Post by Joey Smith on Jun 9, 2008 14:46:16 GMT -5
Going Deeper in the Squat and Westside
By Jack Reape
For www.EliteFTS.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the common belief permeating powerlifting is that box squatting is good only if you don’t lift in a federation that demands that the hip joint fall convincingly below the top of the knee. From anecdotal evidence, most of Westside’s (WSB) success is in the WPO and APF/IPA (which is kind of like saying Nike’s success is limited to the NBA, NFL, and Tiger Woods). It’s not easy to get a super wide stance set up without a monolift, and the wide stance makes it almost impossible to get that last little hip dip for that extra bit of depth. So if you’re a USAPL/USPF powerlifter wondering if you should give up any plans or hopes of box squatting, this article might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.
Keep in mind, WSB is not a template. It’s the commitment to do exactly what you need to do to improve and to have the willingness to do it. If you need to learn to do a quick, short two step squat set up; hone your descent phase; learn the right squat depth; optimize use of a tight squat suit; learn to ascend the right way; and get faster and stronger, and you’re willing to do something a bit out of your comfort zone because you know it will help, put down that Slim Jim and listen up.
Two differences
There are only two differences that matter between the squat you’re doing now and what WSB folks do. They set up wider, and you go lower. You can argue about it on the internet all you want but that won’t get you any bar speed or a single white light. Yes, you can set up wider from the monolift. However, if you want to squat wider with a step out or just step out quicker, you’ll have to learn to do it via practice, and box squatting with bands out of a power rack is the way to learn it.
Wider is a more efficient technique as long as you get as deep as you need to be. Not everybody needs to be as wide as the Westside guys, but a bit wider will always help if you lift in any kind of gear. The action that lets you get down deeper is breaking your low back arch and tucking your tailbone to get that extra depth. This is a great place to throw your hands in the air and scream, “That’s impossible!” or “Reape is a depth/equipment/federation/multi ply hater! Kill him!”
The other thing you could do is learn exactly how wide you can comfortably set up via trial and error and work on your hip flexor flexibility to enable you to get to that depth. I highly recommend a drill that my friend Pavel Tsatsouline teaches in his Strength Stretching video. It’s a squat performed facing the wall and should be done in front of a mirror, preferably in the cardio section of your favorite gym. Face the mirror with your toes an inch or two away from the wall in a wider than normal stance. Stick your butt back and your knees out and lower yourself as deep as you can go. Hold your hands out to the sides with your palms up to keep your sternum up as in the normal squat.
The closeness of the mirror will keep you from leaning too far forward or allowing your knees to drift forward. You won’t get as deep as you need to so pull yourself down with your hip flexors. Breathe shallowly to help you get lower, and vary how much you point your toes out to find what is comfortable for you. When you’re about to fall over, arch your back hard and raise your traps to pull yourself up. Do the squats three times every day, working your stance outwards and your toes closer to the wall. Your range of usable motion will increase. I still use this drill with every squat workout as my main warm-up exercise.
Box versus free squatting
If you lift in a federation where box squatting mirrors exactly what you’ll do in a meet regarding stance and depth, you have no need to ever free squat. However, if you lift in a federation where you’ll squat using a narrower stance than that of your box squat stance (always box squat with a wider stance than your meet stance), you need to practice the rebound out of the bottom with the tail tuck wearing the gear you’ll use in the meet. This is best done on ME day. Yes, put the full geared meet squat in your ME rotation!
The basic ME rotation for the squat/deadlift is a squat, a pull, and then a good morning performed in two consecutive weeks. Try this—for week one, work up to an easy double in your gear with the straps down in the squat. Then do a rack pull from your weakest pin and then assistance work. For week two, work up to a PR double in the squat gear, do some speed work in the deadlift, and then do your assistance. In my experience, the double is preferable in the ME full gear squat because it keeps you from going to a 1RM, and doubles are what you’re used to from box squatting. Performing a single could also work, as I’m not dictating the exact Fibonacci sequence that you must follow or perish. For week three, work up to a PR in a good morning of your choice. There are a million ways to do this, but the point is that you need to refresh your free squatting groove. Two weeks is just about the perfect time period for this.
