Barbell Shrugged - 74- How Powerlifting Squats Can Help You CrossFit

Episode Date: July 31, 2013

Do you want the ability to squat a "legit" amount of weight? Are you sick of seeing everyone else in the gym out squat you? To discover how a beginner, intermediate, and advanced athlete can improve their squat, this episode of the Barbell Shrugged podcast goes where most CrossFitters don't dare go: Powerlifting. You'll learn the best set and rep ranges for your current level of ability. You'll learn about chains and bands and why you would use them. You'll also learn about specialty bars and how they can help you squat if you're injured or lack mobility.

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we talk about the squat, how important it is, all the different kinds of squatting you can do, depending on whether you're a beginner, intermediate athlete, or an advanced ass kicker, and hell, the squat deserves its own episode. Here we go. Is that a strip club? Yeah. All right. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Fletz over here with Doug Larson, Chris Moore, and we're bringing our faction coach.

Double bicep. David Gross in here as well. What up? We're in more bar. We're going to try and make sure he gets to say something. He's awesome at coaching, but we're awesome at talking. So we'll see how this works out. We're trying to teach him, teach him the ropes of the podcast world.

This is my, uh, this is my third, third, third one. Well, the first one was kind of unofficial. I'd never aired. Oh, wait. Third one. Well, the first one was kind of unofficial. It never aired. Oh, yeah. Was that your fourth then, technically? The first one didn't air and you were on two other ones and now this one? This was the third official. Yeah, this is the fourth.

Sweet. Okay. Alright. You got no fucking excuse. Just so you know, today we're going to be talking about squats, but before we get into squatting, we will be, Make sure you go to barbellstroke.com. Sign up for the newsletter. I've got new stuff going on. We probably have way too much going on.

There's no way we're going to talk about all of it on the podcast. So sign up there so we can send you emails, notify you about it. Hit up the Facebook and like us there. Like us everywhere. Like us everywhere. Like us here. Like us there. like us, like us everywhere, like us everywhere, like us here, like us there, like us everywhere.

Your dreams will come true. All of them. I promise. That's very Dr. Seuss of you. I was inspired. All right, so we'll get on to the topic today. We're going to talk about squatting and why Chris Moore, why are we talking about squatting? Uh, well, squatting is awesome.

Squatting is the bedrock of what we do as people who are trying to get really strong. Is it not? Is it not the foundation of everything? Arguably so. It's a true story. It is a true story. It's almost cliche to say at this point that squatting is the king of all exercises, but people say it for a reason. It'll make you shitty strong.

If you can squat at least heavy once a week, then you're going to get stronger. It's got great properties, right? It makes you really strong, which is always a cool thing. You can do it heavy a lot. You can do it once a week, once a week for speed, once a week heavy and then speed.

You can do it every day. It's very versatile. It won't beat you up too much. And if you get good at it, you're good at everything else because everything requires you to bend the hips and knees, right? I mean, basically. It's the base of everything that we do in the gym also.

Once I start teaching fundamentals, the first thing that I ever teach anyone is to squat. That's the first thing. Air squat? Yeah, just air squat. Well, teach me right now. Yeah. We'll do it. Yeah. I's the first thing. Yeah, just air squat. Teach me right now. Yeah. I suck at squatting. What do I get to know?

Just a couple things. Just keep your weight in your heels, back straight, chest up of course, and most importantly probably one of the most is knees out, right? Because we see a lot of knee injuries. That's very common. You see them we see a lot of knee injuries uh that's very common um especially or you know of the injuries i know of the injuries hurt infection not infection never

happened no no no no muscles have ever been torn here nope i mean they're there well they're there faction well you do make a good point because if at the rule of everything is if you can keep mechanically in decent position you don't have to be like always perfect posture to be a good squatter and a safe squatter. But if you get out of position and you don't correct that, like still in CrossFit, there's some people who get in wildly bad positions. That's when you're begging for a torn MCL or something or something crazy, which I've seen live like five times in my powerlifting career where a guy got knees in. Like one guy, my first powerlifting meet ever,

a guy's on a third temp squat. Of course, he's in a squat suit that's got him bound up pretty tight and he's got knee wraps on there really tight, but his knee comes in real bad. I'm in the crowd watching. My fight starts in about an hour or so, I don't know, but it sounded just like taking a two-by-four and going

boom. It goes in, he keeps going, boom. It goes in. He keeps going, boom. He's gone. I had to cut his gear off and take him out of there on an ambulance. Not really. But if you stay here and your back is straight and your knees are at least in line with your feet, no matter how bad things get, you probably aren't going to get hurt. As long as you don't bail on the barbell in a bad way.

I'll say this. I mean, if you have a really great squat and you practice really good movement, it's going to improve your movement and everything you do in life, right? A lot of times, I don't see people getting injured during training, doing the squat. Maybe in a competition, that's where you're more likely to see someone's kind of pushing the boundaries of their physical limits, and that's where you might more likely to see, you know, someone's kind of pushing the boundaries of their, you know, physical limits. And, you know, that's where you might see the knee explode. You know, he probably wasn't anywhere near doing that in training.

But usually if I'm looking at somebody and they have bad squat in training, if their knee is diving in, if they tend to round their back, if they don't have the proper mobility necessary to get in a deep position. A lot of times I don't see them get injured in the gym. they get injured when they're playing ultimate frisbee on the weekend they're like oh i tore my acl i was like oh yeah i kind of figured that was going to happen you know and hindsight 2020 oh i totally knew you're gonna get hurt bro you should have listened to me but when you see someone's knees diving in you go go, okay, well, that guy's a prime suspect for ACL injury. And I tell people that, too. Like, if I see it happening, I was like, well, you're definitely at risk here.

You probably won't do it squatting. You're probably getting away with it here. Nice, controlled environment. But the moment that you're running full speed and you try to change direction, that's probably when it's going to blow out. You know what I mean? Or you just, you're coming out of Whole Foods with a bag full of groceries, you drop your direction, that's probably when it's gonna blow out. You know what I mean? Or you just, you're coming out of Whole Foods

with a bag full of groceries, you drop your keys, you do one of these numbers, and then you just fucking blow out your knee in the parking lot of Whole Foods. With all your paycheck just strewn about, like all your fancy overpriced yogurt and shit, you're just laying in the parking lot screaming in pain. That's where the injuries happen, man.

It won't happen in the power rack, not really. Yeah, got ligaments just hanging on by a string, just waiting to snap. That's where the injuries happen. It won't happen in the power rack. Not really. You've got ligaments just hanging on by a string just waiting to snap. The squat is a good opportunity to practice good movement that's going to serve you in all your movements throughout life. If you can get in the gym and you can develop a really solid fundamental squat and then you can start adding weight to that and then you can get adding weight to that and then you get really strong with good movement well your your potential for injury doing you know other shit is just gonna you know be highly diminished yeah it'll help you be stronger at anything that you're pushing on the ground

whether you're running a sprint pushing the prowler doing deadlifts doing single leg work doing olympic lifts anything where you're pushing on the ground if you squat heavy you're going to be better at those things where you're pushing on the ground which is pretty much all running and jumping for every sport so that's why people say squatting is a foundation for pretty much anything that you do on the on the injury note like like michael just talking about something i've learned over the years is that most injuries in the gym aren't truly acute in nature it's not really a one-time event you've been doing something poorly and getting out of position over and over and over slowly tearing a little bit here a little bit there a little bit here a little bit there and then kind of what chris was bringing up is that then at one point you'll just

reach threshold it's just a straw that broke the camel's back and then you get hurt and you're like i don't understand how i got hurt i wasn't even doing anything and that was just that was just the last straw yeah if you if you're training like people get all uptight like sometimes like in the in the weight gain challenge you'll see people go you know on that last set of the five or am I got kind of rounded like that's okay like you're gonna get in bad position when you're training really heavy and you reach the top end of your your hard work sets and I would argue that look that's going to happen like how you're not gonna round a little bit on a 3rm front squat if it's a real through our own it's gonna happen sometimes How are you not going to round a little bit on a 3RM front squat if it's a real 3RM?

It's going to happen. Sometimes you bail. You don't get all worked up about it. You don't freak out that, my back rounded. Oh, Jesus, my back rounded. I've got thoracic cancer now. No, man. It's going to happen.

Exactly what Doug said. If it's always happening, then this built-in buffer you have in your body, your body is so fucking amazing and so resilient. And look, before you came a trillion people who all went through long lifespans of grinding and working. So you've got this built-in genetic legacy that will help you withstand a lot of stupid shit. But once you see a chronic mistake, you've got to do your part to take the burden off this body.

So the acute thing is okay. You round, you get in a funky position where you're dead lifting heavy. That's okay, man. Relax. Every time you dead lift, you've got a shitty round of back posture. You are going to have a catastrophic problem one day. That's probably a huge point.

It'll be when you pick up the grapefruit. Yeah. And it'll probably be when a hot chick's watching too. You'll pick up a grapefruit and your fucking back will blow out and you'll look like the biggest douchebag in the history of the universe. Kind of like the timing when you fart in the gym. You're in the gym by yourself,

you fart, and then ten seconds later, hottest chick in the gym walks in. No! Also true in elevators. If you fart in an elevator, somebody's coming right in there

and it's probably going to be an attractive woman. Somebody did that in Columbus. Who was it? It's just CTP. CTP farted in an elevator. Give us a nod. Ah!

