Now here's a great article

[Meshuggah]

http://www.strengtheory.com/high-bar...squatting-2-0/

[Joe Jaloszynski]

Interesting read. I'm sure other people (smarter people) will have more things to say

[Kyle Schuant]

I found it interesting, but it's like Petrizzo knew this was coming and answered it.

For my part, I think the low-bar back squat is superior for general strength training purposes, and that's the one I give to everyone who is physically capable of performing it. But... it is better to squat than not squat. So if I find someone doing a high-bar or front squat or goblet squat or whatever, I'm not going to stress over it much.

[Cody]

This is -not- a good article. He misses the mark with the whole how far you lean forward/keeping your torso upright spiel he throws out toward the end of his article. The point of the squat isn't to keep your torso upright, and Chad Smith isn't trying to keep it upright. The main thing in a squat is keeping the bar balanced over your mid foot (the master cue). Bar position affects where the moment arms are- the lbbs creates a set of moment arms that shifts the load such that the strongest joints receive the greatest portion of the load (the hips have the largest moment arm in the lbbs instead of the knees in the hbbs). Because you're involving more muscle mass over total rom (the bar is literally displaced more in the lbbs, and it allows the larger muscle groups to be used over a longer rom), you're able to generate more force and this lift more weight. You generate less force in the hbbs or fs, period.

Either way, he really missed the mark with the whole upright torso thing. It's plain wrong. When your torso becomes more upright is simply an artifact of keeping the bar over the mid foot.

[Joe Jaloszynski]

So the separator between LBBS and HBBS proficiency is back strength. Cool.

Imagine how much stronger you could be if you used a safety bar.

[atb5161]

This is -not- a good article. He misses the mark with the whole how far you lean forward/keeping your torso upright spiel he throws out toward the end of his article. The point of the squat isn't to keep your torso upright, and Chad Smith isn't trying to keep it upright. The main thing in a squat is keeping the bar balanced over your mid foot (the master cue). Bar position affects where the moment arms are- the lbbs creates a set of moment arms that shifts the load such that the strongest joints receive the greatest portion of the load (the hips have the largest moment arm in the lbbs instead of the knees in the hbbs). Because you're involving more muscle mass over total rom (the bar is literally displaced more in the lbbs, and it allows the larger muscle groups to be used over a longer rom), you're able to generate more force and this lift more weight. You generate less force in the hbbs or fs, period.

Either way, he really missed the mark with the whole upright torso thing. It's plain wrong. When your torso becomes more upright is simply an artifact of keeping the bar over the mid foot.

I'm really confused on what you're disagreeing with him here. I'm pretty sure Greg would agree with everything you wrote. He makes it pretty clear that when the weight gets heavier (more force needed), you're going to default into a LBBS, forward lean, position...because increased force production is required.

I suppose you can do one of two things with that information:

1) Teach a squat with increased forward lean since that is the position people will wind up in anyways with heavy loads.

2) Teach a more upright squat to ensure people are striving to delay the point that their lower back becomes a limiting factor.

I can understand both positions, but I still lean toward the second one for this reason: When the quads are “maxed out,” you will naturally shift the load more to the posterior chain, with accompanying increased forward lean. However, if you’re still fighting to stay upright, you can ensure that the weight you eventually miss must be the one that your back simply wasn’t capable of handling. Whereas when purposefully striving for a more “hip-dominant” squat, you may artificially find yourself in a position where your back strength is limiting you with a lighter weight than you would have otherwise been able to move if you were slightly more upright.

Are you disagree with his assessment of back strength limitations? His assessment of quad involvement and optimization?

I thought it was an interesting article, and I hope smart people talk about it a bit.

[OCG]

Greg does seem to feel the need to justify his love of high bar squatting a lot...

The thing is, in a heavy squat of any kind, your upper back is probably going to round a bit. Also, when the weights get heavy enough you'll want to try and lean forwards and use your ass more. In a front squat, where you have absolutely no way to hold onto the bar if it moves forwards, this means you fail. In a high bar squat, the bar can roll forwards a little bit, then it goes into your neck and you bail. In a low bar squat the bar rolls forwards into your traps and it's reasonably comfortable and you can probably finish the lift. The low bar squat is more tolerant of upper back rounding because it is a more stable position is hold the bar in.

A lot of the numbers Nuckols uses seem to be pulled from thin air, and we're just supposed to take them at face value. For instance, apparently there's only a 10% difference between high bar and low bar for most people. How does he know this, where does this come from? Who knows?

Since you can usually squat about 10% more weight low bar, that will mean that the knee extensor moment arm needs to be about 10% shorter

What? Why? Again, we're just asked to accept this without explanation.

1) In the squat, even with 90% loads, demands of the movement don’t get particularly close to the maximum hip extension torque you’re capable of producing.

