Stuart McGill said it was bad due to the rotation it creates in the joint. It seems like this would also apply to most single leg work like lunges and step ups too. He even wrote an article saying how tennis athletes did too many lunges and got injured. What are your thoughts on this. I personally have never felt any pain doing these.
McGill said it was a “Wonderful Exercise,” just don’t do so many that it messes you up.
The move is a “weighted challenge of mobility.” That loaded twisting of your pelvis can cause SI problems if you do too much, or go too heavy. So, just like any other lift, don’t bite off more than you can chew.
I agree with McGill that any single leg work, even “easy” stuff can cause issues if you get too crazy. Awhile back I was doing low step ups because my back was bothering me. I was doing 8 sets of 8 light ones, no problem. Then I tried to progress to 10 sets of 10 with the same light weight and irritated my shit for a couple weeks.
I just wonder why too heavy or too much means. Like is there some cap weight limit McGill thinks going over would be bad. Or would it be that going heavy means relative to your strength. As in it would be fine to do them if you can rep out sets of ten to fifteen. But doing really heavy stuff where you can only handle turret to five would be too much for your body?
I think “heavy” is always relative. Am I misunderstanding the question?
Short Answer: If it hurts your SI, it’s too heavy!
But for real, if your knee starts collapsing in or out, or your pelvis starts shifting out to one side or the other, it’s too heavy.
No I don’t think you are misunderstanding. McGill was not very precise in what he meant and I have not seen much of anything else of him talking about the split squat beyond what he said here. I just wondered if he meant something like heavy means over 100 lbs, or if he meant that heavy means over 50% of your squat pr.
Since I’m from the country that this type of squat is named after, I’ll tell you something. This squat was popularized in America in the late 1980s, when the assistant coach of the Bulgarian national weightlifting team, Angel Spasov, visited the USA and talked about the best training methods for Bulgarian weightlifters. The interest in the Bulgarian system is very high, because the Bulgarian weightlifters win dozens of medals at the world championships and the Olympic Games.
According to Angel Spasov’s explanations, the Bulgarian weightlifters have completely removed neck barbell squats from their training program, replacing them with bench press repetitions and split squats with the rear leg raised. Spasov published an article co-authored with Terry Todd titled “The Bulgarian Leg Training Secret” in which he also recommends this pattern over traditional squats.
Myth and reality
The late Ivan Abadjiev - the most decorated and legendary former head coach of the national barbell team of Bulgaria - subsequently denied the claims of his assistant. During a seminar in 2011, Abadjiev claimed that national weightlifters never used this technique in their training and never stopped squatting with neck weights.
The idea of ​​introducing them was proposed only by Angel Spasov, but Abadjiev did not accept it, as he doubted how effectively they would affect the main goal of the team. Abadjiev’s program focuses on a small number of exercises that the coach believes are most important for honing Olympic sport-specific skills.
However, the assistant coach took the opportunity to promote his idea during the workshop in the USA. And apparently he succeeded, because the exercise has gained popularity and undeniably gives its benefits.
Is there any Bulgarian lifter in particular that Bulgarians think of as the greatest?
Well, there is no prevailing opinion in society about someone being the greatest. I rule out hypotheses if anyone has done any mathematical calculations on paper as to who is the greatest. We have had many athletes who have had great achievements. For example, Stefka Kostadinova, who has been holding the high jump record for over 30 years - 209 centimeters. And no one has improved it until now. Until 1990, we constantly had champions in Olympic bars, wrestling and many disciplines in athletics. But things went wrong. Many of the sports in which we were good and were traditional for our country - Olympic bars and wrestling - are no longer funded. There’s a lot of talent out there, but no one wants to exert themselves without profiting from it. And not to become rich, but simply to be able to provide a normal life for his family. There was a period when our Olympic weightlifting team was suspended due to doping allegations (absolute conspiracy because many people couldn’t bear how such a small country could deprive them of medals) but our weightlifters during this period were lifting weights at his training, with which weightlifters from other countries became Olympic champions. But that’s the situation. Many things were destroyed. Many sports facilities are now ugly ruins.