How important is the back squat?

[wannabepl47]

How much focus do most lifters put on doing the BS?

How correlated is it to your max CJ and Snatch?

[agvares]

not much
no obvious correlation

[Fluster]

not much
no obvious correlation

!!!

[wesley83]

How much focus do most lifters put on doing the BS?

How correlated is it to your max CJ and Snatch?

IMO, If your legs are weak, then it's very important for building overall strength, otherwise the front squat is king - for me anyway...

Some interesting reading

http://www.dynamic-eleiko.com/sporti...ticles007.html

and this...

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=122183941

[raffiki]

How much focus do most lifters put on doing the BS?

How correlated is it to your max CJ and Snatch?

A lot.

Very much.

[someonefat]

not much
no obvious correlation

I kind of agree with this

higher bs doesn't mean bigger numbers in the lifts

there have been plenty of top lifters with 'weak' squats relative to other lifters yet would still put up bigger competition lifts

or lifters that would have world record type sqauts put up weak competition totals-shane hamman 1k+ squat with loose old single ply. His total was like 40kg lower then say anatoly pisarenko who only had about 620lb sqaut nearly 400lbs less then shane-yet totaled significantly higher-.

yes its important to an extent that you need certain level of strength to move the weight yet I don't think its the most important thing.

more emphasis on bs isn't necessarily going to produce better results for you.


"1. Squats alone do not address the technique of the clean. Technique has a significant effect on the bio – mechanical efficiency of the clean and consequently the effort required of the recovery phase.
2. The legs generate the most productive power in weightlifting (or for that matter in most of athletics) over a relatively small range of motion at the knee, hip and ankle joints. The hamstring muscles (within that relatively small range of motion at the knee, ankle and hip, where the lifter generates the greatest forces on the barbell) are not strengthened by squatting. '



'Alexander Kurlovich, said he witnessed Pisarenko miss a squat of 260 kgs in training; only to clean and jerk it 5 days later. According to Taranenko, “if he (Pisarenko) had to stop at the bottom of a clean, he would not be able to get up”

'Yuri Zakharevich apparently is between the two extremes of the examples cited. His best front squat was 250 kgs, done at the time of his best clean of 265 kgs. His best back squat was 300 kgs x 2; power clean 235 kgs; and, snatch from blocks – 215 kgs. '

[someonefat]

IMO, If your legs are weak, then it's very important for building overall strength, otherwise the front squat is king - for me anyway...

Some interesting reading

http://www.dynamic-eleiko.com/sporti...ticles007.html

and this...

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=122183941

http://www.maxfitusa.com/2010/05/02/...squat-routine/

also agrees with you on front squat being superior to back squat with regards to the lifts

I mean really heaviest you stand up with weight is in the clean and jerk where front squat is far superior to back squat. And in snatch you should almost never be pinned under weight you can snatch.

In the end I do both but I have put considerably less emphasis on getting huge squat #'s.

[crackyflipside]

The stronger my back squat is, the better my pull strength and speed is. The stronger my front squat, recover easy on cleans and jerk drive feels more stable.

Carry on.

[agvares]

both, Aslambek Yanaldiev and Alexander Kurlovich claimed\were claimed to have 400 kilos raw oly squat. Both of them mentioned they've noticed it had no impact on their oly lifts.
Otherwise, guys like Pisarenko and Zaharevich, who had apparently low squat numbers, were super great as weightlifters.

[Squinky]

You got to be careful how you interpret correlation. Any two lifts tend to seem to correlate with each other, and this is because when someone is generally strong, they usually are strong in a lot of different kind of lifts. The funniest example is the deadlift and the bench press. There would be a correlation between the two lifts in a sample, when infact within individuals the correlation is negative.

[raffiki]

1. You will never clean and jerk 150 if you don't squat more than 150.

2. Snatches and cleans will not increase your squat.

It's easy to point fingers at who has big squats and who doesn't and what their total is. It most likely has to do with leverage. Also just cause Pisarenko miss a 260 squat once doesn't mean it was his maximum or even close to it. Taranenko didn't even say it was a single. Besides if it was at the end of a heavy loading period and then he took 5 days of recovery (5 days is a long time for a Russian) then it throws all the weak squat theories out the window. Anyway, how do you plan on getting to at least a 260 squat without putting any emphasis on it?

I prefer to find out for myself whether or not a 300kg squat will give me a world class total or not.

[wesley83]

The stronger my back squat is, the better my pull strength and speed is. The stronger my front squat, recover easy on cleans and jerk drive feels more stable.

Carry on.

How often do you max the competition lifts?