This entire section deals with one study, which is not cited. Firstly, it's a single study, of unknown sample size. How did they measure hip extension torque? Who knows? How did they measure 1RM, how advanced where the participants, what loads where used, what was considered to be a "squat"? I could go on. Again, we're just supposed to accept this study as valid and move on.

But then, if you asked most people, “Which would you say happens most often: You miss a back squat even though your legs were strong enough, but your back rounded and you couldn’t complete the lift? Or you miss a front squat even though your legs were strong enough, but your back rounded and you couldn’t complete the lift?”

Refer to what I wrote above. It's harder to miss a back squat because the allowable form deviation is much higher and more tolerant of mistakes.

However, what’s more appropriate is looking at the relationship of the bar to the hips, since the bar is what’s going to be situated over midfoot.

I do think Greg's idea of measuring the moment arm in the front squat as he does is quite neat. However, he misses something a lot of people who aren't engineers of physicists do, we are interested in the moment arm the bar forms with the pelvis with respect to gravity. As the front squat is much more vertical than the back squat, necessitated by the position the bar is racked in, with respect to gravity the moment arm is going to be longer for a back squat.

If I’m standing in a position where the bar would be directly over my hips if I were low bar squatting, then in that same body position, the bar would be 7 inches in front of my hips if I were holding it in a front squat position.

Firstly, when is the bar directly vertical over the hips when you're low bar squatting? There is always going to be a slight lean forwards at the top. Secondly, he seems to be arguing that if you squat with the same back angle in a front squat and a low bar squat that based upon his analysis the front squat will be harder on the back than the low bar squat. To this I actually agree, with the caveat that the back angle for a front squat and back squat are never going to be the same. So it's a moot point anyway.

Notice how until the very bottom of the spine, there’s a much greater distance between the bar and the spine for a front squat than a back squat.

I'm going to guess he meant "squat" instead of "spine" here, and the only way this is true is if you maintain a very vertical back on the way down when back squatting or are very bent over when front squatting. Neither is ideal.

This study, though it used light loads, and the same load for front and back squats, showed ~25% higher EMG activity for the lumbar spinal erectors when front squatting than when back squatting. In fact, the lumbar spinal erector EMG readings were similar for the front squat (even with a very light load – only 40kg) and the superman, which is a pure back extension exercise.

Ah, at last, a study is cited, though only one. And it uses EMG readings for sweet fuck all weight. I will agree, that a back squat that is probably artificially vertical because of light loads is quite possibly easier on the back than a front squat with the same weight. Assuming we have a decent sample size and accept that EMG is actually correlated to muscle activation. I don't see how this is applicable to lifting heavy weights or training to get stronger.

The most obvious and straightforward answer: Why can you high bar squat more than you front squat? It’s easier for your back. Why can you low bar squat more than you can high bar squat? Extending this principle a bit further, the high bar squat shifts the weight forward a few inches as well, making it a sort of midpoint between the low bar squat and the front squat – you can squat more low bar because it’s easier for your back.

Or, the bar is in a more stable position and more muscle mass is involved over a somewhat shorter ROM, which allows you to grind more with somewhat more form breakdown.

It’s very possible that your back may be more sore from low bar squatting than high bar or front squatting. However, the likely reason is that the dreaded “buttwink” tends to be more common with the low bar squat.

So, that's it? Someone who has a sorer back from low bar squatting than front squatting just has "buttwink"? There's no other option and we're just supposed to believe you on this one?

Just to illustrate how this concept applies to high bar versus low bar squats, check out this figure:

Interesting. The high bar and low bar squat are illustrated as having exactly the same back angle. But further up the page, Greg illustrates them as having different back angles. So, which is it? Are they the same, or different? We're meant to believe his little MS paint diagram is accurate and a reflection of reality?

What actually got me on this line of thinking was trying to wrap my mind around how freaking strong of squatters weightlifters are. They do everything “wrong” for squatting a ton – narrow stance, high bar, often beltless (and certainly not the same type of belt powerlifters use), often with no knee support (and certainly not powerlifting-style knee wraps). In spite of all that, many elite weightlifters squat similar numbers to elite powerlifters. Some squat more: Here’s Vladislav Lukanin, an ex-weightlifter, setting the world record squat in his weight class with a high bar, weightlifting-style squat. And here’s Boyanka Kostova squatting 200kg at 60kg – 440lbs at 132 – which would break the with-wraps record in her weight class by 22lbs.

I really thought Greg was smarter than this. These people are professional athletes, specifically selected for their potential to be really strong. They are paid, very motivated, given far more resources than most powerlifters who do this as a hobby. There is likely an established and very effective doping programme in place for them. Of course they're stronger, it's their job to be stronger and they get paid and get free drugs. It's nothing to do with how they squat and everything to do with the fact that they're fast twitch monsters.

