Knee Movement in Squat - Long Femur Lifters
Hey Coach,
I am a recreational lifter who has been reading/studying/lifting using the book and various materials from the forum, SS coaches, YouTube videos, etc. I first want to say thanks for continuing to produce tons of excellent content, especially this forum, as it has been a great deal of fun to study this science using your physics-based approach and years of anecdotal experience. Nobody can doubt that the best coaches in the field today can trace their success back to the proven, yet underrated practice of barbell lifting, of which this site is THE ONLY source I’ve seen in recent years actually stick to the basic movements and common-sense programming. I have read/owned SSBBT3, Practical Programming, and messed around consistently enough with the program to enjoy steady progress in a simple way. Complicated exercise routes and experimentation have failed consistently, but the heavy weight in compound lifts has generally always worked well for anything I wanted to do outside of the gym.
Before I ask the question, I want to point out that I have been scanning these forums for a few years, watching and rewatching video in technique checks, watching heavy limit attempts in Powerlifting, and observing real people in practice with a specific anthropometric in the squat. There have been a few notable forum threads that discuss this issue, and the book mentions the more forward lean position that a long-femur, short-torso trainee will inevitably demonstrate when squatting. I believe the issue is more complicated than that for this type of lifter, due to what I observe in actual squatting, and I wanted to get your in-depth thoughts on it. I respect your advice and I have researched this one thoroughly; I just want to figure a few things out that I am trying to understand beyond the basic information from the books.
Here it is: a short femur trainee sets his back angle and knee position simultaneously in the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the squat movement in a ‘balanced’ manner, e.g. no immediate knees forward, which causes a swinging effect, and no hip movement sans knees, which looks like what you described as a good morning exercise. For these lifters the stopping of the knee travel via KNEES OUT cueing forces the lifter to make the additional depth needed by ‘sitting back’ or hinging at the hips, extending the hamstrings slightly when the hip joint goes below parallel, and allowing that ‘bounce’ off of the hamstrings. These lifters will need a little more lean, but the stopping of the knees really fixes that and forces the hip the hinge if they are going to continue descending, otherwise they will just stop before hitting depth. When this lifter bends the knees in the bottom position, it relaxes the hamstring distally and causes the lifter to become vertical in the bottom, killing the hip drive. With the bar on the Delts, this is trying to ‘front squat’ a back squat, and it causes bar speed to crater as the posterior muscles leave the movement. This also explains why the front squat, with its more knees forward bottom position, is limited in these trainees, because an bent knee is relaxing the hamstrings, which are needed for the drive. Maybe front squats don’t fail because of a lack of musculature, but because the completion of the lift requires a more horizontal back angle, and the bar will fall of the front Delts. This is all discussed at length, and I completely agree with it.
But, the long-femur/short-torso trainee is not going to be able to do this. When the long-femur trainee descends and stops the knee travel, thereby allowing the hinge to happen for the added depth, this trainee always gets stuck way high of parallel. This becomes a good morning type movement that works well for high-box squats but doesn’t actually drop below parallel. This trainee is required to have his knees further ahead of his toes, but I have watched this hundreds of times: the knees have to travel almost the entire descent, maybe stopping right before the bounce! The back angle gets set early, but if the long-femur trainee lets his knees set in the final position as early as the first trainee, this always results in a vertical back position, which creates that wonderful lumbar back injury that every long-femur trainee complains about when trying to go deeper. As far as I can tell, the back angle gets set early because a more horizontal back angle allows the spine to be set in its normal position and is balanced for this trainee, but the knees have to keep moving forward past the first 1/2 or the correct depth cannot be attained. This causes the hamstrings to slack unless the trainee stop the knee travel close to the bottom, which allows the same feel as the first trainee, the bounce off of the extended hamstrings. This would make the back squat almost like a front squat for these trainees because as they bend the knee, they are relaxing that hamstring, which kills the bounce. I have observed this in the best lifters, and no one can deny that this is what’s happening, due to the easy comparison between back squat numbers of this body-type vs front squat numbers in the other population.
So does the long-femur lifter need that longer knee travel, which is often misdiagnosed as knee slide, in order to complete the squat of the model, e.g. the depth we want? Does this knee-movement relationship explain why these lifters in particular often have much weaker squat numbers despite not having laziness issues (determined by proportionally respectable deadlift numbers)? Does this also explain why these lifters enjoy the deadlift setup more, since the limited knee travel allows them to really utilize the hamstring optimally, instead of relying on more quadricep involvement off the floor? A more open joint angle is easier than a closed one, so it seems like a reasonable explanation for why these lifters can deadlift a house, but often squat like beginners.
Thanks for taking the time to read or reply.