For sure it was him. But it was an old man that got in was an old man actually you do bring up a good point with that though most people do do get hurt at the extremes either at max tension or at very low tension where kind of everything's kicked off and then they're just hanging on their ligaments yeah so you bend over pick up a pencil you're not really you're not really worried about keeping good posture and so you kind of fall into a bad position and then a lot of people get hurt just bending over to tie their shoe or pick up a pencil or what have you so the damn shame it is uh so the different types of squats front squats overhead squats back squats the olympic squats are super common in crossfit but part of the reason that we wanted to do this episode today was we're in chris moore's garage here you know he's got i don't know what that means, but he's got all kinds of,

his last name is Moore. The name of the club is Moore Barbell. Is that your name of your gym here? It's not really, that's what I call it. Have you Googled that to see if someone else has that name? I'm not trying to affiliate or create a thing. It's just what I call the place where the Moors live and the Moors train. You didn't write the name

of your gym in chalk on the wall like McGoldrick did, so I didn't know. Did he do that? Manifest Fitness was written very big on the side of McGoldrick's gym.

Is that McGoldrick's gym? Manifest Fitness. More barbells is kind of cool, though. Yeah, I still need to make it out there. More barbells sounds very hardcore.

We podcasted out there last time. It's called Rage Cage. Rage Cage. Rage Cage. The Rage Cage. Rage Cage. Rage Cage. The Rage Cage. Manifest Barbell sounds... Manifest what?

Manifest Fitness. It sounds like some shit that you sign up soccer moms to. I mean, everyone's watching this right now like, you dick. Come on, just agree with me. He already doesn't like you. And now you're making it worse. Hey, Mike.

I'll say, before he buys the URL, before he buys the URL, I want to talk to him. Like, hey, go something. I don't think he's doing that either. I don't think he's buying the URL. I think it went as far as writing it in chalk on the wall. Actually, he didn't even do it. Shepard did it.

Yeah, it went a step further than yours. Every dream starts as chalk on the wall. Doug was talking about the different squats we're going to talk about. So we are going to talk about, we're going to touch on specialty bars. And then another thing is like weightlifting and CrossFit squats versus powerlifting. And even within powerlifting, you're going to have different standards of the squat. You got like 800 standards. USAPL versus USA.

Yeah. USAPL versus SPF. Don't try to name them all. No. Because there's about 50 federations out there and they all, and some of them even have curl competitions. Yeah, and then like,

that's true, they do. It's ridiculous. Whalepin's just as goofy. There are one arm snatch competitions and stupid and hip thrusting. There's all kinds, people are stupid.

People will do anything. People will diverge into. Yeah, but they don't, they don't say that that's a sanctioned meet. It is a sanctioned meet. There are odd lift meets where you do squat, deadlift, bench.

But not by USAW. That's just one organization. That's the organization in the United States. For weightlifting. And they believe it, too. All right, let's get back on track. We should do fisticuffs out in the street. We're going to figure this out.

We need to battle this out. I would never snatch more than you, but I will one-arm snatch your ass into the ground. You think so? Yeah. It's on. CTP Cam, coming soon. One-arm snatch contest. After the podcast.

One-arm snatch. One-arm snatching. Let's do it. Love it. Let's do it. All right. So we're going to dig into the types of squats just a little bit. So everyone at CrossFit, they've been learning about front squat, back squat, and overhead

squats since CrossFit started. But the powerlifting variations are slowly creeping in using safety bars, giant camera bars, and doing box squats and training with bands. And that's something you've had a ton of experience with over the last 20 years probably. A long time, yeah. So we've been doing Friday sessions at your place doing banded box squats. So let's dig into box squats and box squatting with bands and kind of the benefits behind that and how that's different than doing front squats and overhead squats yeah i mean the thing with the box squat is it's certainly not nothing not anything new sorry grammar police are gonna get all my junk it's not a new thing it's not like louis simmons invented the box squat he

i'd say he's a guy who has popularized it most amongst the crossfit community um because he was very adamant about how the box squat was the squat to do when we interviewed has popularized it most amongst the CrossFit community. Because he was very adamant about how the box squat was the squat to do when we interviewed him at his place. So let me get this out of the way. People want to have this

black and white attitude towards all these variations. So there's the guys who are like, let's just talk just amongst powerlifting. There are basically two camps that I know of now, big camps. One is going to say, if you're going to go into a

competition and squat, you need to free squat all the time, practice like you're going to play, do free normal squats, no chains, no bands, no nothing, straight progression, no variation. For a lot of people, it works. Is it the only way? Obviously not. There are some other guys who are like, I do nothing but box squatting. Stance is a little wider. The hips go way far back. The way I teach it from there is arching hard, sitting soft, everything staying tight except your ass. And you flex your ass hard to sort of flick yourself off the box. So it's kind of like a squat meets a box jump. Where you're sitting, you're relaxing one part of your body and you're flicking yourself off.

And you can use chains and bands, but it's beneficial because it breaks up the movement into some key things. So you're coming down, you're pausing at a dead stop, you're flexing hard, which you don't do during a normal squat, and you're exploding up. If you add band on there or chain, it's getting heavier as the weight rises,

so it's teaching you to accelerate through. So it's wildly different. So the question then becomes, what should you do? And my point is, well, it depends on a lot of things, which we can talk about, but my short answer now is that they're both amazing. And it depends on what you're trying to get out of your training as to which one might be best for you.

And there are several camps where it makes a lot of sense to do one or the other, right? I guess we can get into that. I think you bring up one thing I like to touch on is you were talking about the technique involved in doing a box squat, relaxing one part of the body, but only one part of the body. I think that's really challenging for someone who's not really experienced and doesn't have really good body awareness. It's like, okay, we're going to unload at the bottom, and then we're going to explode up.

And then what I see a lot of with an inexperienced lifter is they relax their core. And it's like, okay, let's relax the legs, maybe unload the legs, but let's keep the core tight. And it's like for a lot of people, it's all or nothing. And learning how to box squats, it's a whole other skill set. And what those people do is if you sit down and relax,

you take tension off your back. If you pick your feet up and put them in a different spot, which people do, if you don't relax your hips the way you can do to get the effect you want, if you do all these things,

then you're getting to something that definitely will not translate. You'll get better at that, but you're not going to get better at thrusters and Olympic lifts and regular back squatting. Why would you? Because it's so different now. It's so adulterated compared to what the other lift is. It's not like it's, it's still not like it's worse.

It's just so different. What are some of the benefits of box squats over other squats? I think, let me say this. If you're, if you're, if you're a guy like Kendrick, our buddy, Kendrick Ferris, everybody knows Kendrick. If you don't, why are you watching this podcast? But he's super explosive. Episode 55.

Episode 55. Man, that feels like it was yesterday. Super explosive, super powerful. Posture's perfect. He's squatting 600 for five, wearing nothing, and he's like 215 pounds or whatever. So in my mind, for a guy like that, there's no reason to do a lift that is designed

to make you more explosive, because the guy's not getting any more explosive. That lift will only distract him from the work he's doing. On the other side of the equation, there are people like me. I'm the opposite of Kendrick. My genetics are very ordinary and piss poor. I had to work four times as hard as anybody just to be half as good coming up in college. But genetically, I'm just not great.

I have a natural tendency to like strong, slow things. I'm okay at piloting because of that. So for me, when I do a box squat where I'm 100% focused on coming up as fast as possible, if I use bands, which sort of hack my nervous system into moving quicker, that helps me become a faster, more explosive person. And if I do that lift in a way where I keep my feet right where I'm gonna squat without the box, and if I don't sit too far back where if I take the box away I'll fall down, if I squat straight down and slightly back, if I pause and come up explosively,

I can then take the band off and take the box away and squat better. So for me, that's where I get the most benefit out of that. So if you do it right, it will be something that allows you to add variation, allow you to get better at regular squatting. 100% believe that. But like I. So if you do it right, it will be something that allows you to add variation, allow you to get better at regular squatting. I 100% believe that.

But like I said, if you're a weightlifter who's already in good position, who's already really explosive, it may not be the best exercise for you. It may not make any sense at all. I think another benefit of box squatting a lot of people miss is you can do it more frequently. With more volume. It doesn't tear you up so bad. The squat, the free squat with, you know, a load is going to, you have to reverse the motion.

That's going to cause some muscular damage. And you just can't do as much volume that way. And that's one reason, you know, a lot of these powerlifters that are doing nothing but box squats can squat as frequently and as heavy as they can. Yeah. And then I'd say the best example I can think of for somebody that's really good for it, let's say you're an in-season athlete and let's take it one step higher. If you're an in-season offensive lineman on a football team or a rugby athlete, then

a box squat where you are easing down so the eccentric loading is a little less. Again, most of the time you want to still do regular squats because you build up a lot of strength by bouncing out of the bottom with heavy weights. But say in season, you're tired, a little beat up. You can sit softly on a box, pause, and explode up. Not create wear and tear. And also, you're mimicking probably more precisely what you're doing on a rugby pitch where you're going from nothing to boom into another human being. You're not rebounding.

