Where Should I Feel the Squat?

[RobertM]

I have been doing the program for about two months now. Read the book twice, saw the MR video on youtube a few times, and completed a two hour session on the squat and deadlift with a SS certified trainer at Atlanta Barbell. My form has improved, my wife, who is my training partner keeps an eye on me and points out the usual screw ups like bent wrists and staying too erect, but all and all, I think I'm doing alright. I'm still having an issue with the hip drive concept, though. I really feel the squat after the workout in my quads, hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. They are usually good and sore. Does this reveal anything about how well I am doing this exercise?

[Mugaaz]

No, it doesn't reveal anything. Video will reveal it though.

[Charles Jenkins]

I have been doing the program for about two months now. Read the book twice, saw the MR video on youtube a few times, and completed a two hour session on the squat and deadlift with a SS certified trainer at Atlanta Barbell. My form has improved, my wife, who is my training partner keeps an eye on me and points out the usual screw ups like bent wrists and staying too erect, but all and all, I think I'm doing alright. I'm still having an issue with the hip drive concept, though. I really feel the squat after the workout in my quads, hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. They are usually good and sore. Does this reveal anything about how well I am doing this exercise?

You should feel the squat mostly in your everything.

[Adam Skillin]

No, it doesn't reveal anything. Video will reveal it though.

You should feel the squat mostly in your everything.

Both of these answers are correct.

[Charles Jenkins]

I have been doing the program for about two months now. Read the book twice, saw the MR video on youtube a few times, and completed a two hour session on the squat and deadlift with a SS certified trainer at Atlanta Barbell. My form has improved, my wife, who is my training partner keeps an eye on me and points out the usual screw ups like bent wrists and staying too erect, but all and all, I think I'm doing alright. I'm still having an issue with the hip drive concept, though. I really feel the squat after the workout in my quads, hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. They are usually good and sore. Does this reveal anything about how well I am doing this exercise?

To give you a less glib answer, SS is not about "feeling" the lifts in certain body parts. It's about working the body as a system. The squat involves hard work from just about every muscle in your body. The feeling you get from heavy squats is general, not specific. I know you're looking for something like "you should feel it in your quads/glutes/hams/whatever," but the fact of the matter that every little muscle in your body, from your traps down to your feet, is getting worked to some degree. If you want to know if there's an issue with your form, get us a video. 45-degrees from behind.

As for the hip drive, thinking of driving the hips didn't actually work very well for me. What worked better for me is thinking of keeping the back angle constant out of the hole, instead of lifting the chest. This is probably because I'm a structural engineer and I naturally think of physical systems in terms of force distributions, and keeping the back angle constant keeps the hips well behind the bar. This applies a large moment to the hips, which puts the bulk of the work on the muscles that resist moment in the hips.

[sbrl_19]

For hip drive, the picture in the book of Rip standing on a ladder pretending to pull up on a chain connected to a guy’s belt loop (or something like that) at the bottom of the squat helped me with the concept.

[Dalton Clark]

This is only from 10 months of training, but I have noticed absolutely no correlation between soreness or fatigue in a certain region and proper technique. I have also noticed no correlation between soreness and progression in loading.

[vav]

In the bed. My best sleep comes after a heavy SQ session. And even better if the sleeping part involves my wife ..:-)

[jbackos]

If you're feeling sore in a particular area during a squat, then there could be one of two issues. The first thing to check is always technique. Your technique could be distributing the loads incorrectly leading to excessive use of certain muscles. Secondly, and only if technique is correct, there could be a muscle weakness specific to you, that manifests during the squat. Get a coach to review technique first.

[Mugaaz]

If you're feeling sore in a particular area during a squat, then there could be one of two issues. The first thing to check is always technique. Your technique could be distributing the loads incorrectly leading to excessive use of certain muscles. Secondly, and only if technique is correct, there could be a muscle weakness specific to you, that manifests during the squat. Get a coach to review technique first.

Neither of these are true. Even if you have horrible technique, that doesn't mean you are "excessively" using certain muscles. If your X is weaker than your Y, that also doesn't result in X being more sore than Y. The only thing soreness can tell you is that it is likely that specific muscle is lengthening during the lift, and that you haven't had much RBE exposure to that lift.