Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2135: Barbell Squat Masterclass

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

One of the MOST important exercises, the barbell squat masterclass. (1:10) An exceptional lower-body exercise that has an amazing carryover effect throughout the whole body. (4:32) Squatting is a FUNDAMENTAL human movement. (10:14) The distinct types of squats. (11:16) All complex movements have a substantial risk of injury if performed improperly. (14:36) The requirements needed to perform a proper barbell squat. (16:23) The BEST priming movements to perform before squatting. (23:15) The workout: The placement of the bar, how to bail safely, slowly working up to heavy set, avoiding failure, best tempo, and number of days per week. (31:26) Advanced squatting techniques. (41:17) Related Links/Products Mentioned TRANSCEND your goals! Telehealth Provider • Physician Directed GET YOUR PERSONALIZED TREATMENT PLAN!  Hormone Replacement Therapy, Cognitive Function, Sleep & Fatigue, Athletic Performance and MORE. Their online process and medical experts make it simple to find out what’s right for you. How to Squat Like a Pro - Mind Pump Media Ben Pollack Shares The Proper SQUAT Setup (AVOID MISTAKES) | Mind Pump Adam Schafer’s DEEP Squat Mobility Secrets | Behind The Scenes at Mind Pump MAPS Prime Pro Webinar Do You Have Back Or Shoulder Pain? YOU NEED TO TRY THIS! | Mind Pump How to Box Squat to Improve Your Squat Form – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Ben Pollack, Ph.D. (@phdeadlift) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode is all about barbell squatting. This is the Masterclass. Now, it's brought to you by one of our sponsors,

mphormones.com. If you're interested in getting your hormones checked, you might want to do hormone therapy, or you want to dive into the world of peptides for things like fat loss, cognitive improvements, muscle building, better sleep, better skin, or more, go through a doctor and go through a real pharmacy. You can go to mphormos.com. You could talk to a provider and get your personalized treatment plan. This episode also comes with the sale. We have a program sale right now.

Maps and a bullock advanced 50% off. This sale will end this month. If you're interested, go to anabolicadvance.com and use the code August 50 for that discount. All right, here comes a show. The king of all exercise, the barbell squat. It is true. This is the king. It's phenomenal for developing the lower body, but a lot of people also see upper body gains from getting better at the squat. So today's episode is all about the barbell squat. This is the master class.

You can't come out and make that statement. I just made the argument that the deadlift was the main. The point is the master class. I lean more towards this is the king personally. Do you really? Yeah. Oh wow. I do mainly because of the better trainer I was.

What? Or when I exercise your better at this. Yeah, it's maybe it's a favoritism thing. I really enjoy the squat personally. But yeah, it's just in terms of being able to address the entire kinetic chain and strengthen the entire body, there's like really no question the squats right there. Yeah, I mean, King or not.

Yes, it's either one to mental. Yeah, it's up there. Yeah, I mean, King or not. Yes, it's either one to mental. Yeah, it's up there. It's so, it's so beneficial in the sense of when you look at the time spent squatting and the value and the results that you get from the squat, there's really very few exercises that we can even put in the same conversation, okay? Getting better and stronger at barbell squatting, you can take five other exercises and combine them, and you might not even get close.

So it's just exceptional. And anybody who's ever done barbell squats for a long period of time and really perfected them and worked on them will tell you, it's definitely one of the best exercises. From a muscle building perspective, athletic performance, there's got great general carryover. Now, I know that there's a lot of functional arguments that come out. And once you get better at a sport, or should I say, as you start to get more specialized

and become more of an expert of a sport, then the training needs to become more specialized. But when it comes to general carryover, barbell squats are up there. You get stronger to barbell squats, you'll see lots of carryover into other physical pursuits. And then from a fat loss perspective, because such a large muscle mass,

or so much your muscle mass is affected, when we talk about the metabolism, boosting effects of building muscle, and then what that does for fat loss, the squat is incredible. If you're trying to get lean, barbell squats are gotta be up there because of the amount of muscle that they build. It would be really cool to see a physique that is someone who only squats like three to five times a week.

That's all they do. Nothing with squatting. And to see what kind of physique would be built from just that. It would be, I bet you it would be more surprising than you would think as far as like how aesthetic and how good they would, they could look just from that because of how much of the entire body is activated from.

Now in work, we're assuming it's like perfect form, four-ange of motion, they're incorporating explosive with slow tempo, with like, that's all they did, was just master the squat, all of its variations, nothing but that. I bet you would build a pretty good looking physique. Now of course you would need more Nat for balance and all that stuff, but I think the point that you're making is so much is activated. I mean It's okay. Obviously a barbell squad is widely known as a lower body exercise

Yeah, and that's I mean that's somewhat true right a lot of the the muscle building effects and the strength building effects are to the lower body, from the hips down. But you also have a lot of core activation, low back stability. You need to have a strong stable low back. Up, upper back, you need to have a good stable thoracic spine. Shoulder, bridge. Shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility.