There is no rebound. where you're going from nothing to boom, into another human being. So you're not rebounding. There is no rebound. Yeah. So for Kendrick to stand up with 500 pounds, he's gotta ride the wave and bounce up and carry the momentum with him. He can't pause down there for too long, and then explode.

He might be able to do that, but it's certainly harder. For a college football player, a lineman, you go from a relaxed, calm, motionless state to 100% full effort into a human being. So training a box squat with bands

is a really great exercise. So for the average crossfitter, training box squats would improve quickness out of the bottom, would improve strength. Is that what you're saying?

Here's where I'll get contentious to the modern let's take piloting and put it in the CrossFit movement. I will say for most CrossFitters, most people at Faction who are beginning, who are in the first I'll say five years of CrossFitting, I don't think it makes

much sense to add in a whole lot of box squatting. You do some of it because it helps, especially at the beginning if you're not very comfortable sitting low. you can ease it down and get people comfortable squatting low. There's ways to do it. But if you're a guy who hasn't yet worked a lot of 5x5 regular back squats and all of a sudden you see a guy doing piloting banded squats, if you try to sit down on a box with band tension, you're going to give up untold adaptations because you still haven't mastered

the low hanging fruit, this easy thing. So if you try to give up untold adaptations because you still haven't mastered the low hanging fruit that this easy thing. So if you try to accelerate up and do banded box squats, you're going to fuck your progression. You're going to totally never reach your potential squatting because you, you went for the grand finale way before you did the warmup act. You, you, you, you violated a natural progression that you need to take with this variation. We're going to try and get in that a little bit too, is, you know, the difference between a beginner, intermediate and advanced and you know, a little bit too. The difference between a beginner, intermediate, and advanced and which things are appropriate.

Since we're already talking about box squats, I want to maybe talk about specialty bars and their role and having variety within a box squat. People do use the specialty bars for free squats, but you see them more widely used for people who are powerlifting and doing box squats. What are some bars that you have that are helpful, Chris, and why? Yeah, so obviously I have a couple of versions of a straight bar. One's a long, thick bar that you use.

We can show some later, I guess, maybe as a bonus feature. Long, strict, straight bar, which is a traditional piloting style squat bar. It's really stiff. You could put all the weight you could ever lift on there. It won't bend at all. So if you're used to doing an Olympic style squat where you bounce out of the bottom, if you do that with a piloting bar, you're not going to come up properly because the bar will not whip. You'll get buried. So it's a good bar to use as you get really, really strong and it's got more room for more weight. So it's a good bar to use as you get really really strong and it's got more room for more weight. So it's got its advantages. Now the different shapes are where the real

advantage comes in for different situations. Like one of my favorite bars now is actually the safety squat bar. CTPS1, what's red? Show the people there. It's the red horseshoe yoke bar there. So the reason why it's great, if you're not, if you're like me, if you're used to being a bent over squatter, if you're a power lifter, the safety squat bar is kind of like a front squat and it wants to tip you forward. The weight's a little higher. So leverage wise, it's tougher. So it'll make the lift harder and make you stronger because of it. If you're really good at front squatting That bar doesn't make a whole lot of sense because the front squat is is that effect anyway?

Palters use that bar for a front squat effect because we can't hold a front squat position Yeah, I remember the first time I did that with you guys. I was like what's the big deal? We yeah, but we have my training was front squats. Yeah, but yeah, so it doesn't add you any benefit The the reason where it could be good for a guy like but so is it if you want to do Half my training was front squats. Yeah, but yeah, so it won't add you any benefit. The reason why it could be good for a guy like Bledsoe is that if you want to do heavy one-legged squats and lunges and stuff, it's a perfect bar for doing things where you want to take your hands off the bar. So if you're doing lunges and you don't want to worry about keeping a bar steady on your back, you can kind of relax a little bit and just kind of gently hold it. It's not going to go anywhere.

For lunges and stuff, it's fantastic. If you have an injured arm, like Doug's had shoulder problems, look. Doug cannot squat with a straight bar. It just won't work. So what should you do? He's broken. I can't reach it. I can't reach it with my arm. I can't reach it this way.

So what should you do? Never squat again? No. Or get a safety bar where you can squat all I can't reach it this way. So what should you do? Never squat again? No. Or get a safety bar where you can squat all you want and not compromise your shoulder. So it has a very awesome specific use. Or you can just tie weights to his penis and squat like that. That's a good option. You're watching some funny videos. So if you're just a normal run-of-the-mill crossfitter who does fine with back squats

and front squats, you have no issues, don't spend the money on that. Spend the money on something that you can utilize. But you if you're in power thing it's a great bar if you want to have a bar that's versatile for other kinds of lifts it's a great thing to add to your arsenal i especially like it for guys with your leverages guys that have longer torsos and shorter limbs tend to fail in power lifting when they round their thoracic spine so they'll go down a squat when they come up they fold they fold at their back and so that's their lim, and when they come up, they fold at their back. And so that's their limiter, and if they can make that stronger by using the safety bar,

which makes your back longer, because it sits higher, and because the weight is in front of you, if you look at the way the bar is structured, it's not straight out, it actually sits forward and then goes out, which rolls your back and rolls you into that rounded position, and it makes your thoracic extension stronger, so you show up that weakness and then you can squat more weight guys are the opposite leverage guys have short torsos and

longer limbs they tend to fail on the squat because of pure leg strength I never fail in round my back ever whenever I squat I have a perfect position I just can't stand up because you got long legs and then I just then I just sit back down. I never round my back ever. So for me to only use a safety bar, not that big of a deal. It'll still make me stronger in other areas,

but for that one specific weakness, that's not my problem. What tends to make me get stronger is doing front squats, heavy rear for elevated split squats. Things will actually take my back out of the equation. I have a vertical spine and I can just make my legs stronger. Whenever I that all my weights go up whenever i worry about you know

doing like good mornings and um safety bar squats i feel stronger but my my lifts never really improve so how are your levers different than chris's just so people can maybe look at themselves and go oh i'm that type we are built really different. I got a short torso. I got a short torso and long limbs. He's got a long torso and shorter limbs relative to his height. What we can do is you can measure yourself standing up, how tall you are, and then you can measure how tall you are sitting down. So if you take a 20-inch box and you sit on it and then you just mark on the wall how high your head goes and then figure out how tall or how long your spine is,

divide the length of your spine and your head by by your total height and see what percentage you get and i couldn't throw specific numbers out there but um we measured this once we yeah we have measured this over the years i don't remember what my exact percentage was but i want to say i was like 51 or something like that i want to say j say Jason Mitchell, who has a very short torso and really long limbs, was like 48%. Me and Rob are very similar. But if we took Matt Baird or Chris, who else in our gym has a really long spine? Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone who does.

I don't remember. But I bet you more like 54%. Oh, yeah. So a longer spine. Mechanically, that's a huge thing. So that's why, for instance, that's why you should have been a weightlifter I probably should have yeah

I'm just too many years of bad decisions to make that go away I'm not made to do anything too much American football too much powerlifting and too much bench pressing but

what Doug just described is why for instance like some guys can get strong by doing like 5 sets of 5 in the deadlift like grinding on the deadlift weekly if I pull

more than one time a month heavy, my back rapidly deteriorates and I get really debilitating back pain. I think that's one of the primary reasons. I got a very long back. It's a little curvy naturally. It's hard for me to stay arched. So it's a really tough exercise for me.

So what I can do, if I work good morning strict form and I do things like low, really low box squats with a safety bar. So if you want to make your deadlift go up pretty much right now, get good at very low paused, really tough versions of the box squat. Because it's going to build a shitload of hip extension strength. And if you have that safety bar on top of you and you've got a long back, it's a real motherfucker to not around over i got the toughest thing i can do is a low well below parallel paused high bar squat like that like to do 400 pounds with that in that

position is unmercifully tough and that's what makes your deadlift go up and it won't wear your back out mysteriously enough but pulling frequently destroys me yeah another thing with the box squat the usually the stance is a little bit different usually for thing with the box squat the usually the stance is a little bit different usually for me when i box squat i widen my stance just a little bit i push my knees out just a little bit wider and so i'm just hitting hitting all those same muscles in a slightly different way it's just one more way to add some variation with that slightly wider stance compared to front squatting overhead squatting and kind of a high bar olympic back squat so anytime you can add a little bit of variation if you've been doing those other lifts

for years just getting that variation can spur some some progress some growth i forgot to mention ctp you might want to get a quick shot of the cambered squat bar that's another bar i use occasionally that bar is really tough and that the bar sits across your back and loads you from the top the same way a normal squat bar would because the weight that the bar sits across your back and loads you from the top the same way a normal squat bar would because the weight is hitting the top of your spine. The key thing is though, instead of grabbing the bar here, which again Doug can't do, and sometimes if you're a powerlifter and you're also benching a lot as you're squatting a lot, this gets tough to do because your shoulders get beat up.

You can't hold so many squats here, especially if you're low bar squatting. The reason why I have switched to a high bar squat, even for a powerlifting guy, is because this is really tough on your shoulders. This gives you shoulder tendonitis. This fucks your shoulders up in the long term. This robs you of your ability to bench press when you're 40.

