So take it for what it is worth but of you pay attention most men squatting like you do dont get much out of wraps compared to the more traditional wider stance sit back squat. When I was wearing Oly shoes and letting my knees travel further I never got the same pop from the wraps I did until I went back to flats and sitting back. Its the same reason if you look Kevin Oak, Amit Sapir and somilar styles of squatting never get that huge carry over that many of the other guys in their weight classes are getting with a more hip dominate squat like Andrew Herbert and Sam Byrd and the such.
I don’t recommend pausing in wraps. Use sleeves or naked knee.
That’s interesting, a guy named Paul Oneid who writes articles on Brian Carroll’s site Power Rack Strength has an article saying the exact opposite, that lifters with a more quad-dominant style in heeled shoes with a good amount of forward knee travel will get the most out of their wraps. I don’t know who is right or wrong, it’s just interesting to see two complete opposite opinions like this from two credible people. And both of you have a 800lb squat in wraps…
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Never thought of it that way.
Just thought that wraps give you a bit of a boost through my sticking point so I end up squatting more than without.
Maybe after this meet I could experiment a smidge. Funnily enough I feel im moving better with a slightly wider stance in wraps than without so far. So maybe you’re onto something there.
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I dont know him but you can look all the top all time world record holders and in wraps they are almost all sit back squatters even if in heels. But im just going kff what I see what I have personally experienced.
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Your sticking pint is mid way from I see in your squats. The wrap when you get truely stop actually carrying over that high so at lighter reps you can keeo the speed flying from the wrap but the you put another 10% on and all of a sudden it is like you hit a wall. Where as squatting fairly wide and sitting back in sleeves our sticking point is usually right out of the hole like almost immediately right out. So when I wear wraps the wraps literally slingshot me not only to but straight through my sticking point and then by the time the wrap lets up all I have to do is just barely wedge my hips through and im locked. Hell I half squat 1003 lol so if I can get the wraps to throw me up just a little 700-800 is cake.
This is why my best sleeved squat is a grinded 650 and my best wrap squat is smooth 815.
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Where did you do a pause squat? Slide 2?
When I hear pause squat I’m thinking 2-5s. If it’s just a slight break in the concentric and eccentric then it’s perfectly fine ( and largely how I squat regardless of wrap/no wrap/box/gear/etc ).
If you cant see the difference between 1 and 2 then I cant help you. A pause is a pause. And why would you pause on every squat you do? Hit the hole and get the hell out of there as fast as possible.
A pause isn’t a pause.
You’ve been to meets before, you’ve seen fast press commands. There is a huge difference between pausing at the chest for 3seconds and a half second pause.
I don’t pause. I break the concentric and eccentric with about a half second. It’s just how I’ve always squatted an nothing has ever gotten me to a piston style squat except maybe cutting depth high.
If you get results from paused wraps squats that’s great, keep doing that, I’m still going to go out there and say most people shouldn’t bother with them.
And a 3 second pause is stupid as fuck especially if we are talking at a meet hell even a full second pause is stupid. But none the less im still going to say I disagree. They can be useful. For every one maybe not. But they have a place occasionally as said I dont use them as strength tool as much as the first few weeks back in wraps they help me find my groove. Also I went through your IG just out of curiosity and I dont see any pause even half a second. You squat down and come back up. You have pretty slow reversal but I wouldn’t call not being explosive a pause.
Lastly I didn’t come here to argue. I saw a question that I feel I have pretty good experience with so I gave my answer. It seems to disagree with yours which is fine. OP can read what is said and figure out who said it and decide from there not gonna lose sleep either way.
Yes I agree on the 3s pause.
I’m not here to argue either because we’re not going to change each others mind. I’ll expand on what I said though- I think the was you’re doing them with a 1s pause can be useful at times. It depends on why you’re doing them.
Obviously your strength and skill level has come a long way in the past few years so you know by now what works for you. That’s the important thing that OP and everyone else needs to figure out. Some people get strong as hell maxing out every single lift 4x a week. Most of us don’t.
The way you’re specifically using them I concede they have some merit and use.
As for me, yeah in gear I don’t pause at all, but if you scrolled way back to my raw squats you’d notice a pause. I may be slightly exaggerating the “pausiness” of my squats.
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Not regarding pause squats, but I had a pretty positive experience with squats to pins.
Last March I ruptured my L5/S1 disc, ended up with nerve impingement that completely shut off my right glute, hamstring, and calve. MRI results categorized it as being a candidate for surgery. Fortunately I had fantastic docs and PTs behind me, so no surgery and by last August I had made significant progress in my recovery and was back clear to start squatting heavy again.
That said, I was pretty sure my injury came from loss of low back tightness/arch in the hole during high rep squatting, so I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. So for the first few months back my only heavy squats were to pins, since going to pins requires you to control the descent more and maintain a higher level of tension than a typical “dive-bomb” squat, since a dive-bomb would just make the bar bounce like crazy at the bottom. I really feel like doing these made a dramatic improvement to my squat mechanics/control while also keeping me safe.
For some context, I’m a 30 y/o 220 lb lifter (walk around 230-235), before my injury my best squats (wraps) were 665 in the gym, 655 in training. A couple months again, I squatted 707 lbs in training and 661 lbs in a USPA drug tested meet (lifetime drug free… take that as you will). Before my injury, I was in a 1.5 year long squat and deadlift plateau. I truly believe using the pin squats to re-learn tightness, control, and technique was a key contributor to the progress I was able to make.
All that said, I do think it’s entirely possible to totally fuck up pin squats, and they aren’t necessarily appropriate for everyone.
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You know what, I’m starting to think you are right about this, despite other people claiming the opposite. I just saw a video of Kevin Oak squatting 815 for a single in sleeves, a week or so ago he squatted 865 in wraps and both look about the same difficulty. So that’s only a 50lb carryover. I took a look at Andrew Herbert’s Instagram page, a few months ago he squatted 793 in sleeves and failed his 3rd attempt, a few months before that he squatted 959 in wraps. That’s a huge difference, I don’t know what his 3rd attempt was but he’s getting 100lbs or more while Oak is getting maybe 50.
I think I might have to make some changes to my squat technique if I’m going to keep lifting in wraps.
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Westside style squat life here we come
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I may or may not know a thing or two about squatting in wraps haha.
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