Lowbar vs. highbar Squatting revived

[Torsten Bauer]

Hi Mark,

I am training in an Olympic weightlifting gym and, as you may suspect, usually have a hard time justifying lowbar over highbar squatting. Yesterday I had a heated discussion with an Olympic weightlifter who has a master’s degree in sports studies about the topic why lowbar squats are essential useless (or at least less useful than highbar squats) for athletic performance in general. Even though I could convince him that lowbar squats involve more muscle mass than highbar squats he made the point that this additional muscle mass was useless for athletic performance. He claimed that the limiting factor for acceleration in sprints would always be the quadriceps which is much more involved in highbar squats and if you want to train the hamstrings, deadlifts were the much more efficient exercise.

So he concluded athletes should train highbar squats for the quads and deads for the hamstrings and lowbar squats are only for powerlifters who want to squat as heavy as possible by incorporating muscles which are less useful for athletic performance or could be trained much more efficiently with other exercises.

Question: Have you ever heard about the fact that quad strength is always the limiting factor in acceleration or is this (as I suspect) pure nonsense?

I do not hope to convince those guys that lowbar squats are superior to highbar squats but at least I am tempted to try from time to time…

[deeprooted]

By that logic high-bar squats are pretty much as useless as low-bar squats and one should do front squats, because you know... the quadriceps is much more involved in the front squat.

So why do they train the high-bar squat then instead of the front squat for strength purposes? Oh yeah right, probably because the high-bar squat involves more muscle mass and allows one to lift heavier weights than the front squat. Do you see their contradiction?

Just to put more gasoline into the fire. Let's compare the range of motion of the knee vs. the hip while the foot touches and pushes against the ground. I'd argue the hip musculature might be more involved during the sprint than the quadriceps:

[Satch12879]

You took the opinion of someone with a "sports studies" master's degree seriously?

[Tom Campitelli]

Question: Have you ever heard about the fact that quad strength is always the limiting factor in acceleration or is this (as I suspect) pure nonsense?

Quads are not the limiting factor in sprinting, or jumping, or other human movement involving acceleration. These movements are far more complex than single muscle groups and involve the interplay between hips, knees, and ankles (along with the upper body) and all of the musculature therein. Ground reaction force is very important in sprinting and the hamstrings play an important role there. In fact, hamstring tears are not uncommon in sprinters and, if they are bad enough, can seriously fuck with a sprinter's career. People that decide to go out and try doing 100m sprints without proper training frequently tear a hammy. The bottom line is that the quads are not the only muscle group that matters and certainly not in sprinting. Shit just isn't so neat and tidy and simple.

As for quads, you know what builds bigger, stronger quads? Squatting more weight. What happens when you perform a squat, any squat? Knee flexion followed by knee extension. What muscle group extends the knee? The quads. While it is true that you often get more knee flexion in a high bar squat than a low bar squat, you tend to squat more weight with a low bar squat. See how things start to get complicated here? Your quads don't go to sleep in a low bar squat. They get worked very hard. Just as hard, if not harder, than a high bar squat for many people due to the increased weights that are handled. Biomechanics gets very, very complicated when you start digging deeply, so there are caveats all over the place here. Whatever the case, keep making your low bar squat go up. It will help you get stronger, which will help your Olympic lifts. If you really like Olympic lifting, you will want to do some front squats, too, since that is how you recover a heavy clean. Back squat the way you like and profit. So sayeth I.

I do not hope to convince those guys that lowbar squats are superior to highbar squats but at least I am tempted to try from time to time…

Just continue to get better and nod and smile when they tell you that you are doing it wrong.

[spacediver]

I'm far from an expert, but as a first approximation, it seems to me that the quads' primary function in the sprint is to extend the knee so that the posterior chain can extend the hips during the propulsive phase.

Yes, not being able to extend the knee fast enough may be a bottleneck, but the force production requirements seem rather small here, as knee extension here is encountering no resistance except the moment of inertia provided by the weight of the shank and foot.

The posterior chain, on the other hand, propels the entire body.

To be fair though, I think the quads play a larger role during the first few steps out of the block.

[Tom Campitelli]

Just to put more gasoline into the fire. Let's compare the range of motion of the knee vs. the hip while the foot touches and pushes against the ground. I'd argue the hip musculature might be more involved during the sprint than the quadriceps:

This video is very good and provides a nice look at where the knee extends in the stride. The primary function of the quads once the foot hits the ground is isometric. That certainly involves force production, but hip extension looks to be what propels you along. As spacediver points out, coming out of the blocks is going rely a lot more on knee extension than other parts of the sprint.

[Andrew Jackson]

I cry myself to sleep often wondering what could have been if I had only high bar squatted. In the last five years I have only been able to improve my snatch from 70kg to over 130kg and my clean and jerk from 90 to over 150kg. Since I started in my 30's, I just...sniff...I just wonder. Why? Why me? Why did I low bar squat?? I would probably be an elete international lifter by now. FML.

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[Torsten Bauer]

Thanks folks for your kind answers!

Even though I will not be able to convince my training buddys at least you guys convinced me that my gut feeling about "quads are the limiting factor in athletic perfromance" being nonsense was correct.

Fortunately, I am not into the olympic lifts, so most of the time they leave my training alone. And in the future I will do as Tom suggested: Smile and keep nodding when they tell me that lowbar squats are utterly useless.

I am afraid that the Starting Strength influence here in Germany is yet too small but maybe one day the strength community will see the benefit of properly executed LBS and accept that you must not judge a squat by the "uprightness" of the torso.

[Michael Wolf]

I cry myself to sleep often wondering what could have been if I had only high bar squatted. In the last five years I have only been able to improve my snatch from 70kg to over 130kg and my clean and jerk from 90 to over 150kg. Since I started in my 30's, I just...sniff...I just wonder. Why? Why me? Why did I low bar squat?? I would probably be an elete international lifter by now. FML.

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Post of the day, right here folks.

[MBasic]

I cry myself to sleep often wondering what could have been if I had only high bar squatted. In the last five years I have only been able to improve my snatch from 70kg to over 130kg and my clean and jerk from 90 to over 150kg. Since I started in my 30's, I just...sniff...I just wonder. Why? Why me? Why did I low bar squat?? I would probably be an elete international lifter by now. FML.

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Post of the day, right here folks.

not really.

that's a two way street argument type of thing that commonly doesn't get called out around here.

maybe he would be at 140/175 if he had been HBBS this whole time.

no one will ever know.