If you high bar squat, all the tension goes away immediately. Yeah, you're jamming yourself into that position with the low bar squat. So the good thing about that camber book. It might look the same, but it feels much different. It wears your shoulders out. The good thing about that bar is your hands come low, so you're loading in a different way. It doesn't beat your shoulders up.

And it also makes the lift really awkward because you get this pendulum effect. Because the weight is hanging on the bottom but loading you on the top, and it pots around so as you squat down it wants to sway forward and backward so you have to then stabilize yourself in a different way so when you take that regular squat bar out for your regular old squat workout it's going to feel a whole hell of a lot less awkward than that so that in and of itself is a good training stimulus again if you're not a weightlifter if you're well there's no sense of doing that because it's just not going to. Again, if you're not a weightlifter, if you're a weightlifter there's no sense of doing that because you're just not gonna experience that. But if you're looking to be all around strong and you're just bored with squatting,

you should give it a go. You have the toy. I love the Giant Camber Bar. The difference between the Giant Camber Bar and the Safety Bar is kind of, they're almost the opposite. The Safety Bar sits super high on your back and the way the Giant Camber Bar is structured,

the weights sit so low that your center mass is lower and that essentially makes your back shorter. And so if you're a person that has a longer torso and you always fold with your back then that's not a bar that's really going to help shore up that weakness quite so much for me i really like it because all the load is on my legs and again it kind of takes my back out of the equation and it helps me get very strong because it shores up my weakness with my body type that camera bar is also my favorite bar to use for good mornings. It's basically made of that. That's a good example.

If you ever hear anybody trying to hit one extra, that's a hard P. I'm sorry, bro. That's what the pop filters were. You went right through it. I went through it. By the way, we have pop filters now. The socks are gone. We bought better ones than we had before.

They are much nicer. I spent a few more dollars. I talked to Rob. Negotiated with our CFO so that we could It was like $20 a piece? Yeah, $16. We came up with a new term the other day. It's probably not.

Probably not. Rob's going to say no. Dear audience, if you ever hear anybody hitting one exercise against another like oh why would you do that this is better they're they're showing their cards they don't really understand what the fuck they're talking about because there's there's really no such thing as exercise is better than another one it has a lot to do with just what you're trying to get. If you even ask me, hey Chris, should I buy a cambered bar or a safety squat bar, which one's better? It's not the right question. For me and Doug, either one is the perfect bar.

So it's not like a box squat is worse or better than a front squat or a regular old back squat. It's just a false question. Quit thinking of things in terms of there's a right and wrong answer. There is no right or wrong. I said this in a blog post a couple weeks ago. The only thing you need to work out is possibilities. There are endless possibilities.

Even in the fucking gym. I love it. It's very accurate, but it sounds very guru-ish. It's very philosophical almost. It's not about what's right and wrong. It's about what could work best for you right now. You got to think deeper and think of understanding, okay, how's my body? But what's my experience?

Have I tried to do something in the past that didn't really work that well? Maybe I can learn and do better this time. Those are the better questions to ask then. Why are you doing that? That's not the right way because that's not what works for me. That's stupid. Why are you so stupid? Yeah, there's only what's going to work best for you in your very specific situation.

It matters what your experience is, what your injuries are, what your body type is, what you've tried before, what's not worked for you before. So I do like where you're going with that. There's no good or bad exercises. There's just what's going to work for you in your very specific situation, which is hard in a group setting for most CrossFit classes. But if you're a more advanced athlete and you're getting individualized programming from a coach, or you're trying to write your own workouts, then these are things that you really need to think about and consider.

And it's also tricky, the extra, I'll go inception style on you now. I'll go one layer deeper within your example. Oh no. A thought within a thought? Yeah. Dream within a dream. What's really tough and fascinating,

but what makes this where a lot of the art comes from is what works for you in the past, and what didn't work for you in the past may not be true now so in my history i've i've been a beginner and i've gotten good at squatting and i've set a record and then i've got burnt out and i've had to restart and then the thing that i did when i was in high school worked better for me now than the advanced palatine stuff did even though i had 15 years of training under my belt. I got really good at the simple stuff again and I had to go back to the palathing stuff like I'm doing now.

Like I'm doing banded. Barbell Buddha, episode 9. I'm on 12, asshole. You talked about this in episode 9. Oh yeah, I did? I'm an avid listener, my friend. It's interesting that it's all about this

fashion cycles. What used to be in fashion goes out and it comes avid listener my friend. So yeah I mean it's interesting that it's all about this this what come like it's like fashion cycles what used to be in fashion goes out and it comes back it's like in your own personal journey it could be that something used to really work it stopped working then you changed again and then the fundamentals the things you used to do and you thought were so simple and obvious to you you could have forgotten all the simple obvious lessons so relearning them kind of reawakens you to the new possibilities. So then you can go back into what you used to be

really great at and do a better job. It's like, one thing I'm gonna talk about in the upcoming seminar tour is that, I don't wanna give away too much, but there's a natural cycle to things. You're a beginner, a total novice, a greenhorn that needs basic practice on simple things. You get a rhythm.

You slowly move into a phase of mastery. So you're basically getting as good as you're going to get. You start to burn out because you can't keep that up forever. And you move into a teaching phase. Look, here's what I did. Here's what I learned. Here's what could help you. Even if you're not great, you have something you can teach somebody.

And then what that does, it shows you how important those simple things were and you can go back through that cycle again maybe by changing things up just a little bit so you got really good at squatting maybe now you can introduce things like box squatting and take the lessons and apply it to that what about chains and bands that's something that really hasn't moved into the CrossFit world too much we talked about a little bit when we were talking with Louie a couple weeks ago, but what are the benefits of having chains and bands versus just doing, you know, straight barbell weight?

Yeah, the classic definition that people talk about all the time is that it's accommodating resistance. You put the bands on, which accommodates the resistance, and it gets heavier, and it makes the same old tire shit. Basically, you put a little bit of band

on the bar. It gets heavier as you get to the top, all right? Yeah, it does. There's no point in making it something mysterious. It gets a little heavier. So as you stand up, you put more effort into it. It's a simple idea. The big mistake people make is that they give it too much importance.

So you think the band becomes the focus instead of it being an accent on the barbell. So what you want out of a band, the chain works the same way by the way, it's just that the difference is the elastic properties of the band that tend to, it's a little harder to stretch it, and it's a little harder on you when it contracts and pulls you back down faster than gravity.

But both are helpful in that it changes the feel of the bar just enough to make you put more effort into it. It makes it fun. It makes it different. How do you know how much band tension to use? That's what I'm going to say. If you have any doubt, you start by using almost none. So if you're a normal CrossFitter, what you should probably do is like this rack I have now.

I mean, that may be common. You can put a pair of dumbbells on the ground. Basically, you're attaching a band near the floor, and you're putting it over the bar. Douglas show. This is just a simple way to put. If you're on iTunes, listen to this. I'm sorry. Just use your theater of the mind.

Use your imagination. I was going to say, let's just insert a technique. Yeah, let's do it. Let's just do a technique. We'll do a technique on how to set up bandage. Yeah, we can try to set it up. I was going to say

for this size band, it's about an inch thick for people who are just listening. About, yeah, about an inch. An average band from Rogue. For this band,

what would you recommend your max squat be if you're going to use a band this size? 350? Yeah, I mean, there's no,

there's no hard and set rule, but if you, if you get to the point where if you're like a 200 pound guy or 180 pound guy, if you're squatting, 350 or 400, you can start playing with the band tension. And that band, which is about an inch thick, which if you choke it- What about for the ladies? We get a lot of ladies complaining we don't give them enough attention.

Hey, how about I finish this example and then I'll move on in the years, you jerk face. No. I just want to hear it. All right, go ahead. The tables have turned. Now you're the derailer. I'm not even the derailer anymore. This is why I like going on Barbell Buddha, because then I can pay him back.

Now you're paying yourself back. I am. No, but if you're squatting a good amount of weight, like you don't have to be Ed Cohen who's squatting world record. You don't have to be like super developed in squat. You just don't need to be new to squatting. You need to have a little training time on your belt. You need to have made progress.

But if you're a good crossfitter and you're squatting 350 or 400, you can play with it. I'd say you only need, you know, maybe only like 100 pounds on there. So most of your work sets would be like you would put maybe 185 on the bar, 185 pounds. And then if you put that little one-inch band over the bar, choke near the ground, it'll be just enough to where you really have to work hard to jump off of a box quickly. So that effect, pausing at the bottom where the weight's light,

makes it a little harder, and then jumping up into that tension will make you more explosive. So are you trying to match your strength curve with the band? I'm so strong at the top, I'm probably stronger than I am at the bottom. I just want the band? I'm so strong at the top. I'm probably stronger than I am at the bottom. I just want to match how much stronger I am at the top. Technically true. But what I would caution people is as soon as you start thinking about that,

the next thing will be like, okay, well, how much quantifiably is that? And you start kind of counting band tension. You start trying to measure it. And you start thinking. That's the first question people ask me all the time. It's like, how much is that band put? much more weight it doesn't matter it doesn't fucking matter i'll tell you why it's a frustrating question all you want if it's if it's enough to feel it's probably giving you all you need to have the biggest mistake ever made in powerlifting one time for me i had a had a meet where i opened up and i my third attempt i went i

did 805 i I set a record. And I had done band training, and one of the mistakes I made is I thought, well, if this worked a little more, it'd be better. So I went to this convoluted cycle where I did, I had moments where I had like 400 or 500, even 600 pounds of band tension on the bar, and I would work up to like 400 pounds

of bar weight on that bar. I did that workout at Westside one time. I never talked to Louis, but I did a workout with the top guys, including Chuck Rogopoul. Was he squatting? 11, 12? Almost 1,200 pounds. And full power, but still impressive because he only weighs like 245. It's still impressive.

