by Garry Holmen
Tue, 24 Oct 95 16:52:16 PDT

Overview
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With out a doubt squat is king of exercises... there is no other movement that involves more muscles, requires greater concentration, nor give you give you better all around results.

But like many things in life the most promising roads are the hardest to walk... squat is difficult to learn properly and can be dangerous to the ill advised.

The solution is to perfect your form... by maintaining the proper stance, grip and movement you can greatly reduce your risk and increase your benefits.

Basics
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In the squat you place a barbell across your traps and delts. Now keeping your back slightly arched you will slowly bend at the knees and lower your behind so that you move down into a seated position. At this point you stop the decent and push with your legs to get yourself back up to a standing position.

>From this point you can repeat until you pass out. 8^)

Placement of the bar
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Firstly, line up with the centre of the bar. You want to keep it balanced across your back. It should sit squarely on your posterior delts and traps. Do not carry it higher on your neck. The further down you can keep the bar the better the bar will travel through your centre of balance.

Hand grip
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There is no set hand grip for squat... but try to experiment so that you're comfortable. I suggest a grip slightly wider than shoulder width with thumbs underneath the bar. (My workout partner uses a 'false grip' but for safety reasons I like the thumb underneath.)

Stance
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Position your feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart with your feet planted firmly. You want a balanced stance... do not stagger one foot in front of the other. Your feet should point directly ahead to slightly angled out. Do not point your feet in.

The movement
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Now that you have the bar securely placed you can practise the movement you need. Basically, it's identical to sitting in a chair or using the toilet. Bend at the knees and slowly lower your butt until your thighs are parallel with the floor. Sounds easy right? Well most people get this one wrong.

Firstly, keep your back arched and and as vertical as possible. If you draw a line from the floor through your knees your shoulders should never cross this line. This keeps the weight back on your legs rather than forward which puts stress on your back. One of the best pieces of advice is to push through your heels. if you're doing this you're keeping the weight back properly. If you feel like you're pushing through your toes or your heels move around it's likely that you're leaning forward too much. The more weight you put on your back the more dangerous squat can be.

Secondly, bring the squat right down to parallel. This makes it a much more useful exercise as it brings your glutes and hip flexors into effect. Too many people perform partial squats where they lower themselves to a point above parallel. Range of motion is critical... the larger the range of motion in this exercise the more muscle fibres you can recruit.

Thirdly, as you push upwards to not twist your knees nor let them travel in (making you slightly knock-kneed) and out. Knees are very weak in the lateral range of motion. My eliminating this lateral motion you should avoid all knee damaging problems with the squat.

Lastly, your knees in the bottom position should not pass the front of your feet by much. (When I squat there they extend about 1/2" past the ends of my feet). If your knees travel too far forward it will bear more weight than what you want. Again by keeping your knees back as far as possible it keeps the weight over your centre of gravity and thus less likely to damage your knees.

Squatting Don'ts
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Here is a list of my squatting don'ts. If you do any of these I encourage you to stop and correct your form.

1. Do not round your back. Keep a lumbar arch (curve in) in your back at all times. Some good suggestions to prevent this are: pick a spot about 7' up on a wall in front of you and look at it at all times during the motion, bend with the knees not the back (it's the depth of your legs that counts not the depth of the barbell.), focus on keeing your chest out, tighten with your abs and arms as you descend and then push, contract your lower back before ascending (many people start pushing with their legs which raises their hips but since their back is loose their back just rounds.)

2. Do not put any boards, plates, etc underneath your heels. This just moves more of the weight over your knees and thus is more dangerous for them.

3. Do not twist or move your feet while squatting. Between squats is fine if you want better footing but during just puts a lot of shearing force on your knees.

4. Do not bow your knees in as you lift. Your knees should remain in line with your legs at all times.

5. Do not put a pad underneath the bar. This raises the bar higher onto your neck and thus puts more stress on your lower back. If the bar digs in I'ld suggest a sweat shirt for a little more padding... as well start with a lighter weight and slowly acclimatize your delts and traps. When I started squatting I thought 135 lbs was painful. Now I have a 'squatting callous' where I normally put the bar and I never feel the bar digging in anymore.
   

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