This
is not the case in the half squats as the back does most of the work. How are
your front squats coming along?”
“Not too good I’m afraid.”
“I’m not surprised. The half squats were not getting to the
gluteus and that’s an important area in front squatting. The front squats will
pick up once you get the back squats going in this style. You should have an almost
identical body position for the front and the back squats. The only difference
being the bar sets on the chest for one and on the back for the other.”
“Why do we bother with fronts?”
“Basically for positioning for the squat clean. Also they work the legs and glutes in a little different angle. The best way to check pure leg strength is with a front squat. The foreign lifters never ask ‘what can you squat’, but rather ‘what can you front squat.’ I once saw a lifter, who held the American record in the squat with well over 500 pounds get pinned with a 325 squat clean. That’s why we do front squats once a week.”
Charlie was attentively shaking his head and I saw that he
had heard enough for one day. He jumped up, “Well I better finish these up. I
have a date.”
“Sure, didn’t mean to hold you up. See how your legs feel
tomorrow. I would venture to guess that they would be a little sore, indicating
that you worked some new muscles today.”
“Oh, great. Nothing like some new sore spots.”
“All part of our happy sport, Charlie. You’ll learn to love
soreness as time goes on.”
“Don’t count on that.”