Low Bar Carryover to High Bar Squats

[Tom DiStasio]

I thought this was interesting so I wanted to post it up on the board.

One of my olympic lifters has been low bar squatting since March of this year (she had been high bar squatting prior to this). Right before she switched to LBBS back in March, her best set of 5 high bar squat was 100kg x 5. She recently tore her Longissimus Thoracis at the USA Weightlifting National Championships. The spot of the tear is near where the bar sits when she low bars, so she is high bar squatting for the time being.

Before the National Championships, her best low bar back squat was 120kg x 4 (missed the last rep on a 5RM set). We did no high bar squatting in any of her training, only low bar and front squats. Today (after taking two weeks off), 4 months after she did 100kg for a set of 5, she did 100kg high bar squat for a pretty easy set of 10.


Also interesting is the fact that from the time she started low bar squatting she upped her snatch 6kg (81kg to 87kg), and her C&J 8kg (97kg to 105kg) at the same bodyweight. She also took bronze at Nationals this year. My other female lifter (who also low bar squats) took silver in another weight class. I believe 363 lifters competed at this years nationals. All of the coaches that I talked to at nationals this year, all of them, said low bar back squatting is "stupid" or not applicable to Olympic weightlifting.

[Mark Rippetoe]

That actually means, "Stronger is stupid, and is not applicable to Olympic weightlifting." Such a frustrating bunch of people, content to keep getting their asses handed to them at the international level. At least they can win their own Nationals.

[Robert Santana]

I gotta say one time I was fucking around and I decided to go for my best single on the power clean. I added weight until I couldn't catch it in the power position anymore then just randomly decided to try and squat clean it. Needless to say standing up with it was a non issue and i've never even front squatted. Can't seem to figure out why the hell that is. Can't be related to the squat I learned from the book and seminar.

[mgrover]

I've recently gone from squatting high bar next to all my life to doing my light days on texas method with low bar, and finally took the plunge two-three weeks ago and switched to fully low bar and no real losses to record of yet, but i am in my deload part so we'll see how my triples on friday turn out.

[medwards]

I decided to look up which lifters Tom is talking about, but I can't find a simple listing of who the various winners are anywhere.

[Tom Campitelli]

Very nice work, Tom. It is like strength is transferable to other activities, or something like that.

[Sean Herbison]

Since we're talking about this again, and Rip hasn't immediately shut it down, I do have a question.

Rip, you've said that for people who are not motor morons (i.e. potential Olympic lifters), the different back angle is a non-issue. What about for people who are (i.e. me)? I can muscle the weight up, but if I lose the bar in a full clean, it's almost always because I'm leaning too far forward.

For what it's worth, I can power clean more than I can full clean, but if I do a full clean and catch it upright enough, I've never had a problem standing up with it. My best (power) clean is 345, and the most I've front squatted is 405.

[Tom DiStasio]

Thanks Tom. Its a novel concept that being strong works in your favor, especially for barbell sports....

medwards the results of the 2014 nationals are here:

http://www.teamusa.org/~/media/usa_w...%20results.pdf

I coach two girls, the girl who came in 3rd as a 63kg lifter and the girl who came in second as a 69kg lifter.

[Nick D'Agostino]

I heard some very silly things at the American Open in December. I didn't talk to too many coaches but the athletes that I talked to seemed to be obsessed with clean to front squat ratio. Literally saying they weren't going to improve their front squat because it would hurt the ratio. This was just one example of a handful of very stupid things that had me slapping my forehead the entire trip.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Tom, what was her LBBS 5RM when she initially switched over from 100kgx5 high-bar? This might be a stupid endeavor (and it might have been done already?? If it's in the book I missed it...) but I think it might be cool/revealing to plot everyone's HBBS vs LBBS, or something like that. Maybe two plots, one for folks who had previously high-barred exclusively and one for those who low-barred? Details to come, if enough people care.....or something. Probably won't ever settle that whole argument of fail, but might be fun to plot anyway? Fun for folks like me who generate graphs for a living, at least.

I decided to look up which lifters Tom is talking about, but I can't find a simple listing of who the various winners are anywhere.

That's because USA Weightlifting's site is a mess. Butch Curry's site, Lift Til Ya Die, looks like it actually predates the Internet, and maybe electricity even, but it works and the links to Nationals results for the past billion years are all there on the front page. I'm guessing Tom's referring to Mary Peck and Cecily Basques; I recall him posting a video or two of them a while back.