But on the bar, just like that, that slightly curved Buffalo bar, we had on each side, two of the heaviest bands, which was thick blue bands. Each one will put 200 pounds of tension on the bar. So we had two of those on each side. So it was like 450 pounds just on its own or, or something like that. I don't, don't, don't challenge them on the specific math. Don't fucking pull your calculators out. Two blue bands on each side and then a green band and then a green band on each side. There's three bands. Talk to the audience too.

There's three bands on each side. So just getting that out of the rack with no weight on it is the hardest thing you're ever going to do. It's like 700 pounds of shaking, unstable, violent weight. Debatably, it harder with with just the bar and all that meditation because just getting that point was wearing me out less inertia just doing the 10 warm-up sets to get to that point was like I was like wow and I

did one plate two plate three plates and then 365 so I had over a thousand pounds in the bar and that was I stood up and popped every blood vessel in my face I thought I was gonna shit my blood vessel in my face i thought i was gonna shit my pants and rip my face off that's how it was the hardest lift i think i've ever taken it's the same effect as when you take the bath salts and i can put it in the rack i go i'm a i'm a thousand pound squatter now because it's a fucking math right and then i saw an actual thousand pound squatter who came up chuck at time you was actually squatting probably 1100. He's got no belt on. I hadn't seen him take a warm-up attempt. He did the 365 for a speed double effortlessly and sat back down.

And I realized at that point I had a lot more work to go. But at that point, I made the mistake of thinking that I added the weights up, therefore I squat what the sum is. And that's not true. You go down that path easily. What you need to do is just put enough on there so you feel it. Don't worry about how much it is. Yeah, so don't overload the band tension to the point where you're totally deloading the bottom,

where you're not getting stronger through your sticking point and overloading the top, which may not be helping you at all. Because what happened, I unracked 850 and fell through the floor. I wasn't used to stopping. I wasn't used to reversing weight at the bottom. Right. You can't deload the bottom too much. You want to have just enough band tension to make you have to fight and actually try to accelerate towards the top.

It doesn't take much. That's kind of the problem with just regular squatting is you're only pushing as hard as you can through the sticking point. And then towards the top, you actually have to decelerate because you have to stop and go back down, right? Yeah. So the way that chains and bands were explained to me growing up since i learned how to lift weights from a mechanical engineer and he always talks in kind of mathematical formulas so for you more math focused out there the way that that was taught to me was where i check out strength is basically force right force it forces mass times acceleration so if the bar weight is constant mass is constant you're trying to accelerate as much as possible

but like i said at the top you actually have to decelerate. So your force production at the top of the lift isn't as high as it could be with the bands. If you can, if you put on a set amount of, of weight and then you add band tension. Now the mass in that little equation, force equals mass on acceleration. The mass is changing. Even if the acceleration stays constant, force is still as high as possible. So now at the top of the lift, your force production is much higher than it would be with just straight barbell weight. So you're manipulating that little equation a little bit so you can get max force production throughout the entire movement. You don't have to slow down at the top anymore. That's the way to frame it.

It's a slight manipulation. It's a tweak in your favor. It's not replacing the weight. That's just a mistake you need to keep in mind. Don't do that. And treat the chains the same. If you've got chains, chains are really cool, man.

They sway. They're a smooth loading effect. It's really fun. I might add, the fun is a good point, too. We talked about the science. There's the mechanics of the lift. That's why this works for people who need that top-end work. There's also

the limitations that people sometimes think only in terms of the standard training variables. So you think mechanics, you think strictly load, percents and volume, but you're forgetting that other key variables are just as important. Like how much fun are you having?

Well, I guess I've been squatting for 20 weeks in a row. I guess it's pretty good. I'm kind of worn out. But I can watch people go through the motions. You may have the perfect training program where all variables are fucking precisely transcribed and thought through and manipulated to perfection. And your coach knows your physiology perfectly. He's run genetic tests and he's compared you across a thousand other sample controlled lifters.

He's got everything figured out. Let's assume this is possible. If you're fucking having controlled lifters, he's got everything figured out. Let's assume this is possible. If you're fucking having a bad time, that program is not very good, because you put shit effort into your programming. If you just do a simple, thoughtless program that you believe in and you're passionate about

and you're having a fucking blast, you are gonna get really strong because of that. You gotta keep in mind, it's not just these numbers. Numbers don't mean anything unless you have some meaning behind it, unless you're having a good time, unless you understand and believe in them. Or else it's just some shit you're doing. That's when people get caught up and they think, I'm going to add all this shit together and manipulate for the sake of manipulating and add in cool buzz things just because it's fun to do. But I mean, there's other things to consider.

That's one of the main reasons that CrossFit does so well. It takes people that normally are quote-unquote lazy and it puts them in a very fun environment where it's competitive where they're guaranteed to be highly motivated and to work hard and then they get these crazy results i don't like when people say that oh well people are just lazy because what crossfit has taught us is that if you take people and you make working out kind of fun and you make it competitive and it's, it's very social. All these people who were lazy now aren't all of a sudden lazy anymore. They didn't have like this,

this crazy personality change overnight. It's just fun now. Yeah. I, let me get on my, let me attack my own. Let me eat my own. The thing that drives me fucking crazy.

Sorry to curse so much, but it's the passion making me do it. Folks is the passion. I'm passionate. Lots of P's. I hate powerlifters and weightlifting elitists and strength coach gurus who will talk shit about CrossFit because, oh, it's too random,

it's not thought out, periodization this, conjugate that, whatever direction you want to take it. I understand what you're saying and technically it's true, but you're missing other shit that's equally important. If some guy is coming off the couch, he does need to try a little bit of everything.

He does need to have an introduction into competitive stuff. He does need to try new things. If he's having a blast, he gets amazing results. You don't have to be this strict strength guru guy to get results. That's only one path. The CrossFit stuff is great for what it is.

People say, well, it's not how you get maximally strong. That's not the point, asshole. Are you paying attention to its very definition and mission statement? It's a mixed bag to have fun and get in shape with. That's all it is. Dude, if I would have told you five years ago that you'd be defending CrossFit just like this you'd be like holy shit I'm not afraid to change you eating your own that's right

let's take a break real quick when we come back we're going to talk about what might be appropriate for a beginner intermediate advanced we were going to try to get into like some weightlifting squats also like high bar squats and free squats I saw this right now if you're a weightlifter.

But we'll just do it. We'll do it. We'll do a whole show on just that next time. Here's what you need to know. If you're a weightlifter, high bar squat. Don't be dumb. If you're bent over and you're a weightlifter, you're going to fail. You're going to suck dick at lifting.

Stand up straight. But there's a lot more we can say about it, and we'll probably save that for another podcast. When we come back, though, we are going to talk about how some of these powerlifting variations can be used for crossfitters, you know, things that can be good for beginners, intermediate and advanced,

rep ranges, all that kind of stuff. So, what do you got, Chris? And if you're watching this on YouTube or barbellstrug.com, you will now see

a technique live where we talk about all the different bars we used or we just talked about and how to set up chains and bands. And if you're listening on iTunes,

make sure you go to barbellshrug.com so you can check out the video version, as always. Let me hold that camera and point at your face when you're talking. All right, guys. See you in a few. We'll be right back. Hey, guys.

This is Rich Froning, and you're listening to Barbell Shrugs. For the video version, go to fitter.tv. All right. I do have a voice of an angel we are back talking about squats power lifting squats to be exact and how they apply to crossfitters we told you when we came back we were going to talk about how these squats could apply to beginner intermediate and advanced and we will get to that. But first. But first.

Yeah. Quick reminder again. What are we doing? What are you? What are you reminding people of? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone remind him of the reminder. Yeah, just go, you know, follow him and shit.

Okay. Thanks, coach. Other than that, all right. So, Chris, you get a brand new person. They've never trained before. And they want to get stronger. What type of rep ranges, sets, and reps? Would you just give them a regular bar?

Let's give them an avatar. Let's take your wife's little brother, Hunter. He's a young kid. He's pretty athletic, but he doesn't have a huge strength training background. He wants to put on some size and some muscle. This isn't the avatar that's blue and has a tail or whatever, right? Avatar. Theoretical person.

How old is he? So if you're going to train Hunter consistently, 19-ish? Yeah. Out of high school now? Okay. Maybe. And he wants to get stronger. Where do you start?