Box squat changes for a USAPL/USPF lifter
As far as the basics, you’re still going to set up with a wide stance in a flat shoe (even if you squat normally in another shoe) and wear a suit a size or two looser than the model you usually squat with in a meet and a belt. You’re still going to use bands and/or chains, do around 45–60 percent of your meet PR, start the descent by pushing your butt back, and rise by pushing your traps through the bar. For sets, 5–6 sets of two reps with an occasional extra set or two with a higher bar weight are about right. I suggest that everyone tries circa max just so that they can say they lived through it, but it’s not optimal for what I’m describing. Heavy, heavy weights and below parallel boxes don’t make a good combination for a single ply USAPL/IPF squatter preparing for a meet.
Since you’re going to have to walk the squat back and may not even have a monolift to train with, you need to set your bands up. The bands should be attached to the rack base or the dumbbells 2–3 inches behind the plane of the bar on the box side of the bar. The bands should describe a shallow angle toward the bar so when you’re set up to box squat, they are straight up and down. The box will be behind the bands even when you’re set up with the bands pointing straight upwards. Set up is a skill that demands extreme concentration and commitment to a two step movement.
When you stand up with the bar, it will tug you backwards slightly. This will force you to control the bar with your abs. You’ll learn to make a quick slide step with each foot back to your foot position. As you get under the bar, start with your feet as wide as they will be when you are set up to squat. This sounds hard and a bit tricky, but it will build a skill that will pay off in free or box squatting. The quicker that you can get into a squat command in any federation, the more you can squat. Believe it. When you descend, keep your butt back and your knees out over your toes. Obviously, this is critical for box squatting, but it’s exactly the same technique you should use for free squatting!
As you descend, the most important thing you will get out of box squatting occurs—learning to store energy as you lower the bar. If you lower too slowly and then plop onto the box, you’ll have little explosion off the box. However, if you descend a bit faster from the top and then consciously transfer the energy of the bar into your glutes, hams, and quads as you slow the descent, stabilize your body position, and sit on the box, you will be in a position to explode off the box. Learning speed in the descent will lead to dropping into the hole under control and exploding out of it. Again, you will have to use your abs. This time push your abs against the belt to manage this loading up of potential energy.
Nothing teaches this skill or builds this type of explosion like box squatting with bands. The box height should be exactly enough to get your hip joint convincingly below your kneecap. You may have to work down to this box over time. This box is for your wide stance box squat, not your meet stance. The only time you should box squat in your meet gear using a narrower meet stance is if you’re trying to learn depth in a new suit or gear combination. If you do this, get a box that is 4–5 inches above your low box height and squat down to it. Use a lower box and work down to that. Then use a box that gets you exactly to the meet depth you’re shooting for and work to that.
Frankly, this is a much better way to learn to get to depth than relying on your partners, unless they are harsh observers of squat depth. When doing this depth learning technique, don’t sit on the box. Just touch it and then drive upwards pushing the traps through the bar. This isn’t something to do often but only when trying to break in new gear. Otherwise, box squat one day and free squat on a different day. This is usually ME day, but a RE day is good too. (I covered this in a previous article.)
Carryover
I’m a huge believer in free squatting raw on RE day, box squatting wide stance on DE day, and free squatting in gear on ME day. The focused descent of sticking the butt back and the knees out along with learning to load up energy in the descent will definitively carryover to your free squat. Box squatting wide with bands also teaches you to squat with drive all the way to full extension. It’s without a doubt the best squat assistance move you can do, no matter what federation you’re training for in your next meet. It greatly surpasses the pause squat as the best way to build confidence and comfort out of the hole. Finally, lighter speed work is exactly what the good Dr. Siff ordered for deloading after a very heavy training cycle. Just do it!
Jack Reape is a career Navy pilot and competitive powerlifter based in Southern Louisiana.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit us at www.EliteFTS.com.