You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have good shoulder mobility. You need to have rotation and really like it puts a lot of pressure on the upper back which you know you don't really consider that. Yeah, just to hold the bar in place and just to be in front of it. So it's just exceptional for that. You know, it's funny. There's an old saying. This is an old bodybuilding saying and when I first read this as a kid, I thought that's really weird. But then I experienced it myself and it said, if you want to add a half a half an inch to your arms, add 50 pounds of your squat or something like that. I remember reading similar stuff that said, like you want to increase your bench press by 30 or 50 pounds

increase your squat. It's really strange, right? And it's like, how does that make sense? That's translate. It just affects the entire body. And I think part of it has to do with the fact that there are some limiters in the body, in the sense that it will only allow you to get

as strong as it thinks you can handle safely. And you'll only build as much muscle as your body believes is safe from a balanced perspective. So what does this mean in practice? If I don't build my legs very well, my upper body's only gonna get so big. And we see this with studies. You're very interesting studies where they'll take

and they'll put a leg in a cast and mobilize it. And then they'll train the other leg. And yes, the leg that gets trained builds a lot of muscle, but the leg that's immobilized actually loses less muscle than had they not trained the other leg to begin with. So there's like this interesting kind of balancing carryover effect.

And barbell squats are like one or two in terms of like this systemic kind of muscle building signal. Most of it, of course, localized to the main muscles of the lower body, but there is this interesting systemic effect that happens from barbell. This is why we can really narrow it down to kind of like those two main lists, either between the deadlift camp or the squat camp because of how you can load such a substantial amount of weight for both

of those exercises. And then that how much force you have to generate, be able to sustain and protect the spine, but also to be able to generate enough force to then move all of that weight up and down, it's going to affect all the muscles that are lighting up to produce and create a stable environment for that. It'd be interesting to know how much of that is attributed to just the overall load volume that you're training with because you can train it such a high load with those two movements and how much of that is attributed to like what it does for the CNS.

I just I feel like I don't think you the CNS. I just, I feel like... I don't think you can separate them. I think they're all so close to connected, you know, the load with the CNS. It's the second heaviest exercise you'll probably be able to do. Some people could squat more than they did lift, but usually that's the other way around. So it's one of the heaviest weights you'll ever lift. It's crushing forces on you. Yeah, it is a squat. And it not only loads the lower body,

but it loads the spine and the upper body as well, thus strengthening all of those things, thus making the entire body strong. And then we talk about the core. You're, if you're holding, you know, you get strong at the squat, your core has to be able to support that and stabilize. It has to be able to stabilize your and stabilize. It has to be able to stabilize

your spine. So your core gets really strong and stable at the very least in the squatting position. But definitely lots of carry everywhere. So that means your bleeks or your abs, your transverse abdominis, the whole lumbar pelvic hip area. I mean, all those muscles that keep everything from falling apart, they have to be able to support you during an exercise to be extremely heavy. So you're, you get a strong core even from doing, you know, barbell. Oh, I think that was one of the main contributors to eliminating my low back pain from squatting, aside from it opening my hips up and the work I had to do on my mobility work on my hips,

from it opening my hips up and the work I had to do on my mobility work on my hips, but also just the slow progression of load on the squat and getting stronger and stronger, strengthening my core. And that being supportive for the low back, I actually think that that has a lot to do with why that went away. Once I started to squat and squat heavier and heavier, all of a sudden I didn't have this low back pain, which is so ironic because what you would hear even from doctors is people get low back issues, oh, don't squat, stay away from squatting.

And so a lot of people, I think, connect squatting as this, oh, dangerous thing, or if you have back issues that you should stay away from it, and ironically, I had back issues. Part of the reasons why I made the excuse of why I didn't like the squat was, oh, my back doesn't feel good, and it was, all it really was was, I needed to work on squatting properly, opening my hips up so I could get a full range of motion, get a stronger core, and then all of a sudden that all came together for me. Yeah, it's interesting to me that that's always like their go-to, that you're gonna eliminate a fundamental movement instead of just introducing it in a progressive way of a progressively overloading yourself.

So you just get a little bit stronger, a little bit stronger, more capable, adding more load to the point where it becomes, you become way more resilient towards any of these other type of stresses that you're gonna face that would hurt your lower back from being weak and not supported. Yeah, it's interesting.

You mentioned it's a fundamental movement it is. Now there's other movements that are considered fundamental at walking, running, throwing, twisting, squatting is a fundamental human movement, meaning you don't want to lose the ability to squat. Now, you can see this often in third world countries, people rest in a squat position. They literally sit in a squat position. And before the invention of chairs, this is probably how we we relax but we didn't just sit in it we also had to have enough mobility and strength to jump up out of a squat if something happened or if we need to do

something or if we were gathering we're down in this kind of squat position people like my low back hurts when I'm bend over doing stuff that's probably not how we did lots of things on the ground and again we know this through modern hunter-gatherers so So it is a fundamental human movement and you wanna keep those around because your body was designed or evolved to be able to maintain or have those kind of movements. And when you lose them,

you actually lose other types of functions. That's why it's so damn important. Now, there are different types of squats with the barbell on the back. The two main variations are the low bar and high bar squat. That just, that basically is talking about where the bar is placed on the back. Now Olympic lifters tend to like to do the high bar squat and power lifters tend to like to do the low bar squat. Each of them a little bit different, both are great. Really, really doesn't make a big difference

for the average person, which one you pick. I will say that the high bar probably will definitely requires more mobility, more scale and more mobility than the low bar, especially in the ankles. But other than that, I don't think it's a big difference. I think there is a body type that each of them are better for. For example, if you have somebody who has, if you know, you have a very long torso, a low bar squat seems to be more advantageous

or easier for you to master because of how long your torso is. And so putting the bar lower so that when you hinge over, it's still center or center. I'm just talking people in general. Right. Talk people in general, but even more so with a long torso, right?

