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Why you should low bar back squat

jiggagold

New member
This was a great read written by Rippetoe, a lot of validity especially when explaining the use of the hamstrings in a low bar back squat compared to front or high bar squat-

The discussion on this thread has been good and thorough. Basically, my analysis is that there are two ways to think about the lever arms in the back squat: first, the distance between the bar and the hip -- the horizontal distance along which the force of the bar acts on the hip, and second, the distance between the hip and the bar along the length of the back. The net effect of the applied force maintaining these lever arms is to keep the bar directly over the middle of the foot where the system is in balance. A vertical back, as in a proper front squat, reduces the first lever arm to about zero. But the length of the second lever arm, the one between the bar and the hip along the back, makes keeping the first lever arm short a lot of work. It was correctly pointed out by Tom Fetter that the little perturbations and wiggles that normally occur during a squat makes the effects of the second lever arm significant.

The effects of the two are interrelated, and can be analyzed by looking at people of different anthropometry: a guy with a short back relative to his legs will have a shorter second lever arm no matter his back angle, and will have an advantage there, but since his legs are longer it might not matter since he won't be able to maintain as vertical a back angle due to his longer legs and therefore will have a longer first lever arm. The opposite case, a gal with a long torso and short legs, will show a short first lever arm due to leg length but will have to fight harder to keep it there due to a longer second lever arm. For him, back work occurs along the second lever arm every time he squats; for her, since there is not as much back work involved in holding her position, deadlifts become very important to strengthen against the inevitable loss of good position inherent in being a fallible human weightlifter.

And my discussion of shear and back stress is misunderstood here. Shear force is the stress applied to the back at non-vertical angles, and increases with horizontality. The rigidity of the spinal column is maintained by the erectors and trunk muscles, and the back angle is maintained by the hip extensors. If the trunk muscles and erectors do their anatomically correct and important job of preventing intervertebral movement -- any change in the spatial relationship between each of the vertebrae -- shearing cannot take place. So, when shear force is successfully overcome by the trunk, shearing does not take place. [Actually, when the back muscles fail to do their job, shear does not take place -- torque does. The intervertebral movement, because of the ligamentous support between the vertebral bodies, will occur as rotation when the posterior distance between two adjacent vertebral bodies increases. The space in the back opens (posterior tension) and the space in the front closes (anterior compression) Actual shearing will only take place if there is a spondylolysthesis, or if you have a bad car wreck with your wonderful seat belt on.] This is why squats and deadlifts are such effective back muscle exercises, and why the conventional exercise literature's call for more verticality in squat and deadlift technique ignores this fact. And this is why I like some stress on the back produced by a longer first lever arm.

But this is beside my primary point of argument: I maintain that high-bar squats have a limited usefulness, for several reasons. I use the low-bar squat as the primary exercise for developing hip drive, the active recruitment of the muscles of the posterior chain. The hamstrings, adductors, and glutes in a low-bar squat act directly to open the hip angle out of the bottom. In a front squat the hamstrings are shortened by the acute knee angle and open hip angle into a position of almost complete contraction, and cannot be used to make the hips extend since they are already contracted. The extremely vertical back angle is maintained by the glutes and the contracted hamstrings, which function as the primary extensors of the hip in the absence of hamstring involvement. This means that there is little hamstring in a front squat and lots of hamstring in a low-bar back squat. And a high-bar back squat is intermediate between the two. I specifically want there to be lots of hamstring involvement in the squat, especially for Olympic weightlifters, most of whom refuse to/are not allowed to deadlift heavy and thereby get their hamstring work. If all your squat work -- front squats when you clean and when you do them out of the rack, and high-bar back squats -- omits heavy hamstring involvement, your posterior chain gets inadequate training. And this can be costly on a 3rd attempt clean.

So, I want there to be shear stress on the back so that the muscles that control intervertebral position get strong. I want active use of the hamstrings, so that they get strong too. And this is why I like the low-bar back squat. If we're front squatting when we clean and when we front squat, what earthly reason would there be to make our back squats more like an exercise we're already doing, an exercise that leaves out a muscle group that is very important when we pull? And since low-bar squats allow more weight to be used, thus producing a more acute strength and hormone response, and since the reason Olympic lifters and all of us back squat is to get stronger (it's obviously not a contested lift in a weightlifting meet), it makes more sense to do them in the way that allows the use of the most weight. And this may be the most important point: the shorter second lever arm may compensate for the longer first lever arm, but more weight can be lifted low-bar than high-bar or front squat because there are more muscles and more muscle mass involved in the movement, and that's why we squat anyway. The front squat is specific to that movement in weightlifting, and the low-bar back squat is specific to posterior chain development and strength, and the high-bar squat is neither.

And this:

I think the safest position is the low-bar squat, especially for a novice, due to the fact that the shorter second lever arm is always in operation because of bar placement while the first lever arm is volitional because of conscious control of the back angle. This will be used by weightlifting coaches as evidence that the high-bar position is better because it necessarily involves more positional control. But again, we are squatting for strength, not squat control practice. If you want to squat with a form that requires a lot of attention paid to back angle, you front squat.

FSs are the perfect compliment to BSs in many ways, among them the fact that a correct front squat emphasizes the upper back while the low-bar back squat works the lower lumbar muscles as discussed earlier. In fact, front squats work the upper back so well that lots of people doing barbell rows would be better off with rock-solid front squats. But I really can't see an argument for the use of an intermediate technique which essentially bastardizes both of the other two. Either you want to do a squat with lighter weights that forces you to hold a position used in weightlifting, in which case you front squat, or you want to squat with heavy weights to get as many muscles as strong as possible, so you low-bar back squat.


This whole article can be bolded but i just pointed out a few things i thought were important.
 
Interesting someone suggested I would be stronger with a low bar squat. Guess I'll have to give it a try
 
i switched to low bar this past fall/winter, i get much better drive with the hips and have been repping hgiher weight than i have in the past
 
ive squatted low-bar for a few years now... good read... i knew there was reasoning behind it... if i were to try and use a high-bar squat with the weights i am using now, i would probably lean over too far and either fall or injure my lower back...
 
Great ARticle! I switched to a lower bar angle last year and have seen great improvements.
 
Good shit.

I find myself doing this having never actually broken down the reasons why.

I will not squat like a powerlifter though, stopping at parallel and using supports like suits and wraps.
 
I think i use high bar, dont really know. The bar is not in that "groove" I know that much. It rests more on my traps but it is way more comfortable to me than trying to get the bar lower.

I also think it has something to do with my shoulder flexibility and not being able to hold the bar lower on my back.
 
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