Originally Posted by
Mark Rippetoe
The low bar hip-drive position is only applicable to the snatch if heavy weights are used in the lift. See any video of a heavy snatch for confirmation of this. CrossFit personnel may well be under a different impression.
Now, are you seriously asking if the spine is still under load at the bottom of the squat? Like if the spine wasn't there, the squat could be performed anyway? How much sense does this make? Moment is the force distributed along the spine in any position that is not vertical. There are moment forces on the spine in an Olympic squat and a low-bar squat, the difference is one of degree. Moment is a shear force, i.e. a composition of compression and tension along the segment that would produce shearing strain if it were sufficient to deform the material. As such, a portion of the moment force is compression, and the response of the tissue to this compression component is densification, since that is how bone responds to compressive strain. The compressive component can be calculated with trig, but not by me -- I'm just the qualitative guy. Be ye not insulted when I remind you that taking the bar out of the rack and into the rack produces a more pure compressive stress that would indeed cause the adaptation even if the squat itself somehow stopped being partially compressive during the rep.
Is this flaming? Sorry.