Sets and reps. The 24-year-old Chris, in the midst of his power thing career would say, yeah, I'm going to teach him how to sit on a box and we might introduce change bands and we'll go conjugate approach with undulating waves and beauty. It's all bullshit. What he needs to do is the simplest

high bar squat. Probably every day coming in. I like five by five. I probably do like a Texas Method-ish kind of thing. So the Texas Method is like a three-day program. One is a work day. We do lots of sets and reps. One's a light day, like a front squat day,

which is less demanding. And then one day you do kind of lighter weights for speed. So if you're a guy like Hunter, it's like two days may be perfect. One day, really easy, light speed squatting, high bar, all the way way down all the way up Not too heavy. We'll add weight every time we come into the gym So you use that high bar high bar full depth full depth not a box

Because the full depth also keeps the weight management log He doesn't need to try to maximize the weight because he goes always issue If he feels like the weights too light for him, he wants to add more, but then you cut depth, you don't get the training effect. When you start out, you want to do the simplest possible thing to get a response. So for a guy like Hunter, it'd be simple high bar squats all the way down.

Start out light weights. I'd probably ramp for a 5x5, so I'd do an easy set of 5 after a warm up, and then add a little bit of weight, a little bit of weight, up to a set of five at their warm up and then add a little bit of weight a little bit of weight up to a set of five that was challenging he come back in maybe at the end of that same week we just repeat that maybe add a little bit of weight when it starts getting hard for him to add weight every week because at first you just come in the gym and always be stronger because you suck so much you suck so much and the bar is so light compared to what you feel about i feel like that should be like in a rap song yeah so here's the thing why why can doug and

i maybe add weight to the bar maybe we're feeling good doug maybe we're really spry maybe once every two months we get a nice little pr on something right when you're maybe yeah uh once a year a guy like a high level one thing way outifter will train for four years, working himself to the fucking bone three times a day to add like five kilos to his total. Right. Ten pounds. But Hunter, or a young guy, young kid, young crosser, young paltry, young weightlifter, you have the amazing advantage to just move the bar, get stronger every time you touch it. You're so far underneath your potential,

you're gonna get rapidly stronger. So what you need to do is the simplest, most progressive thing that'll allow you to reap all the rewards, all the low-hanging fruit. So yeah, a simple ramping up five to five where that last set for three weeks in a row, you need to try to make it five or 10 pounds heavier. You'll probably be able to repeat that for three months, six months, maybe a year.

And then you should go to something more complicated when you start to plateau, when you start to have struggles with adding more weight. Because what that means is you're getting strong enough to where you're challenging your ability to recover. So then you have to spread things out. So instead of adding weight every time, you maybe only try to do it once a week or once every two weeks, depending on what then works for you again, what gets you moving again. That brings up a good point.

I had a guy tweet at me today. He basically described his height, weight. His goal was to get leaner and stronger. And then so I asked him, I was like, man, that's a very loaded question like what you need to do he turns like why are you making progress now oh yeah I'm getting I'm getting leaner and stronger now I'm like all right was why change anything be patient just keep doing that he's like but I want anything having he realized he was being silly you think of it like what I always thought of is like,

pretend like you're doing a magic show. If you're planning out your training or the training of somebody else, pretend like it's a magic show. When you first get on stage, this is when you first start training, what do you do? Do you fucking pull a rabbit out of the hat then?

You saw a woman a half then? What are you gonna finish with? You got an hour to be on stage. What are you gonna do later? What you need to do is like i have five cards pick this card whoa is it the ace of spades you do the simple shit first right the thing that makes it go oh pretty good that's all you want and then as that starts to not be that funny and entertaining then you you pull out a fucking whatever the next heart what's the magic

trick they say what's the magic trick they say? What's another magic trick? It's hard than card stuff. I don't know levitation levitations a bit jump Maybe then you do another like a sleight of hand thing It's only after that shit stops getting the crowd's attention you go okay now ladies and gentlemen The grand finale that this makes intuitive sense. The same thing in his gym. If a new guy comes in, a card trick would work, but you want to fucking saw him in half immediately.

You could literally saw him in half and you put bands in that bar and have him sit down and try to come up with a lot of weight. He could literally be torn in half. You don't want to do that. You want to do that with this guy. Especially if he uses a serrated bar.

Louie makes that probably. If he doesn't, he will now. If there's anything I've learned over the last couple of years dealing with large groups of people that you want to do that especially if you use a serrated bar louis makes that probably if he doesn't he will now if there's anything i've learned over the last couple years dealing with large groups of people like the thousands of people that are watching this episode right now is that some people just heard that and they went that doesn't have anything to do with weight lifting at all and some people heard that and they were like oh my god i never thought about it like that that's perfect right now i get it so ask yourself you're a new crossfitter you're interested in doing chains and bands,

where are you at, be honest. If you're still not good at squatting, don't entertain him doing anything until you're really good at squatting. So at what point do we move away from five by five, Texas method, and to some people if you come from a bodybuilding world, then that's not very high volume.

If you've never trained before, 5x5 can be. Well, if you're a bodybuilder, you never even think about progression. You don't even know what periodization means. It's a good, bad example. The progression of my quads, bro. You mean like my shredded abs? Yeah, but like, so at what point do we go, okay, 5x5 isn't, you know, it stops working. You know, we've picked all the low-hanging fruit we can.

You know, what's the next step? Like, after I'm, like, doing 5x5 and I'm not getting strong anymore, what do you do then? Do you throw the bands on then? Do we go, you know, lower reps? What do you think, Chris? Like, the cool thing, like, what I did personally, there's as many things you could do. Let's say you started off by just squatting a bunch. Three days a week you just came in and did squats.

Maybe you did five by five every time. I don't know, it's perfectly fine. It got hard, then you went to five by five once a week, and then you had a light day on Friday. One thing you could do is you could change the emphasis. So instead of pushing the five by five, because it's getting really hard to recover from that, you could make that be an easier day,

and you could easily just switch the focus to the front squat in the middle day, or you could just make your formerly light day into a heavy day. So maybe now you do heavy sets of two to three reps. Maybe you do a west side type approach where you're doing like a, you could then introduce a box squat.

It's like one of the most effective things I ever did to make my squat move was I had a five by five day where I ramped up one, two, three, four, five. That last set was just a murderous set of five. In the middle of the week, I do like a safety squat or like a front squat. The reason why you can do that,

your leverages are poor, the weights are lighter. It's hard, quote unquote, because it's just not, it doesn't feel very easy, but the damage to your body is minimum because your leverages are poor. The weights are lighter. It's hard, quote unquote, because it doesn't feel very easy. But the damage to your body is minimum because your leverages are poor. So it's hitting you in a different way, and it's hitting you in a way that won't fatigue you too much after that hard day. And it won't affect your squat day on the third day very much. That's why front squats are really good because you can do them heavy all the time. And because they're just so hard, they don't really wear you out that much you can front squat heavy daily and it won't really tear you down because

mechanically it's so much harder than a regular back squat you're gonna drop it before you wreck yourself yeah so a good way to switch it up is then you used to do a light squat day on friday now make that the heavy day maybe add a box squat where you sit down you stand up and you do eight sets of two and you work up to a heavy load. It'd be a natural way just to kind of change it a little bit. That's actually one of the reasons why machines can destroy you. Like doing a leg press all the time for max reps, you have no stability demand.

So you can put your joints and your muscles through something that you'd never be able to do with a bar on your back. Gray Cook calls that self-limiting exercise. That's why things like kettlebell swings and doing double unders and whatnot don't tend to wreck people as much as just doing artificial movements like squatting. What's it called when you're on rails? I can't remember off the top of my head. Like a Smith machine. Yeah, like on a Smith machine.

You never do that shit. You can wreck your knees like that because there's that there's no point where where you have where you're fatigued to the point where um you're gonna where yeah where you're losing balance or you're gonna drop the weight you can just keep grinding through and wreck your joints in the process so that's one of the arguments against machines i like i think one of the one of the most elegant intuitive approaches is actually glenn's approach glenn penway i i just really connect with his way of simply looking at things and like taking emphasis on some formula and just doing what makes sense and doing what your experience compels you to do. I think I discussed this with him

this morning. I like the approach where on one kind of day I'm squatting one way. So let's say I'm doing a high bar squat for five by five. That's fatiguing in special ways like Maybe it's a little quad heavy your lower back if you're upright won't take much of a beating But you know it's it's got it's hitting you in a certain way if you do a wider stance Cambered bar box squat on that Friday You can go heavy again But this time your lower back takes a bit of a beating but not really your quads not really your thoracic spine if you do those two things together high bar squatting and camber bar box squatting they have a very complimentary

relationship so if you happen to have a really good high bar squat you can really work that not get too tired you can really grind on the camera bar squat to hit the things that you will never grind on the camber bar squat to hit the things that you will never train doing the regular high bar squat. If you really have a problem with back strength and you're really good at being straight up and down, get out of the straight up and down posture for a little while. If you do good mornings and camber bar squats, you're probably going to be stronger. If you want to be better at weightlifting, I'll probably allow you to be in a much better

position as you transition to the first or second pull because you'll be able to be bent over and be rock solid strong. This is how these kind of things can help you. One thing Glenn does, Glenn has his guys max out quite a bit. When people think max out, they think, oh, going heavy all the time, how do you recover? Are you training Bulgarian style? No, you're starting to ask the wrong questions. What he'll do, yeah, we maxed out,

but on this day, we don't do clean, jerk, or snatch. We do pause, hang, snatches, off boxes, whatever. It's variation that makes the lift tougher and awkward, but because you are in a different position and the leverages aren't as good and it's harder,