Or, you know, that is gonna be more advantageous. And if you have a shorter torso, I think it's easier for you to do a high bar. So that being said, I think there's tremendous value in working towards the ability to do both. I had to start being a tall person long tour. So I had to start with more of a low bar squat

to start with. And over time working on my ankle mobility, my hip mobility, getting a greater range of motion, being able to sit upright, then could get to a high bar. But I couldn't do a high bar right out the gates. I didn't have the skill set or the mobility. And so it was easier for me to start with a high bar, but I couldn't do a high bar right out the gate. I didn't have the skill set or the mobility. And so it was easier for me to start with a low bar.

One thing to touch on to before we continue are the pads that people put on the bar when they do a squat. And I understand why they have them placing the bar on your back. If you've never done it before, you don't know the right position. It can hurt. It's uncomfortable. Yeah, it's like it's on your back or it's on your spine and your neck that hurts. First off, if you place the bar properly, it

doesn't hurt at all. You could support a tremendous amount of weight. I mean, you know, people will squat five, 600 pounds with the bar just plainly on the back and there's no issues whatsoever. So it's not, you're just not placing it right. Also, when you put a pad on the bar, you do raise the center of gravity. So you've made your squat a higher bar squat than normal. So a high bar becomes a very high bar squat

and a low bar squat becomes a high bar squat because of the circumference of the pad. That changes your biomechanics, changes your movement. It actually also potentially moves the bar away from your body requiring you to hold it more with your hands. Even though your hands are on the bar on a barbell squat, the hands aren't really holding the bar. In fact, really, really good squatters,

and there's videos of this, they'll take their hands down, and the bar will rest on their back without them supporting their hands. Or a lot of them, you'll see with their fingers. Yeah, they're just, their fingers are leaving. Like a bent polych, I would, you were watching him get in and he wraps in and then his finger tips are the only thing

that's holding 600 pounds on his head. Yeah, and I'm saying that because, I don't want people to think they have to hold it with their hands behind their back because that's not a great position to be in. As far as the injury is concerned, I want to touch on that. All complex movements have a high risk of injury

if you can't do them. So if you do that, if you do a squat improperly or you use a weight that's not appropriate or you lack the prerequisite stability or strength, then the risk of injury is pretty high. And that's just because it's a complex movement. So and by the way, all exercises are dangerous when you don't have the prerequisites to be able to perform them. Barbell Squats just are more complex. Require a little bit more stability and mobility than most other, not all exercise, but most other exercises. It's like anything else in life. The higher the risk, the higher reward. So it takes a little more education, it takes a little more practice to get good at it.

But the beauty of that is you get way more reward for doing that, just like investing or anything else. It's like you can be really, really conservative with your exercise choice and do things that don't give you a major return, but then don't expect this amazing physique or amazing results to happen overnight because you're doing movements that are very low risk

and don't give you a lot of return. Yeah, but not to mention this, though, which makes it different from investments, which is when you do it right, it's perfectly safe. There is no danger to doing any exercise that you could perform with the right strength for the weight that you're using, mobility and stability. It's perfectly safe. I don't care what exercise it is, that includes barbell squats. So if you get hurt doing an exercise, it's not the exercise that hurt you.

It was your inability to do the exercise appropriately. And that, again, that could be your stability, mobility, or just use an inappropriate weight or whatever. So it's not the exercise that hurt you, it's you that hurt you. So think of it that way. So what are the requirements when you do barbell squat or to be able to do a good barbell squat? You have to have for sure good hip and ankle

and thoracic mobility and stability, but definitely hip and especially ankle. A lot of people don't know this, but ankle mobility issues probably cause more bad squats than almost anything else. Highest of juries, I can say. Cutter per se. Yeah.

And that's because when you squat down, your ankles have to band quite a bit to allow your knees to move forward. And if you don't have the good stability and mobility in them, then what ends up happening is your feet will try to twist and turn out as you go down, or your heels will lift, or your knees will start to move in funny directions. And now you're turning a safe exercise into something. I'm very simple way to test this, to know if this is what your limiting factor is.

If you go, if I take somebody, and I just do this my family all the time, and like get them to go as low as you can, squat down as low as you can and hold it like get them to go as low as you can squat down as low as you can and hold it And if you go as low as you can and you hold it and it's uncomfortable legs are burning like crazy Shins are like you can't hold that position comfortably It's your ankles that are not allowed you to get down there if you take yourself and you put yourself on a slant Right or elevate the hills and then you could sit all the way down comfortably

You know it was your ankles? You know it's your ankles. And most of the time, it is the ankles. Now, a lot of times, if you have somebody who has poor ankle mobility, yet they've continued to squat really, really heavy, then it sometimes eliminates, it becomes the hips also in addition to that. But more often than not, I've been able to get somebody into a really deep, good squat simply by just addressing their ankle.

