Interesting read about the squat
SQUATS AND MYTHS (1995)
Dr Mel C Siff
School of Mechanical Engineering
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
My comments on squatting technique have drawn a mixed bag of agreement and
upset, which is always the case with fundamental exercises which tend to be
surrounded by years of superstitious application.
GENERAL COMMENTS
Rest assured that this type of analysis is not meant to belittle. Heaven
knows how many times we are all challenged at lectures, conferences and
lifting platform about the appropriateness of our technique. I thank those
who have chosen not to be politically correct and kind to me over the years,
otherwise I would have been happily contented with the same old myths
forever.
Argumentation, analysis, refutation, rebuttal and counterproposal are all
time-tested ways of research and teaching. Regrettably we often feel that if
someone attacks ideas we believe in, then we are being personally attacked.
Most of the time we did not even create the offending idea, yet we have used
it so often that we become emotionally attached to it. In the case of
religion, politics and sex, criticism invariably leads to such passionate
encounters that even families become split up and nations go to war. Even
science is not immune to this belief fervor - just try to argue about
evolution and you will see what I mean.
In the world of fitness, a similar scene rules and it is inordinately easy to
tread on toes. The one merit of the Internet is that everyone can attend
(unlike some costly conferences and some forbidding lecturers) and become
involved and for that we thank fellow list member, Pansy. She prodded all of
us into a series of encounters from which we will all emerge enriched, if
personality clashes do not cloud the content. So, those of us such as myself
who have analyzed your comments in some depth still appreciate your
willingness to become involved.
SOME SPECIFICS
That having been said, it is still essential to comment on one of the worst
beliefs that one encounters at virtually every fitness convention and in
every popular publication, namely:
"This exercise is for the average person or beginner and is not meant for
athletes or experts"
While the sentiments are well founded, they often tend to insult the
'average' person - who on earth always wants to be just 'average'? None of my
clients wants to stay 'average' or 'novice' - that's why they are visiting a
professional - they want to move out of averages and progress to something
far greater.
Of course, we start with carefully graded sequences of exercises, beginning
with no added loading, and then progress cyclically to greater heights to
achieve mutually agreed-upon goals, but we must never lose sight of the fact
that any beginner HAS to be moving progressively onto significant resistance
(or duration, degree of difficulty, range of movement etc.) - and this is
where the problems begin.
Research has shown that skills developed with minimal loading do not
necessarily transfer effectively and safely to situations with greater
loading. Moreover, learning a skill using movements which are similar to, but
not the same as the actual exercise being taught, causes the same sort of
motor problem, because the controlling program being instilled into the
central nervous system is different for every different variant or pattern of
movement.
Thus learning of the half squat, power clean or machine bench press does not
properly prepare the beginner for safety and efficiency with heavier loads.
In fact, the well-meaning, but misguided advice to do certain 'safe'
movements can actually lead to the dangerous situation in which the client
may be MORE vulnerable to injury if he/she by chance is called upon to
execute the banned form of that exercise.
ADAPTATION AND OVERDESIGN
Just as one overdesigns roads and buildings with a greater "Safety Factor"
than 1 to withstand greater loads in earthquake zones such as San Francisco,
so we should overdesign the body just in case it is sometimes called upon to
do that dread activity that all the fitness authorities cautioned us against.
So we have to teach, modify or relearn the skill each time we are exposed to
some noticeable change in its characteristics, such as degree of resistance,
range, speed, duration and pattern. If one is likely to be exposed to fatigue
with an exercise, then we have to ensure that the client knows the different
skills of learning and coping under conditions of fatigue. It is highly
misleading to believe that there is only one specific skill for a given
exercise at a given time for every single person.
It is also misleading to lump all squats together. Even though they all
involve knee, hip and spinal actions, the powerlifting and weightlifting or
deep-knee bend squats differ very significantly in execution and distribution
of forces through range of movement.
There tends to be an irrational fear associated with deeper-than-parallel
squats, even though most of this is based on theoretical analysis and is
usually contradicted by clinical studies which show that even more knee
injuries occur in activities which do not flex the knee anywhere near
parallel (such as running and jumping). Others show that partial squats can
traumatize the knees even more than full squats!
Do the critics not appreciate that full squats executed under appropriate
control throughout the movement actually produce adaptation (that is what all
training is about, anyway!), enhanced strength, better stability and greater
resistance to unexpected loading? That is what the principle of Gradual
Progressive Overload is about, isn't it?
THE REAL DANGERS
The sooner folk realize that safety of execution does not depend primarily on
the exercise alone, but the technique with which it is executed. Thus, a full
squat executed slowly over full range may produce smaller patellar tendon
forces than a part-range squat done a bit more rapidly. As a matter of fact,
the patellar tendon force is frequently much greater during step aerobics,
running, jumping, kicking and swimming than during controlled full squats
with a load even exceeding twice bodymass.
The dangers of a squat (even a part-range one) lie more in inward rotation of
the knees, unequal thrusting with one leg, loss of stability with fatigue or
poor concentration, unskilled use of ballistic action or the use of some
object to raise the heels and increase the stress on the patella and its
tendon.
Does this mean that we should then advise against all these activities? Of
course not! If we presented a table of the stresses and strains acting on all
the tissues of the body during apparently innocuous daily activities
(including the pressure in smaller blood vessels subjected to the pumping
pressure of the heart), we would never get out of bed.
Sorry, these arguments of great forces and stresses and so forth have to be
looked at in context - the body grows, adapts and flourishes in response to
an optimal level of regularly imposed stress. It is also misleading to talk
about forces and tensions being large, because we should only do so in the
context of knowing something about how big, strong and dense the tissues are
upon which they are acting.
If the tendon has a large cross-sectional area and the connective tissue
comprising it is strong and extensible, then we have far less to worry about
than if the tendons were not like that. Remember that a knowledge of the
STRESS (force averaged over the cross-sectional area of the tissue) and
STRAIN (how much the tissues lengthen relative to their original length) is
far more relevant than the force itself. Forget about forces being quoted out
of context - we have to be far more specific than that before we can condemn
some poor exercise to death.