you can max out, quote unquote, but it's not having a huge demand on you. You can get good work in without taking too much away. So that's your way to start thinking about things. That's why we're trying to wait if there's a faction. You know, we're not maxing out every day. I mean, they're going hard, the volume's high, but you know, the lifts are just different

on Monday than they are on Tuesday. Yeah, so you can do a max effort box squat and the next day play a sport because you didn't have – it didn't demand things that are going to take away from your ability to do the other thing. It's a way you can get more out of your training. So, okay, now we're going to move towards the advanced athlete. Maybe pro level, you know, somebody who is, you know, a thousand pound squatter and stuff like that. What kind of training program do you think is appropriate for that person? I mean, I know the majority of people listening to this podcast is not

going to apply, but I think it's just good to know because for one thing, it might be a good thing to go, okay, don't do that. It's funny. I think the advantage of being a really, really high-level athlete is that I think you can get away with doing the strict normal things less often. So, like, if you're, you know, Dmitry Klokov. You've mastered the fundamentals. If you're Dmitry Klokov, you can spend a lot of your off-season doing really insanely heavy, crazy-ass snatch grip deadlifts

and all kinds of variations of the clean, like muscle cleans and muscle snatches and heaving snatches and cleans and all kinds of interesting things because you're an absolute master of the clean and jerk and when you resume your heavy clean and jerk training, your mastery training, you don't miss a step and all that stuff just reinforces your ability.

If you're an up and coming lifter, leaving the fundamentals don't make any sense. You're going to not develop those skills. So the advantage of being a really advanced guy is you can do way more variation on things. So you can do like a normal what people know of as the west side approach. Like west side, the

idea where you rotate things every week. So every week you're doing a different special exercise. I do that now, but I've been training. I wouldn't call myself a master, but I'm at a stage in my life where if I do five by five with a straight bar and squat for 12 weeks in a row, my squat may go down 100 pounds. It won't go up 100 pounds like it would

for my brother-in-law. That's a huge difference. For me, if I do this week, like the last four weeks, I've done a max effort rack pull from the knee, a safety squat, box squat to parallel to max, like a snatch grip deadlift to max, even maybe stand on a mat or two, and then a regular camber bar but free squat. Every week is something different, but I can do that because I know that just the repetition and the standard progression will make me deteriorate.

That's because I've been doing it for 25 years. Yeah. I think also, I think it kind of brings up an important point there. If you're a beginner or intermediate and you want to add variation, it's probably better to add variation on the rep schemes and on that type of stuff rather than on the movement. Yeah. Don't do, what was it, chair power cleans? You know what I mean? That was fun.

Yeah, I mean, if you're like a national level weightlifter, you might get something out of that, but if you throw somebody who can't qualify for anything and you go, okay, we're going to do these chair cleans, they're probably going to screw up their technique because they're still trying to master the technique, you know're going to do these chair cleans. You're probably going to screw up their technique because they're still trying to master the technique, you know? You get good at chair cleans. Talking about rep schemes,

one thing that I've practiced within the past six to eight months and I got from you, Mike, is working up. Now he's going to say something like, oh, no, I didn't mean that. Working up to a two through at Mac yeah and then and continuing the work at sets at 90% is if you hit a heavy lift and back off and get more right done yeah that was one of my favorite programming changes that you've made over the last couple of years is like you said build up to three at max take off 10% and then do three sets of five with that same way or something like that.

That's terrible. Yeah. It'll push you mentally. You know, this is what was interesting is when I first started playing around with that programming, I was like, this is going to be great for beginners. We'll hit a max for the day. You know, beginners and intermediates, they're going to get a lot out of this. You know, work up to five rep max.

All right. Now go 90% of that, let's do four sets of five at that. Every single set is going to be hard for you. You're going to build up. I was like, well, I'll try it myself too. I consider myself, I've been training for so long. A master sportsman.

I started doing this and I got a lot of results out of it too. I got a lot of results for about two months straight. I had some variation in my reps. I would do a three rep max and then do 10% of that, two rep, five rep. But I got a lot out of that. That was one of the waves I got to ride longer. Usually I'll catch a wave and I can ride it for three to six weeks.

But that wave, I got to ride a little bit longer than most. So if you build up to a five rep max and then you take off 10 and you do four sets of five with it on the last set are you failing at five or do you feel like you could do six seven eight or or is that last by the by the by the last set on the fifth rep it's a grinder you're toast yeah so like i actually think the more advanced you are the tougher that's going to be. So the beginner person, yeah, the beginner person is not going to be as, we'll say as a efficient, muscularly efficient, you know, people talk about, you know, neuromuscular efficiency. Well, you know, the more advanced you are, the more of that you're

going to have, and that's just going to make, you know, that kind of stuff really, really tough. Yeah. The better you get, the less reps you can do with high percentages of your max. I think. Yep. Yeah. You can take a beginner and they might do at 90% of their max, they might hit eight or 10 reps.

And you take an advanced person, you take someone who squats a thousand pounds. He's not going to do 10 reps with 900 pounds. I think I got to do too. I think that's one reason I got a lot out of it is I had just come out of spending months of not doing more than three reps. I was doing a lot of one, two, and three reps on Olympic lifts and squatting. And then all of a sudden I'm doing five rep max. It was just so different than what I was doing.

I got a lot of result out of it. It doesn't work forever. No. I put about 20 pounds result out of it. It doesn't work forever. No. I put about 20 pounds on my squat in two months, which is really good for this point in my lifting career, for sure. Go away from it. Forget it. Go back to doing less

volume, more weight, and all of a sudden you realize I haven't done volume in a while. You can return to that and get another 20 pound improvement by working hard for eight weeks. Whatever it is. If you're super experienced, you can't do high volume in a while. You can return to that and get another 20-pound improvement by working hard for eight weeks, whatever it is. If you're super experienced, you can't do high volume all the time. Your joints aren't going to be able to handle it. Say I, as me, I put on 30 pounds of muscle with the same exact joints, and I try to do the same volume. I change my joints out, bro.

I'm doing, I'm doing five. I changed my joints out, bro. I'm doing five by five. If I do five by five right now with my, with my current weight, say, say I'm back squatting and I do 250 for five by five. And then I put on 30 pounds of muscle in my, in my squat goes up a hundred pounds. And then I'm trying to do five by five with 350. It's the same joints taking weight, you know, five by five with 350 versus 250 is going to be that much more stress on those joints. You're going to need more time for those joints to recover. Even though your muscles are bigger and you're stronger, it's still the same joints for the most part.

So you have to focus on your recovery a lot more. I see a lot of guys on a lot of steroids and shit not last too long at a peak. Because, yeah, you got really fast. Yeah, everything got really strong. But you're fundamentally the same person who is not built to lift. No! That's something to consider if you're rapidly gaining strength

by any means necessary. You have to realize that some parts of your body aren't going to adapt like the other parts. You've got to consider that you're going to put yourself at risk.

I'll say, that's probably also, Doug, when the stronger you get, the more experience you get, so you can fiddle and add more variation to the squat. That's probably also

when things like assistance work becomes much more important because you get the work in you get. So you can fiddle and add more variation to the squat. That's probably when also things like assistance work becomes much more important because you get the work in you still need. It's not like you become a big strong guy like I did my squats

five steps to one I'm going home now. No, it's time for you to do assistance work. So then lots of different kinds of good mornings and stuff like that.

That brings up a good point. That's when it can become useful. It fills the gap. You're getting knee pain. So if you're talking to someone who's getting a lot of knee pain, what do you tell them to do? Like, oh, I can't squat because my knees hurt. I personally, I move away from a high bar squat. I move to a low bar box squat. I still get a similar motion, more stress on the hips, less off the knees. And now I can keep squatting.

I mean, right now I can't do a full depthdepth squat, but I was able to box squat tonight. There's some other things too. Doug, what do you like? Like if someone's knees bother them, what's another good substitution? Yeah, the general rule is that the more of a vertical shin you have, the less stress there is, rather, on your knee. So if I have a vertical shin and my hips are pushed really far back it's going to be mostly hip dominant i'm going to be training my my low back my glutes my hamstrings and the stress is going to be taken away from my quads and my knee joint so for front squats overhead squats and high bar back squats where at the very bottom to get to that very bottom position i have to push my knees forward and get

that forward shin angle it's going to be more stressful on your knees which is not a bad thing it just right it's not necessarily a bad thing but if you have an achy knee and you're trying to let your knees rest you're trying to let your knees rest while still training the same muscle groups in a slightly different way you talked about the complementary movements right one very knee dominant quad dominant vertical back and the other is very hip dominant very bent over and and not very stressful on your knees when you're talking about the box squats you know having those complementary movements where for a while you can maybe bend your training towards the one that doesn't hurt so much and let your other joints rest.