By the way, what contributes to ankle mobility issues is also a foot that is weak and unstable. So you might be thinking, what the heck is that going on here? What do you mean a foot? Well, if you looked at an anatomy picture of the bottom of a foot, it's covered in muscle. And those muscles have to be stable and strong to support you when you're doing anything with your lower body. And that includes a squat. So if the foot is weak and you squat, the foot will flatten

or your ankle starts to pronate and then you'll start to see ankle mobility issues as well. So this also includes the foot. Then the hip, right? right what about the hip the hip has to be strong and stable enough to keep your knees from Getting lots of problems because the hip is such a versatile joint that if it's not able to keep you in a strong position and your knees have to prevent things from twisting Well now, yeah, now you've got yourself need need those knees to be in a secure position and not wavering inward or outward, have an internal external rotational problems where I can't keep my knees tracked in place to where that stress inevitably is going to end up where those weak points are. So if my weak

points are bringing me in, you know, that that force is all going to go right to that point of weakness versus it traveling then then through into the ground and out. The other thing too is hip mobility issues often look like back pain, especially at the SI area, the Sacra Iliac joint. So if you get low back pain, that's kind of like to the right or to the left. So like, oh, my low back hurts. And you're like, well, it's kind of on the side of my low back or on either end.

That can be this SI joint. And oftentimes, that's because you don't have good hip mobility and good hip strength. So you try to squat and the hips aren't able to support what you're doing. And that joint gets a little overstressed and it feels like a little back pain. Any time that we have chronic pain anywhere, it's weakness somewhere else being expressed

there, right? So that's when you have an issue and you're like, oh, my knees hurt, oh, my back hurts, oh, my shoulder hurt, oh, you have these areas that bother you. It's because you have weakness or dysfunction somewhere around there that needs to be addressed. You address the weakness, the instability near there, and then you find that the pain goes away. Almost always. And that's going back to my low back pain. I had weak hips. I just had weak unstable hips

that I hadn't been trained in focusing on. It wasn't doing deep squatting. It wasn't doing a lot of lateral movement, lost all that stuff, started to focus on that and the pain completely went away because now I had strong stable hips. Yeah, you also want a really stable and strong core. Now what's the core?

Those are all the muscles that surround the spine, the lower back, but also the muscles that contribute to the stability of the spine. Believe it or not, the lats actually also contribute. And there's hip flexor muscles that contribute to a stable core. So it's not just the abs and not just the obliques, right? There's lots of muscles that surround the spine and then ones that contribute from the bottom and from the top that stabilize it. You want all those muscles to work together to provide good stability.

Why do I say work together? Because there is an appropriate strength ratio or should I say relationship between these muscles. And if one muscle, let's say, is stronger than it should be in that relationship, now you have an increased risk of injury. So similar to like people will get hamstring pulls because they don't have the right quad

to hamstring strength ratio, when you see this with sprinters, this can happen with the core as well. So what does that mean? That means you don't just wanna have a stable core because your erector spinae muscles are stable, or just because your abs are strong, or just because your obliques are strong, but you might want to also have, or you should also have strong,

transverse abdominis, is the muscles that surround the spine that you draw in on, you want to have strong QL muscles, these are the muscles on the side of the spine that stabilize you laterally, you want to have good hip flexor strength and stability, you want to have lats that aren't too tight, but also stable, because that also stabilizes the core. And basically, you want to have a good, well-functioning stable core to be able to perform squats, or at the very least, use a weight that's appropriate for your core. So, you don't have everything packed and tight and supportive,, addressing the thoracic mobility as well. Like, and I've seen this with my own clients

where if you have these desk jobs and all these jobs, we have these, are protecting shoulders and I'm starting to, that's now affecting the way that my posture is going into the squat and I have rounding in the back. And, you know, that sort of unfavorable postural position will create stress points where you know that load is going to it's going to drive right into those those weak points. Yep, 100 percent. Some of the best priming

slash warm up movements you can do now priming is very individual, but the ones we're about to go over probably apply to most people that will help them accomplish better squats. Now, I do want to also add this, when you become a master of barbell squatting, which takes a long time, then you probably are not going to need to prime nearly as much. Then you can literally prime by doing the squat itself as a warmup. Because you're so connected to the movement, you know what muscles to activate, you know what good position feels like,

then warming up with the squat is not a problem. Why am I addressing this? There's a lot of strength athletes that say that priming is stupid and worthless. Well, maybe for them because when they get in a squat, they know how to activate what they need to. But when I would train clients, like whenever you're teaching any complex skill, I'd have to break it down into

pieces. I couldn't say, let's practice a light squat, stabilize your hips, focus on ankle mobility, brace your quad, I do 15 different things at one time. You can't queue a client who's just learning how to exercise for a time to retract your shoulders, open your hips. You know, like literally like tuning, let's say your violin versus the whole orchestra. Yeah, let's start with the violin.

You have to break it down into pieces and this is true for most people, not just beginners. I mean, how long will it take you to become a master of squatting? I mean, I guess if you really focus on it, it could take a couple of years. For most people, it's even longer than that. I'm talking about like really dedicated people who are exercising for a while. I think you could, because I don't consider myself a master squadter and I don't have to prime like I used to. I think what it really requires is

putting the work, the mobility, priming work, indiligently long enough to be really connected to your weak areas and you know that. And once you've established that, then you can kind of get in that position and know that. For example, when I'm squatting, I know that, I need that ankle mobility, I need my knees to be able to drive over my toes. I know I need to keep my knees from collapsing in and forcing my hips out.