[Fluster]

both, Aslambek Yanaldiev and Alexander Kurlovich claimed\were claimed to have 400 kilos raw oly squat. Both of them mentioned they've noticed it had no impact on their oly lifts.
Otherwise, guys like Pisarenko and Zaharevich, who had apparently low squat numbers, were super great as weightlifters.

You can't possibly say they had no impact - Even if it didn't, there's absolutely no way to tell since they obviously squatted a great deal comparatively and never lifted in isolation of squatting ability.

All the examples you are using are elite athletes with massive squats, you're using "low" in a sentence that implies 300kg+ raw squats combined with massive technical ability.

There's no doubt that there are shades of gray and differing proportions of strength vs technique, but the contribution to strength of back squatting to oly lifting and athletics as a whole is irrefutable otherwise no one would bother with them.

[GqArtguy]

You can't possibly say they had no impact - Even if it didn't, there's absolutely no way to tell since they obviously squatted a great deal comparatively and never lifted in isolation of squatting ability.

You can if you know their totals with earlier maxes. For example, if the lifters squatted 300kg and cleaned 260, but then raised their squat max to 400kg and still cleaned 260, then obviously that extra 100kg didnt have an impact.

[someonefat]

1. You will never clean and jerk 150 if you don't squat more than 150.

2. Snatches and cleans will not increase your squat.

It's easy to point fingers at who has big squats and who doesn't and what their total is. It most likely has to do with leverage. Also just cause Pisarenko miss a 260 squat once doesn't mean it was his maximum or even close to it. Taranenko didn't even say it was a single. Besides if it was at the end of a heavy loading period and then he took 5 days of recovery (5 days is a long time for a Russian) then it throws all the weak squat theories out the window. Anyway, how do you plan on getting to at least a 260 squat without putting any emphasis on it?

I prefer to find out for myself whether or not a 300kg squat will give me a world class total or not.

pisarenko said his squat was in 280-290 range relatively low for most shw. No doubt you need certain #'s in squat but past a point its not going to give more carry over and could focus on more important things then big squat.

pisarenko had long legs though so sure leverages plaid a role in why squat was on very low side compared to even his teamates. Yet big squat does not = big lifts and gaining more in squat is not going to have direct link to help lifts. If you can squat enough to stand up from clean or snatch thats all you really need.

[wannabepl47]

\ If you can squat enough to stand up from clean or snatch thats all you really need.

This really gets to the heart of my question, is that really the main thing squatting helps in the lift is just to stand up? If so Im going to give squatting a bit of a rest for ahwhile because I could stand up with 20 kgs more than both of my max lifts.

What exercises strengthen the 2 pulls then? Just doing clean pulls (clean style deadlifts) and high pulls?

Im back at school and no longer have my coach and am feeling lost in my training. Basically just hammering on my squat and doing heavy clean pulls since its all I know how to increase and hoping it carries over when I have coaching again in the summer.

[johnsonb90436]

You can if you know their totals with earlier maxes. For example, if the lifters squatted 300kg and cleaned 260, but then raised their squat max to 400kg and still cleaned 260, then obviously that extra 100kg didnt have an impact.

just a thought. But maybe they havent devloped the technique to up their cleaning ability max with their new found back squat strength (assuming there is actually a high carryover to their other lifts)

[agvares]

pisarenko said his squat was in 280-290 range relatively low for most shw. If you can squat enough to stand up from clean or snatch thats all you really need.

1) my trainer saw Pisarenko struggling with 200 at the dawn of his carreer)

2) agreed completely.

[agvares]

This really gets to the heart of my question, is that really the main thing squatting helps in the lift is just to stand up? If so Im going to give squatting a bit of a rest for ahwhile because I could stand up with 20 kgs more than both of my max lifts.

What exercises strengthen the 2 pulls then? Just doing clean pulls (clean style deadlifts) and high pulls?

Im back at school and no longer have my coach and am feeling lost in my training. Basically just hammering on my squat and doing heavy clean pulls since its all I know how to increase and hoping it carries over when I have coaching again in the summer.

just do complete lifts themselfs. why would you need to train partials?

one my mate who's about 62 kilos has a roughly 120 CJ and something like 85+ or kinda snatch. He's always great at doing pulls solo, every rep is just a shooting machine, working fast and smoothly. But when it comes to the snatch itself, he always pulls wrong and unneffective.

practice the lifts, not parts of them.

[slowman41]

I wanted to post an article Donny Shankle wrote recently, which was one of his "20 mistakes to avoid" and it was "don't squat enough", but I guess Donny took them down so that he could add more rules and/or make a book.