In the example that Mike just used, the knee was achy, so we'd want to do the box squat with the vertical shin. That way you can let your knees rest and you can still train your hips and your hamstrings. And your quads are doing some work too, and so is your knee, but the emphasis is on more hip, less knee less knee it's absolute next best thing you can do for sure I mean it's not it won't have perfect transport back to the regular squats but as a matter you're doing the next best possible thing yeah and if you don't take that to a little more of extreme maybe my knees still hurts when

I'm doing box squats well now I can make it even more hip dominant I can keep my knee straight and I can do RDLs and good mornings. Good mornings are favorite, especially if you have a Cambridge bar. The good mornings are awesome. The safety bar is also really brutal because it sticks that bar way out. Good morning to a safety bar. I can do them. Yeah, I mean, for me, those are really tough because your back's so long that you're not going to get that much work out of your legs in that case.

It's going to be all low back. Your low back's just going to be trying to hang on. My best lift, probably my best good morning was like 705 pounds. I did a really heavy good morning, then all the way over. I could also do it suspended, so I'd get in a good morning position with a bar in the rack at the bottom, hanging from chains, and I would just get in there with a flat back, parallel back, and raise it up out of the bottom from a good morning.

I also did safety bar good mornings I can maybe do 300 pounds that's how much that changes it's really hard to stick your head way out there and not especially if you're gonna try to keep your back flat not cheap what do you guys think about like if say I injured my my hamstring on my right, should I still be training my left leg? You know, what are your thoughts on that? I'd say, yeah, there's no reason to cut out training all the way, even on your injured side. Again, you're trying to find a movement where you can still do some training, even if it's not super intense. That way you're not going to totally atrophy for six or eight weeks or however long you're trying to rest.

And then basically you're letting pain be your guide. The part that gets shaky there is that there's that period of time where there's no pain, but it's still not healed. And that's when people get re-injured. So there's usually about a two week period after the pain has kind of gone away where you're like, I think I'm all better. I'm good. And then you're not actually good. And then you go and you hurt again and there's an endless cycle like that. Lifters come to me like,

Mike, it's all better. I'm like, how long has it felt all better? And they're like, three days. I'm like, alright, wait two more weeks. You should do a max effort right back in the morning. That's right. If I had a hurt hamstring

and I couldn't do anything with my left leg, I could still, I could do a one-legged good morning. It'd be better than nothing. I keep the weight light. I could try to do just the bar with the injured leg, just work through the range of motion. I could just do, add 25 and just do a little bit of weight. It may be really easy,

but I'm still moving and loading my back. It's better than nothing. Right, you're probably not going to completely in-balance yourself by training one leg only for four weeks but there probably is something bilaterally that you can do that's going to keep you strong if you did barbell glute bridges where you put the bar across your hips and you lay on your back and then you just basically squeeze your butt and go back down to the ground you might not irritate your hamstring at all so there's some other variation in the millions of different leg exercises out there that you can do this that is not

going to aggravate your hamstring a quick quick story I had a my knee was I think I was having a little bit of a meniscus issue after a weightlifting meet back in November and I was like well I can't squat I was a genius I had a good I had a good weightlifting meet hip hit PRs, felt great. I don't go out and have a beer. You know what I do? I go back in the warm-up room to do... I go to do like... I was going to do like... I was going to

work up to sets of nine on back squat. Why? I was just... I was like... Wild hair up your ass. Exactly. That's exactly what happened. Someone else was doing it. I was like, yeah, I'll join you. And next thing I know, I'm doing I'll hear it. Exactly. That's exactly what happened. Someone else was doing it. I was like, yeah, I'll join you.

And next thing I know I'm doing something I would never normally do. And I start squatting and my knee starts bothering me before I even get to a heavy load. And I was like, shit. So I took three weeks off from squatting altogether. I did nothing but pools and box jumps. I come back.

And what happened? I PR my, my back squat like a week later after coming back. That's what's weird, man, because there's no hard and fast rule. I know of another guy, a top level powerlifter.

So keep training around it and you might PR and you might be training in efficiency. A top level powerlifter who did speed squats once a week and the rest of the time, pretty much every day, he was just doing all kinds of box jumps

and different kinds of jumps. He did jumps off his knees, box jumps, regular jumps, depth jumps, bounding jumps, just sit and stand and jump up. Every kind of jump you can imagine, but then he squatted a PR to meet, squatted like 750 pounds at 200 pounds body weight. There's no hard and fast rule, man. I would include plyometrics as sort of like a variation of a squat or an option if you don't

want to squat, if you need something else to spice up the training. You can easily take away a squat day. You can have that five-by-five day. At the end of the week, you can do a jump day. Let me tell you, if you can jump off of a three-foot box, land, and immediately reverse yourself up onto a 40-inch box or whatever, it's pretty hard. It will translate into a more explosive squat. Yeah. It's not just the squats.

I've the squats. I build squats. Right now, I do bodyweight squats. I'm working on single-leg bodyweight stuff just because my legs bother me. You had a good showing today. And I jump on things. So the classic Westside program that Louie uses with most of his advanced guys is having one dynamic effort day where you're doing speed squats, and then one max effort day where you're doing super heavy stuff but then yeah joe defranco has his program called west side for skinny bastards where it's basically for people that aren't advanced he keeps the heavy day he throws out the dynamic day and he has a repetition day where they're

doing three sets of you know five to ten reps per set and for beginners he's suggesting that the speed day isn't quite as important because they're not as neuromuscularly efficient so doing the repetition day is better for them and they get they get more progress switching out the speed day for a repetition method day and keeping the heavy day so yeah I do agree for there's a lot of muscle gain yeah there's a lot of it may not be obvious when you look at it because there's a lot of shit in there but there's a lot of controversy with it's within the path of community like whether speed training really has a place some people say no it's stupid i'll get his injured and sore joints other people swear by it i'd say it's probably true that if you're a young guy who

doesn't really have like you're not you're not able to lower a bar and then put every motor unit into it you're not advanced like not that advanced guys do either but you're like a young young uh deer who's not quite on solid legs so trying to do jumps for max speed in that state is not necessarily good it's good just to practice moving a lot so i would probably agree with that and that you could do a heavy day and then a day where you just do, you could do a bunch of dumbbell work for sets of 10 and 15, sure, but you could also just do sets of lighter sets of five. So the weight's not quite as heavy,

but you're still just moving that basic movement through a bunch of reps. Yeah, I probably would agree with that, yeah. I think for beginners, it's a solid way to look at it. I think, I remember yesterday, we said, do you guys want to do an episode on squatting? We like 30 minutes.

It'd be like a quick episode. I feel like we've been there for two hours. That's why I was like, oh, we're about to wrap this up. And then you started

talking shit. I was like, man, this is nobody. I look, you're still listening. You are a true fan. Yes. Thank you for sticking

it out. I think this shit is good. No, no, no. Every single bit of this podcast has been fantastic, in my opinion. However, it's just long. It's hard to get through. Well, how long have we been on? And for some reason, people don't know how to pause podcasts and play them from where they left them.

I don't know what the issue is with that. But guess what? It can be done. And if you're listening now, you probably know that. So sorry. Sorry about that. All right, let's wrap this up. Chris Moore,

plug your stuff, fool. I got a good plug. Go to, dear friends, dear listeners, beloved Barbell Shred. Now he's going to draw this out. Yeah.

No, I'll make it quick. Go to barbellbuddha.com. I have my blog there. People seem to really love it what i made live now is the store click on the store button uh it'll take you to the the store i've set up you can buy copies of the book i'll sign you a paperback copy mail it to you we got some cool t-shirts i've got some new cool products coming out pipeline so if you'd be so kind just go by check it out see what you think you want to's barbara buddha oh okay well if you went there you figured

out soon enough are you not online no jeez how am i supposed to tag you barbara buddha.com is my blog uh i post uh essays there which is what you usually find on the blog and then also the barbara buddha podcast that's a good point, CTP. I do a second podcast. You can find that on iTunes. You can find that on barbabuda.com. Check it out. Quick, plug something. FactionSC.com.

Yeah, just go to barbashrug.com. Click on all the links. It's all good. Yeah, if you want a Barba Shrug shirt, just go to barbashrug.com. We got something. If you get a shirt in the mail, more than likely, David has touched it. That's right.

Yes, everywhere. He puts balls on it. He does not taint the gear. What are you counting down? Memory card. Our memory card's going out. If you want to prove your spot and get super big and strong, sign up for the six-month muscle game program.

Go to fitter.tv slash muscle or barbellstrug.com slash muscle. Is that forward? I think it's muscle.barbellstrug.com. Muscle.barbellstrug.com. I didn't make that link. It doesn't matter. If you go to barbellstrug.com, there's muscle gain challenge at the top.

It's easy to find. We made it easy for you. That's the easiest way to improve your squat. Five workouts a week for 26 weeks. We've got them all written out for you. All you've got to do is follow the program. You'll be in the Facebook group. We'll be looking at your videos, telling you what you're doing wrong, telling you what you're doing right, and you'll get big and strong.

Cheering each other on. That's right. Community. The group dynamic. Community. I'm just going to remind you, make sure to go sign up for the newsletter because we'll send you cool stuff. Yeah.

All your dreams will come true. Follow us on Twitter. If you've got questions, we do the daily, daily BS, where we answer daily questions that are submitted on Twitter. You can tweet at us, at Barbell Shrug, hashtag AskDailyBS, or you can go to BarbellShrug.com, click on Ask a Question, and we will answer your questions in short, concise, points. Words of heart. They don't believe us that we're concise. Unlike this podcast.

All right, guys. Thanks for listening, guys. See you next week.