I know I had to sit up tall with my chest. Now I have priming movements that I do to train all that, to activate it to walk it. And I did that consistently for a year and a half, two years. Now I can get into that position, right? I know that with the band pull-apart feel like to get my chest up or the zone one, that feels like, I know what the combat stretch feels

like to drive my knees over. I know what opening my hips feels like up in the 90, 90. Okay, now I have trained that so consistently that when I get in the squat, I can feel all that stuff. I would say this though, because I also don't consider myself a master of the squat. It's a harder exercise for me. But if you were to ask me if I were to do a max,

or if I were to ask you to do a max, you probably would do priming. Oh, well, yeah. Whereas a squat master would just warm up. Sure. I mean, but I mean, that's that that analogy in my opinion is is talking to somebody who is a great baseball player and you're going to go do a home run derby and saying like, could you go hit the ball and be fine or do you want to win this derby?

It's like, well, I want to win this derby. So I'm going to do all my I'm going to do all my rituals and priming and set me up to hit it out the part. Well, there's more value to priming than just just priming to that's also another thing you're pointing to. But I'm saying this because priming is not dumb. Warmups that are proper are valuable to 95% of the people watching right now. So the following movements are probably the most valuable for most people when it comes to squatting. And the first one is 90, 90, 90 rep.

It's a, it's a, you're in a seated position on the floor. One leg is in front of you bent and 90 degrees. And the other one is behind you bent and 90 degrees. And so what you're doing is you're working on internal and external rotation, rotation of the hips. And then when you switch your legs, now you're working on internal external rotation, rotation, excuse me, of the hips, on the opposite side.

Now, when you're in that position, you don't just sit there, because that's just a stretch. We're not just trying to stretch, we're trying to activate. So what you do in that position then is you focus on staying tense, maintain your posture without having to hold yourself up or down. And then if you can, lift the knee off, lift the foot off the floor, all while staying in that position and then switching legs. And what this is doing is it's getting you connected to those muscles that stabilize internal

and external rotation. Right. The next one would be the combat stretch. I think this is the most valuable priming movement for most people. And this is because it directly affects what we just brought up earlier about. Like the majority of people, the ankle is limiting fat. Totally. In fact, I had. So one of our editors, Dylan, I think it was Dylan with squatting.

No, it was Alex, he was squatting, and I watched him squat, and I could see that he needed some ankle mobility. So I had him do combat stretch, and he'd never done it properly. So we got on the floor, the way it looks is you're on the floor, you're kneeling, and you bring your knee forward without letting your heel come off the floor, so you're kind of sitting in this like, in a combat position. So letting your heel come off the floor. So you're kind of sitting in this like in a combat position. So imagine someone kneeling on the floor with like a rifle. You bring the knee forward. Don't let the heel come off the floor until your ankle no longer allows you to move forward anymore.

And you'll feel a stretch in the back like where your calf or your soleus is. Now, when you get there, you don't just hold it. You try now to pull your toes up off the floor, like you're trying to get yourself to move more in that position. And then you try to push into the floor without moving and you alternate. And we try to activate all the muscles in that new range of motion so that you have

the stability and posterior. And posterior and posterior. Yeah, and I did this with both. It's funny, I did it with Alex for approximately 60 seconds. He went back to squat, he's like, holy cow, this is like so different. I mean, that's the thing about this that I think is so fascinating is if you actually apply this, you can feel and see a difference.

I told you guys, I used to love to teach this class. It's the same class that is available for people to watch on the PrimeProWebinar.com that we offered. I would make my clients cold, right? They just came in. I had a lunch, a advanced age people that I was doing these classes with. And I would have them all squat, 10 reps, body weight,

just 10 weight body weight squats. And so they could feel, and then I would take them through the whole class, and then we would end the class with the 10 squats. And you always like, oh my god, they would, like they would say it, they would feel it, they could feel a difference on just by priming all those, all those different priming movements,

and then going back and doing that, like it will improve the squat instantly. By the way, you can watch, we have a video that teaches you some of these movements. I think it's primeprowebinar.com, and it's totally free. And Adam actually takes you through some of these things. Another priming movement which is good for the upper back, the thoracic is just a band row, you could do a cable as well. And this is just to get the shoulders back

and down, get that nice strong type position for placing the bar. And you'd be surprised how many people have challenges with just getting their shoulders, arms and back in that position. Another one would be the wall test that we have in maps. To me, the zone one is the best for the, I give you don't have that. So the ban row is the easiest thing to find for somebody who's listening. It doesn't have our prime program, or I've seen the zone one test. But I mean, the zone test literally looks like, I mean, it looks like what you're about

to do. It's even better. Yeah, because I mean, if you get your average person against a wall and you tell them now to be in that position and try and like press their arms back, they're probably going to get about this far. They're not even going to get close. So think about that, and you're not even getting to the point where you can get the bar on your back, you get the lean forward protrude your neck out.