Donny mentioned that weightlifters don't squat in 5's, 10's, 20's or any other squat rep scheme. Weightlifters seldom go over 3 reps to a set. And the most notable was that a weightlifter should be squatting heavy, and often, with multiple singles at a very high weight.

[agvares]

Donny mentioned that weightlifters don't squat in 5's, 10's, 20's or any other squat rep scheme.

[slowman41]

[ video ]

oh theres always going to be an exception, you know what I meant.

besides he's using the pansy pad, that doesn't count

[raffiki]

If you can squat enough to stand up from clean or snatch thats all you really need.

Unless you want to improve the amount you can stand up with, then you will need a bigger squat.

[raffiki]

You can if you know their totals with earlier maxes. For example, if the lifters squatted 300kg and cleaned 260, but then raised their squat max to 400kg and still cleaned 260, then obviously that extra 100kg didnt have an impact.

Do you really think it is likely that a guy with sound technique will not see results by increasing his squat from 150 to 250? Provided of course he puts in reasonable practice on the competition lifts.

[agvares]

Do you really think it is likely that a guy with sound technique will not see results by increasing his squat from 150 to 250? Provided of course he puts in reasonable practice on the competition lifts.

150 to 250 yes

300+ to anything = not likely

[laxshack]

squat is king in weightlifting, to put it simply ill just quote my coach - Alexander Varbanov - "weightlifter little squat garbage weightlifter" plain and simple, it really doesnt matter how much you bench or curl etc. in this sport but ill say it again if you cant squat 150 kg your not going to clean it let alone jerk it. so SQUAT SQUAT SQUAT!!!!!! SQUAT TILL YA PUKE! (literally, iv done it)

[someonefat]

Unless you want to improve the amount you can stand up with, then you will need a bigger squat.

you should still squat of course

yet a lot of people seem to put over emphasis on the squat 'I need to squat more weight or my lifts not going to get better' when should be focusing more on the lifts.

"1. Squats alone do not address the technique of the clean. Technique has a significant effect on the bio – mechanical efficiency of the clean and consequently the effort required of the recovery phase.
2. The legs generate the most productive power in weightlifting (or for that matter in most of athletics) over a relatively small range of motion at the knee, hip and ankle joints. The hamstring muscles (within that relatively small range of motion at the knee, ankle and hip, where the lifter generates the greatest forces on the barbell) are not strengthened by squatting. '

If anything front squat is more important then bs for weightlifting

[laxshack]

but in all fairness to your suggestion if you were to put two people side by side both weighing the same, one with superb technique and the other with superb strength, i have no doubt the guy/ girl that is stronger will most likely lift more than someone who knows how to do it properly, iv seen this a dozen times, it seems brute strength trumps good technique any time any day, if you squat more you will lift more - this only applies to weightlifting i have no idea about any other sport.

[someonefat]

but in all fairness to your suggestion if you were to put two people side by side both weighing the same, one with superb technique and the other with superb strength, i have no doubt the guy/ girl that is stronger will most likely lift more than someone who knows how to do it properly, iv seen this a dozen times, it seems brute strength trumps good technique any time any day, if you squat more you will lift more - this only applies to weightlifting i have no idea about any other sport.

Not true at all

there are 120lb men who can snatch 310 lbs

I guarantee almost no pro bodybuilder could do that even in offseason weighting 300+lbs. Yet they are probably twice as strong as them in every lift possible.

in fact their are 105lb women who can snatch more then guys on this site like babyslayer who can deadlift over 700lbs for reps just due to fact he doesn't have proper technique to even do a proper snatch.


also give you a pro strongman who has over 900lb deadlift raw who been training the oly lifts for like 4 years kevin knee



struggles with 140kg -he has to press it out even due to poor flexibility, forget about doing full snatch-

130lb men do more then that at pro level probably couldn't even deadlift 500lbs.




Technique and also the explosive power is much different then pure brute strength. Someone with amazing technique will almost always out lift brute strength guy with no technique.

[crackyflipside]

How often do you max the competition lifts?

Too often.



I still don't understand how backsquat has no correlation to some of you guys. You need to squat about 130% of your best clean and jerk, less than that and you are pushing the limits of your own absolute strength and your technique is probably pretty awesome but won't see bigger gains on your competition lifts until you push your squat higher.

Edit: Here we go, had to speed read through a few of my books to find the correlation for the OP and others. These are averages from all weight classes taken in 1976, A.T. Ivanov.

Class 3 (50% of world record): Back squat 125.5% of max clean and jerk
Class 2 (55%): 126%
Class 1 (60%): 127%
Candidate to Master of Sport (70%): 127.7%
Master of Sport (75%): 128.7%
Master of Sport International Class (95%): 133%