By Jack Reape
For www.EliteFTS.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the common belief permeating powerlifting is that box squatting is good only if you don’t lift in a federation that demands that the hip joint fall convincingly below the top of the knee. From anecdotal evidence, most of Westside’s (WSB) success is in the WPO and APF/IPA (which is kind of like saying Nike’s success is limited to the NBA, NFL, and Tiger Woods). It’s not easy to get a super wide stance set up without a monolift, and the wide stance makes it almost impossible to get that last little hip dip for that extra bit of depth. So if you’re a USAPL/USPF powerlifter wondering if you should give up any plans or hopes of box squatting, this article might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.
Keep in mind, WSB is not a template. It’s the commitment to do exactly what you need to do to improve and to have the willingness to do it. If you need to learn to do a quick, short two step squat set up; hone your descent phase; learn the right squat depth; optimize use of a tight squat suit; learn to ascend the right way; and get faster and stronger, and you’re willing to do something a bit out of your comfort zone because you know it will help, put down that Slim Jim and listen up.
Two differences
There are only two differences that matter between the squat you’re doing now and what WSB folks do. They set up wider, and you go lower. You can argue about it on the internet all you want but that won’t get you any bar speed or a single white light. Yes, you can set up wider from the monolift. However, if you want to squat wider with a step out or just step out quicker, you’ll have to learn to do it via practice, and box squatting with bands out of a power rack is the way to learn it.
Wider is a more efficient technique as long as you get as deep as you need to be. Not everybody needs to be as wide as the Westside guys, but a bit wider will always help if you lift in any kind of gear. The action that lets you get down deeper is breaking your low back arch and tucking your tailbone to get that extra depth. This is a great place to throw your hands in the air and scream, “That’s impossible!” or “Reape is a depth/equipment/federation/multi ply hater! Kill him!”
The other thing you could do is learn exactly how wide you can comfortably set up via trial and error and work on your hip flexor flexibility to enable you to get to that depth. I highly recommend a drill that my friend Pavel Tsatsouline teaches in his Strength Stretching video. It’s a squat performed facing the wall and should be done in front of a mirror, preferably in the cardio section of your favorite gym. Face the mirror with your toes an inch or two away from the wall in a wider than normal stance. Stick your butt back and your knees out and lower yourself as deep as you can go. Hold your hands out to the sides with your palms up to keep your sternum up as in the normal squat.
The closeness of the mirror will keep you from leaning too far forward or allowing your knees to drift forward. You won’t get as deep as you need to so pull yourself down with your hip flexors. Breathe shallowly to help you get lower, and vary how much you point your toes out to find what is comfortable for you. When you’re about to fall over, arch your back hard and raise your traps to pull yourself up. Do the squats three times every day, working your stance outwards and your toes closer to the wall. Your range of usable motion will increase. I still use this drill with every squat workout as my main warm-up exercise.
Box versus free squatting
If you lift in a federation where box squatting mirrors exactly what you’ll do in a meet regarding stance and depth, you have no need to ever free squat. However, if you lift in a federation where you’ll squat using a narrower stance than that of your box squat stance (always box squat with a wider stance than your meet stance), you need to practice the rebound out of the bottom with the tail tuck wearing the gear you’ll use in the meet. This is best done on ME day. Yes, put the full geared meet squat in your ME rotation!
The basic ME rotation for the squat/deadlift is a squat, a pull, and then a good morning performed in two consecutive weeks. Try this—for week one, work up to an easy double in your gear with the straps down in the squat. Then do a rack pull from your weakest pin and then assistance work. For week two, work up to a PR double in the squat gear, do some speed work in the deadlift, and then do your assistance. In my experience, the double is preferable in the ME full gear squat because it keeps you from going to a 1RM, and doubles are what you’re used to from box squatting. Performing a single could also work, as I’m not dictating the exact Fibonacci sequence that you must follow or perish. For week three, work up to a PR in a good morning of your choice. There are a million ways to do this, but the point is that you need to refresh your free squatting groove. Two weeks is just about the perfect time period for this.