And so you're going to be in bad postural position. So that's going to prime you to be able to be in that good upright position. We also coach you to activate your core and pressure backflat. Yeah. So which is so valuable to getting ready for a squat also. So you're activated, you're teaching a client to not only get in that retracted position, then to also brace with your core. And then you have a wall for feedback, I think it's the ultimate, like get ready for a squat prime. In my opinion, the ban row, it would be my default if you didn't know what a zone one was

and you're listening for the first time. But if you don't know, I mean, that's like, to me, that is like such a good prime movement to set somebody up with before they go into a squat. All right, so let's talk about the workout. Now, when you're doing barbell squats, you should be in a squat rack, okay? So there are variations of squats

where you take a barbell off the floor, put it on your back. We're not talking about those yet. Those are totally different. We're talking about traditional barbell squat where you un-rack a bar from a squat rack. Now, sometimes people ask, where do you place the bar? Like where should it be on the rack?

It should be high enough to where you could get underneath it, but low enough to where when you stand straight up, it's off the hooks. What you don't wanna do, and I've seen people do this before, is they set the bar so high that they have to get up on their toes to take it off the racks. That is not smart.

That's an easy way. And I've seen people try to rack away after a hard set, miss one of them, and that's not. That's where it becomes a big problem. So you want to have to get under the bar, so your knees are a little bent, stand up with it. Now it's off the hooks. Now what you do is you take a couple steps back,

get into your perfect squat position. Make sure your feet are grounded, you're in a good position, you're looking straight ahead, you're braced and tight, and then you begin your squat. Do not start the squat, half-hazardly. So glad you went this direction, because I didn't even think about this until we started talking about probably one of the most common mistakes I see people do is they don't put the bar at the right level, and then when they go to re-rack what's a common mistake?

Yeah Laughter they look the right and then the one one side hit to the side and so and what IQ is like if I set you up right Where you have to bend the knee a little bit, you know So bend the knee by three or four inches to get under the bar and then stand up if I did that right The bar should still be within that pin range. You know, I'm saying how you have the different levels of pins. It's above the hook, basically.

So that when it comes time to re-rack, when the set is over, this is the part that everybody messes up, is you don't even look at the sides. You walk into it. You hit the front and then slide down. And then slide down. That's it. I should not, so glad you said that.

You should not rack one side of the bar and then the other You are twisting with weight that you probably shouldn't that's where a lot of people get hurt or mess or drop What I can see that all the time like you literally should be able to look straightforward slamming into the thing and then Let it slide down let it slide. All right, so since we're here like what do you do if if you can't finish a rep with a squat and we'll We'll get to the warm up and stuff, but I do want to address this. You should have safeties. This is ideal.

It's ideal to be in a squat rack that allows you to put safeties to where when you're at the bottom of the squat, oh, if I can't come up, I could just come down and then I only come down another inch or two and I'm on the safeties. That's ideal. Okay Second far less ideal is there are no safeties meaning if I go down and can't come up Oh, what I do now you throw it back. Yeah, do not fold forward. No People will try to fold don't do that you literally throw the weight back off your back

Let it hit the ground and if you have a spotter They need to know you're gonna do that because a proper spot with a squat is not on the bar, it's around the chest, but only spot someone if they say help. If they don't say help and they're like, I'm gonna dump it, move back so the guy could throw away. Don't feel like you have to save it or anything or save

anybody from loud noise or I feel like there's somewhat of a reserve in terms of like trying to still be able to be quiet or move it somewhere, just literally launch it back behind you in step four. I'm so not a fan of a spotter for a squat. Yeah, I mean, they say, I believe you should do. You're better dumping it. I believe you should either one have safeties

and then let it come down the safeties or two learn how to bail correctly yourself. There's none. And I do it all, and you know what? It's good practice to do that. You should practice with life at the same time. So I love that. I mean, you guys have probably seen me out here many times,

Mrs. and bail all by the way. And I don't call, I could easily call one of these guys who I know could properly squad me. I don't care. I don't need to. And the way I'll do it is when I come out, if I don't feel like I'm even getting out of the hole, I'll just, just get rid of it. It's not worth me trying to grind it out.

Just to say I did it. It's just like, I'm going to go down if I can't, I can come up controlled and I feel myself stuck. I'm bailing. I'm not a power lifter and I'm going to some meat. Don't matter that day if I don't get that weighed up. Now that being said, if I owned a gym right now, I would not allow anybody to barbell squat

without safety. I think it's that big of a deal for the average person. Advanced lifters who know to dump away, Olympic lifters are great at it. They don't even use safety, they just come off the, you know, whatever. But everybody gets, just go in a squat rack with safety. Nowadays, I think every gym has them.

When I was younger, it was actually really hard to find a power cage. We used to have the barbell squat at a most gym time. But now every gym has them, so use them. Okay, so when you get started, you wanna do some of the primary movements that we talked about. That should take you about five to 10 minutes.

And then slowly work up to your working weight. So what does that mean? That means you start with the bar, then you add a little bit of weight, then you add a little more weight, and give yourself as many of those sets as you need until you feel like good and loose and tight at the same time and strong enough

to do your work set. You should probably avoid lifting the failure with barbell squats. I think you should avoid lifting to failure with most exercises most of the time. Barbell squats, unless you really know how to dump away and you've got good safeties, going to failure on a barbell squat is,

it's one of the scariest exercises to go failure. That's a bench press is probably more scary because you can't dump the weight, you can drop it on yourself. But a barbell squat, I mean, I don't think it's a good idea to train to that point because form goes out the window, people are afraid to dump the weight, they end up twisting it. And listen, we're already getting so much reward for squatting.

