1/4 squats, 1/4 results

    When I was a high school athlete, I knew little about the benefits of training the posterior chain. It wasn’t my fault that my first experience of weight training was a high school P.E. coach that said to do: 3 sets of 10 reps on the bench, curls, and triceps push-downs for every single workout, every time we lifted. For legs, we ran timed miles and used the leg press for calf raises while reclining in the seated position. Back then I didn’t question my coaches but honestly, they wouldn’t have had answers. Lucky for me, I only participated in this “closed-minded” form of strength training for roughly two years. For my junior year my school hired J-Rod to train the wrestlers, football players, and anyone else that would show up, he only cared about consistency!
    I was one of the first athletes to train with this monster of a man. Our group of athletes was enlightened and change was good. The first workout was box squats. I have to admit I was thinking what in the hell is going on? I just looked at him and said to myself, “He is big.”  When a giant of a man at 275 pounds with abs tells you to do something, you listen. Little did I know I was learning a conjugate method of a back squat so I sat down on that box and came up as many times as he told me. The chains hanging from the bar were equally confusing, but they soon became music to my ears. The veins that bulged through my abdominals and quadriceps only made me want more! Leg day became my favorite day and there was always a new surprise waiting when the last bell rang at 3:15.
    Leg day included full-depth front squats (hamstrings covering calves), power-lifting power squats, Olympic high bar squats, belt squats, rear foot elevated split squats, front foot elevated split squats, pistol squats, Zercher-Squats, we did it all! We actually squatted! Just like our ancestors did in the woods when nature called! We never even spoke of 1/4 squats (no reps) that you see all across American programming today. The only time we heard 1/4 squats in our programming was “1 1/4 squats,” to further the development of the Vastus Medials Oblique muscle in the quadriceps. It’s easy for someone who knows nothing about training to be confused and believes a coach that has never produced results or even worse, performed the program they wrote! 

• Stop performing no reps!
• Stop use lifting belts for every workout!
• Stop letting your ego get in the way (more plates doesn't always mean more results)

     Do you like Olympic weight lifting? Clean & Jerk? Snatch? Popular lifts like the deadlift, front squat, and power clean are all derivatives of the Olympic lifting movements! It’s amazing to watch Kim Un Guk clean and jerk nearly 400lbs (174Kg) at 136lbs (62Kg) body-weight. YouTube it! Notice one thing, as he is pulling that weight off the floor and up past his waist he shoots himself under the bar into a full depth squat position and front squats it up. After he scores the world record total he walks away, with both knees attached. 
     Unfortunately, we still have a lot of coaches that are misinformed. We've heard things like don't let the knee go past the toes or you'll have a knee injury. The relevant research actually says the opposite. I even did an experiment to confirm. I walked up a flight of stairs, I did squat jumps, I started in the blocks on the track, I did a level change-penetration shot in wrestling, I changed levels when my boxing coach threw a  hook at my face, and believe it or not I’m still walking, running, squatting, and cycling. 

    Charles Poliquin, world-class strength and conditioning coach pointed out that Andrew Fry, a lecturer, and researcher in exercise science at the University of Memphis, found that 1/4 squats over a period of time can damage the proprioceptive input that allows us to be flexible. Fry found the overuse of 1/4 squats will only strengthen our muscles in that 1/4 range of motion, in return this will decrease flexibility throughout the muscles being trained. This could be a correlation as to why so many injuries occur in the knee and lower back in high-speed contact or non-contact sports. The tight muscles generate impact to another region of the body during contact. This could explain why athletes that lift (incorrectly) are muscle-bound. It’s not the players’ fault it’s the poor program design. Poliquin also notes that the Canadian Olympic Team coaches found a direct correlation in vertical jumping height from doing full ROM squats. 
    Don’t be afraid to squat. With proper progressions, anyone can drop it low. If you want to develop more strength and explosiveness from the posterior chain, the muscles have to be trained in a full range of motion. If you want to have well-defined legs, squatting is for you as well. 1/4 squats in a power rack can be used for busting plateaus, but most likely you’ve never reached a true sticking point in strength training if you haven’t trained full ROM. Don’t worry, if you aren’t able to pile the 45-pound plates on, form and safety are more important, and training the muscles through the full range of motion will benefit you more in the long run. Give it time, you will be moving heavyweights. Start off with bodyweight, try squatting full ROM, if you can’t get down all the way, come see me, it’s my specialty.