Box squat changes for a USAPL/USPF lifter
As far as the basics, you’re still going to set up with a wide stance in a flat shoe (even if you squat normally in another shoe) and wear a suit a size or two looser than the model you usually squat with in a meet and a belt. You’re still going to use bands and/or chains, do around 45–60 percent of your meet PR, start the descent by pushing your butt back, and rise by pushing your traps through the bar. For sets, 5–6 sets of two reps with an occasional extra set or two with a higher bar weight are about right. I suggest that everyone tries circa max just so that they can say they lived through it, but it’s not optimal for what I’m describing. Heavy, heavy weights and below parallel boxes don’t make a good combination for a single ply USAPL/IPF squatter preparing for a meet.
Since you’re going to have to walk the squat back and may not even have a monolift to train with, you need to set your bands up. The bands should be attached to the rack base or the dumbbells 2–3 inches behind the plane of the bar on the box side of the bar. The bands should describe a shallow angle toward the bar so when you’re set up to box squat, they are straight up and down. The box will be behind the bands even when you’re set up with the bands pointing straight upwards. Set up is a skill that demands extreme concentration and commitment to a two step movement.
When you stand up with the bar, it will tug you backwards slightly. This will force you to control the bar with your abs. You’ll learn to make a quick slide step with each foot back to your foot position. As you get under the bar, start with your feet as wide as they will be when you are set up to squat. This sounds hard and a bit tricky, but it will build a skill that will pay off in free or box squatting. The quicker that you can get into a squat command in any federation, the more you can squat. Believe it. When you descend, keep your butt back and your knees out over your toes. Obviously, this is critical for box squatting, but it’s exactly the same technique you should use for free squatting!
As you descend, the most important thing you will get out of box squatting occurs—learning to store energy as you lower the bar. If you lower too slowly and then plop onto the box, you’ll have little explosion off the box. However, if you descend a bit faster from the top and then consciously transfer the energy of the bar into your glutes, hams, and quads as you slow the descent, stabilize your body position, and sit on the box, you will be in a position to explode off the box. Learning speed in the descent will lead to dropping into the hole under control and exploding out of it. Again, you will have to use your abs. This time push your abs against the belt to manage this loading up of potential energy.
Nothing teaches this skill or builds this type of explosion like box squatting with bands. The box height should be exactly enough to get your hip joint convincingly below your kneecap. You may have to work down to this box over time. This box is for your wide stance box squat, not your meet stance. The only time you should box squat in your meet gear using a narrower meet stance is if you’re trying to learn depth in a new suit or gear combination. If you do this, get a box that is 4–5 inches above your low box height and squat down to it. Use a lower box and work down to that. Then use a box that gets you exactly to the meet depth you’re shooting for and work to that.
Frankly, this is a much better way to learn to get to depth than relying on your partners, unless they are harsh observers of squat depth. When doing this depth learning technique, don’t sit on the box. Just touch it and then drive upwards pushing the traps through the bar. This isn’t something to do often but only when trying to break in new gear. Otherwise, box squat one day and free squat on a different day. This is usually ME day, but a RE day is good too. (I covered this in a previous article.)
Carryover
I’m a huge believer in free squatting raw on RE day, box squatting wide stance on DE day, and free squatting in gear on ME day. The focused descent of sticking the butt back and the knees out along with learning to load up energy in the descent will definitively carryover to your free squat. Box squatting wide with bands also teaches you to squat with drive all the way to full extension. It’s without a doubt the best squat assistance move you can do, no matter what federation you’re training for in your next meet. It greatly surpasses the pause squat as the best way to build confidence and comfort out of the hole. Finally, lighter speed work is exactly what the good Dr. Siff ordered for deloading after a very heavy training cycle. Just do it!
Jack Reape is a career Navy pilot and competitive powerlifter based in Southern Louisiana.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit us at www.EliteFTS.com.