skirsch

I saw this official SS video from 2016 on teaching squats to the elderly just now and was confused on two things:

1. Beau is teaching a horizontal back angle coming out of the squat. Look at 2:09. Ouch! Back angle is supposed to be constant in the lower 2/3 of the squat (with a slight allowance of going a little more horizontal). This looks nothing like what is described in SS and in Rip's videos teaching the low bar squat. And Beau is teaching what Figure 2-22 (and 2-42) expressly says you should NOT do.
2. He instructs the gentleman to do "thumbs around" at 4:22, yet the book (and other videos) are clear that it's thumbs over.

So the obvious question is why the deviations from what the book teaches?

Beau Bryant

An update on Dan: He has recently squatted right around 240 beltless and pulled 280x5. I don't have a recent squat video but here is 165x5x3 from a year ago and the last rep of his 280x5 pull. Not perfect but we are working with 74 years of injury accumulation and arthritis.

• Dan Squatting
• Dan Pulling

manis5

Andrew Vigotsky posted this comment on Facebook. The usual keyboard warriors came out in full force afterwards so I was just curious to get your 2 cents on the comment since your name inevitably came up during the conversation.

"Contracting the abdominals would result in a spinal flexion moment, partly countering of the extension moment produced by the erectors. This would result in a faster fatiguing of the erectors, a smaller net extension moment, unnecessarily larger compression forces, and possibly, less weight lifted. The rectus abdominis is an antagonist of the erector spinae; it would be, to be blunt, stupid to contract it, let alone to a large degree, in a movement that requires such a large extensor moment. The idea that the abdominals work to a large degree in movements like the squat and deadlift is not only unfounded and unsubstantiated, but is also unwarranted, as it does not make sense, biomechanically, to activate them in such a movement."

CJ Gotcher

He conflates the rectus abdominis with "the abs," without making reference to transverse abdominis or the interior/exterior obliques, which also play a significant role in respiration/intrabdominal pressure. Interesting.

My swing at this one: will he now suggest that the hamstrings aren't involved in the squat? After all, the hamstrings resist the quadriceps at the knee – it's "stupid to contract it" under this logic. Contraction of the RA may indeed resist action of the SE resulting in "a faster fatiguing of the erectors" and "a smaller net extension moment," but if the increased intrabdominal pressures from the contraction contribute to greater spinal rigidity, more weight can be lifted.

Also, the comment of "unnecessarily large compression forces" is interesting. Experimental observation of squats have, in several studies I've seen, shown that wearing belts/increasing intrabdominal pressure reduces the shrinking of the intervertebral discs caused by the axial loading in a squat.