[gnuckols]

Greg does seem to feel the need to justify his love of high bar squatting a lot...

Meh. More about pointing out that different tools are appropriate for different purposes. High bar squat doesn't cover everything. Low bar squat doesn't cover everything. Front squat doesn't cover everything. Arguing about which is best (as is true with variants of just about any exercise) is an exercise in futility. They all have their place.

What? Why? Again, we're just asked to accept this without explanation.

Maximal knee extensor moment at full depth and peak quad EMG at lowest position. This (and a lot of your other points) were covered in the articles linked at the top of the article. You can only cover but so much ground in blog post, even an excessively long one.

Refer to what I wrote above. It's harder to miss a back squat because the allowable form deviation is much higher and more tolerant of mistakes.

So when you lean forward with a high bar squat, it rolls onto your neck? Exactly how far are you leaning forward? Your torso would need to be pretty darn near parallel with the floor.

This entire section deals with one study, which is not cited. Firstly, it's a single study, of unknown sample size. How did they measure hip extension torque? Who knows? How did they measure 1RM, how advanced where the participants, what loads where used, what was considered to be a "squat"? I could go on. Again, we're just supposed to accept this study as valid and move on.

Covered in two of the articles linked at the top. Bryanton's study is the most thorough analysis of squat biomechanics in the literature by far.

I'm going to guess he meant "squat" instead of "spine" here, and the only way this is true is if you maintain a very vertical back on the way down when back squatting or are very bent over when front squatting. Neither is ideal.

Nope. I meant spine. The issue was about the differential challenges to the lumbar and thoracic erectors. In spite of being more upright, the front squat poses more of a challenge to the thoracic erectors, though not the lumbar erectors.

Assuming we have a decent sample size and accept that EMG is actually correlated to muscle activation.

Pretty darn thorough rundown of the literature on EMG here: http://bretcontreras.com/whats-fuss-emg/

From what I can tell, everything else you said was either addressing something that was simply meant for illustrative purposes (a couple of the diagrams) or was simply an aside (WLers. Although, to nuance that point a bit, fiber type distribution, which is has a lot to do with weightlifting, actually isn't overly important for PL).

So, from what I can tell, this is the bulk of your position for why you can low bar squat more than high bar:

The thing is, in a heavy squat of any kind, your upper back is probably going to round a bit. Also, when the weights get heavy enough you'll want to try and lean forwards and use your ass more. In a front squat, where you have absolutely no way to hold onto the bar if it moves forwards, this means you fail. In a high bar squat, the bar can roll forwards a little bit, then it goes into your neck and you bail. In a low bar squat the bar rolls forwards into your traps and it's reasonably comfortable and you can probably finish the lift. The low bar squat is more tolerant of upper back rounding because it is a more stable position is hold the bar in.

Which, imo, is a pretty flimsy explanation. And doesn't address the initial quandary from figure 1: if back strength isn't the primary limiting factor, you're looking at joint angle differences of 3 degrees or less, either at the hip or dispersed throughout the system, which is negligible. Meaning similar moment arms, torques, and performance. But that's NOT what we generally see. The point of this article wasn't to say that one was better than the other, but rather to address the reasons for that difference.

Chad Smith isn't trying to keep it upright.

We're friends, we talk to each other about picking up heavy stuff a lot, and I was actually the one who recorded that lift. I'm pretty sure I know what his intent was, because he stated it to me explicitly.

So the separator between LBBS and HBBS proficiency is back strength. Cool.

That and where you hit depth/catch the stretch reflex.

I told myself I was going to avoid posting here again after the last go-round. But oh well. Let's see what happens.

[Kyle Schuant]

We need Petrizzo in here for a more intelligent discussion. Most of us aren't qualified to argue the finer details.

[gnuckols]

And, just as a general note, I'm here for a productive discussion, which I'm assuming will be quite a short one, as there are, I'm pretty sure, minimal points of disagreement that ultimately have little to do with empirical evidence (on either side) and more to do with our own experiences as athletes and coaches.

So, just to start this on reasonable footing, I'm not saying HB or FS are better than LB ("the low bar squat is the least limited by back strength, meaning it can be loaded heavier yet for leg and hip musculature development. Also, since it’s how most powerlifters compete, it should obviously be included in your training routine because it’s highly specific sports practice."), simply that they have different uses and different limiters.

And we don't disagree about the strongest position, just how/when/why to get there (either out of purpose - which I can certainly understand at the point of teaching amateurs to get comfortable in that position - or out of necessity - very very few top lifters I've talked to, though they wind up in that position, get there purposefully; they generally try to sit into the position that gives them the biggest rebound, and then try to get their hips forward and chest up as fast a possible coming out of the hole) - and that's the piece of the discussion that has little chance of being productive because it's the one based primarily on opinion and experience (and a discussion based on subjective grounds rarely goes anywhere).