We don't need to squeeze out another, you know, because obviously there's benefits to taking the body to failure, right? There's plenty of resources to support that there is some value to occasionally doing that. But the risk versus reward to this person, if I've got somebody who I've already convinced that squatting is good for them and it's going to be of such value, I don't need to push to that. I don't need to increase the risk by going, hey, let's go max out too and see if we can squeeze out a little bit

more out of this. It's just like at that point, I'm already getting so much value from getting you to learn how to squat and get better and slowly increase your weight on the bar over time, that there's not a lot of value in this person doing single or doubles out the gates. I mean, that's not something you mess with until way later, don't go. Now, something to keep in mind with the barbells, this is important for most exercises,

but really important for barbell squats. I like slow negatives. I really like a slow negative rep with the barbell squat because it allows you to stay in good technique and good form, and then here's the other side of it. A lot of people don't realize this, but when you change directions with the rep, the weight momentarily becomes heavier

because of momentum, okay? So if you lower a 50 pound dumbbell, and then you try and change directions, at the moment of changing directions, you're also fighting the momentum. So it's no longer 50 pounds, momentarily it's a lot heavier. The faster you lower the weight,

the heavier the weight becomes momentarily. Barbell squats because the weight is so heavy, it's one of the strongest exercises you do, I do not think you should do anything fast with the barbell squat. The only exception are elite or high level Olympic lifters. And they do something completely different. So if you watch Olympic lifter, they bounce at the bottom.

I'm gonna tell you guys right now, the average person tries to bounce at the bottom of squat. You're gonna get hurt. You're gonna get hurt. Yeah. Don't do that. Yeah, I just think that this rule applies to all exercise in my opinion. I'm such a fan of slow. I mean, with many times on this show, I just think that this rule applies to all exercises in my opinion I'm such a fan of slow I mean with many times on this show I've talked about

Walk around a gym show me somebody who's doing a four-second negative. You never see it That's what all the research is around when it's like the the best tempo rep range stuff for hypertrophy and building muscle right is that four-second negative very few people do it anyway So you're better off going four, five, six seconds on the way down than trying to speed it up with two seconds or less. So, how many days a week should you squat? Squats are interesting.

It's a complex, hard, works a lot of muscles movement. Yet people tend to respond really well with frequency with squats, more so than like dead lifts. Squats, people tend to handle a lot of frequent. Now you gotta modify the intensity, so you can't hammer yourself every workout, but most people two to three days a week is a pretty damn good prescription for barbell squatting,

and they do better with three days a week than they would with one in my experience, even if the volume was equated, even if they were doing the same amount of sets. So frequent barbell squatting seems to be pretty good. Well listen, there was a viral sensation, like I don't know how many years ago it was that was the squat every day.

It comes around every year, right? And so you could technically squat every day, but what's important to note is that as the frequency increases, especially with a movement like that that's so taxing, you have to modify intensity. You cannot squat three, four times a week and bring the same intensity to the lift every single day. Otherwise, you're not gonna allow your body

to recover, adapt, grow and get better. You're backwards. Yeah, you'll go about it, or you'll plateau really quick, right? So, two to three is for sure the sweet spot even at two or three, it looks something like real heavy day, a range of motion type of focused tempo type of day and then maybe like a light speed day or something in there, right? So you still and basically what we're doing by by doing that is we're modifying intensity, right? The intensity to do tempo squats with,

you know, probably 50% of the weight on what you would consider a heavy day is really bringing down the intensity and bringing down the average damage you're gonna do. Totally. All right, so let's talk about some advanced techniques of variations. One of my favorites is pausing the rep

with the barbell squat. I love, and I love this with clients as well, where we would squat down and I'd have them pause the rep where they tend to be most challenged. Now, of course, this requires me to lower the weight. So, if I train to client and I notice it's at the bottom, which most people have the challenge at the bottom of the rep, then I would go lighter and I'd have them come down and I'd say, we're going to hold the weight at the bottom for five seconds and hold good technique intention there and then come up.

This is a great technique for almost any exercise, but I love it most with barbell squats. Yeah, because there is a little bit of that sort of recoil kind of elastic energy like help you get, right? When you get a little bit of momentum, when you squat down and then you drive back up and you are able to use that, when you take that away and you're sitting in it, you have to really focus on being able to generate force without any of that added help of momentum back up.

And it helps a lot when that's the sticking point for most people, you get down in that position. That weight feels extra heavy. Yeah, along those lines, the box squat is great. Box squats, where you sit down on a bench or a box, stay tight with your body, wait a couple seconds while you're sitting and then stand back up.

You eliminate the changing directions, the elastic energy that the muscles build up. And in my experience, box squats are a less risky version of squats for most people. So I really enjoy doing that. I use them differently though, right? So like I love your, you know, the Paws squat for modifying what I was talking about earlier

with the intensity, right? So let's say what would be considered a heavy day for squatting for me right now, like 300 pounds, right? So a 300 pound squat is a heavy, would be a heavy day for me. If I were to go do pause squats, I'm going to drop it down like 135. Like that, like 135 with a good pause at the bottom for me is that's, that's a, that's a, that's a tight. Oh yeah, but that's a, that's a tough workout still.

