Female friend can't squat with anything on her back

[Jake Galgon]

Rip et al helped me sort a problem with a cyclist I work with who may be similar in some ways, except male ... it even made it (the question, not so much the solution!) into MOMG!

http://startingstrength.com/resource...ad.php?t=12024

Excellent. To quote you in that thread: "Just a followup on this, over the last fortnight we've worked more on his squat, I've stood behind him as suggested to help with the falling backwards fear, we've shouted 'knees out, knees out' a lot..."

That's sort of what I was trying to do with the box, but actually standing behind her seems like a much better solution because I'll be able to give a bit of gentle support/assurance rather than just letting her collapse into a chair. I'll give that a try today.

[Jake Galgon]

Pictures in the squat stretch, followed by (probably more interesting) barbell squat videos:

(too) narrow stance: http://i48.tinypic.com/34nf5w1.jpg
wider stance: http://i49.tinypic.com/14si5aw.jpg
elevated heels: http://i45.tinypic.com/21ex7vq.jpg

Stance width seems to affect her knee angle more than her hip angle, possibly because she's good about pointing her knees out(?). Elevated heels make it look and feel a bit more natural, but apparently did not make standing up any easier.

Low bar squat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvSyD0QqzOs
High(er) bar squat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icpu3MBN0ec --I foolishly set the guards too high on this, but she ended up doing sets of 5 high-bar that looked largely identical (except with the knees coming forward less at the bottom) with a lower guard.

She claims barbell squats, now that she's strong enough to do them, are much easier than bodybar squats, which is about what I expected, and that the high bar position is much easier. I guess my question, at this point, is this:

If the low bar position is adopted (primarily) to shorten the effective length of the back, particularly relative to the legs, is it acceptable in a case like this to adopt a high bar position because the back is, from what I can see, already quite short? Presumably there exits a bar position that is TOO low, or else we'd all be squatting with some sort of harnesses that let us load the barbell 3/4 of the way down the back, and so presumably there also exists some set of people for whom the standard low bar position IS too low.

Relatedly, here's her DL start position: http://i48.tinypic.com/2eprlh3.jpg
Other imperfections aside, her hips are still at shoulder-level even with the shins touching the bar and the bar forward of mid-foot. My intuition is basically to have her deadlift with the bar as far back as possible without the hips getting above the shoulders. Perhaps she should lift sumo though?

As for shoes, would you recommend a particularly high heel or anything like that, maybe some 1.5" do-wins?

Sorry for the long-winded post, and thanks for the help.

[Mark Rippetoe]

If the low bar position is adopted (primarily) to shorten the effective length of the back, particularly relative to the legs, is it acceptable in a case like this to adopt a high bar position because the back is, from what I can see, already quite short?

This is a bad misunderstanding of the reason for the position. We use the low-bar position to make the back angle more useful for involving the hamstrings, not to shorten the moment arm. If the bar is lower and the angle is more horizontal, you end up with about the same MA as you do when the distance is longer at a more vertical angle. We use it to increase the amount of muscle mass in the exercise. She looks fine in the video now, so I guess your tweak worked. As far as her DL position is concerned, big heels will not help. Get her toes pointed OUT so she can get her knees OUT, and get her back off of her toes, and this position will work fine.

[Jake Galgon]

I should have said shorten the effective back length, with the goal of flattening the back position necessary to keep the bar over the midfoot, thereby decreasing the hip angle, thereby increasing/allowing the involvement of the hamstrings etc. If that's still a misunderstanding then I apologize. I expected that for a person short on torso the high-bar position might elicit the proper hamstring involvement, but I might be wrong in this assumption.

The point is moot, though, because if you say the low-bar squats look ok vs. the high-bar (I assume it's the first, low-bar video you're talking about?) then obviously I'll defer to your experience.

I was asking about shoes more in reference to the squat, since she's in the market. My intuition would be that the lower the back/femur ratio is the higher heel you want, but I could again be wrong. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a discussion on the topic.

Thanks again.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I was asking about shoes more in reference to the squat, since she's in the market. My intuition would be that the lower the back/femur ratio is the higher heel you want

I'm interested in your reasoning here.

[Jake Galgon]

Nothing more insightful than this: A small torso relative to the legs (or at least femurs) should give a more horizontal back and a tighter hip/back angle, ceteris paribus. Hamstring length seems to be a function of hip angle, among other things. The more upright squat you get with a higher heel might not decrease the hip angle damagingly in big-legged individual, since the angle starts out so tight in the first place.

Thinking on it further, the hamstring involvement would also probably be negatively related to knee angle, and perhaps the tighter knee angles that a big-legged person would have to adopt might offset the tighter hip/back angle as far as hamstring involvement goes. I guess with big shins AND big femurs you might expect 'normal' knees but a tight hip/back angle, and my original point might still stand. In the present case the girl seems to have super-forward knees, though.

Of course, I'm a more-than-a-couple Laphroaigs deep in celebration of my own new squat PR, so this might all be nonsense.

[Mark Rippetoe]

With the taller heel, the knee gets pushed forward, closing up the knee angle and affecting the hamstring tension from the distal, as you said. Longer femurs result in a more horizontal back angle, but pushing the knees forward with the shoe and thus distally de-tensing the hamstrings just approximates the front squat, which we don't want to do. If the girl squats with a more horizontal back that's fine because the shorter distance between bar and hip offsets the effect of the angle.