Yet I'm using 50% of the load. I put it where box squats all have a tendency to want to load more because I can't. You know, but if I were to do like, let's say a heavy day on Monday, I would not go box squats on Wednesday or Friday, because I could load the box once I would use box squats in replace of what would normally be a heavy day. So let's say the following week, I'm like, Oh, Monday, this is my heavy day. Oh, you know what I haven't done a while? I haven't done box squats

while let's load up and do box squats from my heavy my heavy day. Oh, you know what I haven't done in a while? I haven't done box squads in a while. Let's load up and do box squads from my heavy load a day. I like the pod squads more, where I'm trying to force myself to, you know, lower the weight. Because I- So you're adding frequency, but you're going lower the intensity. Yes.

Yeah, I agree with that. That's good. You also can use bands in chains, bands or chains on a barbell squat. And bands in chains are similar in the sense that they both add kind of progressive resistance. So when you have chains hanging off the ends of the bar, going straight down, the top of the wrap,

when I'm holding the weight straight up, I'm holding almost all or all of the weight of the heavy chains. But as a squat, the links hit the ground, and the weight becomes lighter. Now why is this awesome? Well, because I tend to be weaker at the bottom than I am at the top.

So as I go lower and get weaker, the weight gets lighter. As I come up, it gets heavier. So I can actually load the bar heavier than I would traditionally, because it's lighter when I need it to be and heavier when I need it to be. Bands very similar. If I touch bands

I get a similar effect that I would get with chains if you had to pick one or the other Personally, I like bands better But they're both a little different so I think you should try definitely try both Yeah, and I mean you that I've seen people do with bands to there's also a way to kind of Attach them from under the top the top. Yeah. So you can actually load a little bit more weight. So this is again, back to that elastic energy potential that you can kind of build with that recoil effect. It just adds an added amount of elastic energy

to help you lift you on the way back up. Well, also, so this is it. Now, this is the way I use these. It's like, OK, I mentioned earlier, I'm not a fan of using a spot or ever, but let's say there's a day where, let's say right now, like my max, I would probably not be able to even get a 400 pound squat right now.

So let's say a 400 pound squat, I'd be really nervous to do that without, let's say a squat or thinking that I might have to bail. Here's a great time, this is where I'm gonna utilize band, band assistance squats, like, okay, I'm gonna put 400 on the panel, but I'm gonna wrap the bands on there to help me Here's a great time. This is where I'm gonna utilize band, band assistance squats. Like, okay, I'm gonna put 400 on the belt, but I'm gonna wrap the bands on there to help me get out of the hole.

And I know that because I have that assistance, the likelihood that I'm gonna have to bail, or I'm not gonna be able to get it, I'm gonna be able to get that rep out. So when I wanna push the weight, I love utilizing. What's interesting about bands in that sense is, whether they're attached to the bottom of the top, you're still getting weight that's heavier at the top

and weight that's lower at the bottom. Sometimes someone would say, what was the difference? Why do you put them on the bottom of the top, you're still getting weight that's heavier at the top and weight that's lower at the bottom. Sometimes someone would say, what was the difference? Why do you put them on the bottom or the top? Why not just pick one or the other? It feels different. And I really don't know how to explain it other than that.

Well, you're getting assistant at the, you're getting assistants on the bottom of the bottom. Yeah, but my point is you're getting more assistants at the bottom, less at the top, so the weights heaviest at the top. No, I know. Same thing with, kind of, but not really. What you get what you're saying,

what you're trying to explain, there is a difference. When I'm at the, when I'm using bands that get tight in the top, when I'm at the very bottom, the bands have, or have no play whatsoever. They're pulling the hardest. Yeah, well, no, no, I'm saying when they're down. Sure. When they're on the ground, and I'm squatted all the way

in the hole, the bands are relaxed. There's no, there's no feel of the bands at all. They're irrelevant as at the top, right? And then the most, they're in the opposite is the case and the other. That's right. And so the opposite is when they're coming from the top, I'm always down to bottom. You can feel the bands.

Yeah. They're being stretched and pulled. But my point is the resistance is... But you're right, you're right. That's why it feels different. Yeah, yeah, that's my point. It's like you're... The term of the strength curve is the same.

Yes, strength curve is the same, but the feel is different. And I'm explaining why the feel is different. Yeah, yeah. The feel feels different is because when the bands are attached to the bottom, it definitely feels safer with them at the top. A whole second. Because you know that you can feel them.

You can feel their assistance when you're at the bottom of this squat. When somebody holding fingers on the outside to help. Yeah, I like to go, when I'm going more intense, I'll attach them at the bottom with the bands, and I'll go heavy bands. When I want, I'm gonna have you wait,

but it's gonna be a little easier in my joints, I'm gonna attach them at the top, that's just a feel thing. So there you have it, barbell squat, masterclass. Look, if you want more help with health and fitness, go to mindpumpfreed.com and download some guides. You can also find all of us on social media, justin' is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. I'm on Instagram at Mind Pump to StefaNow and Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam.

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