Rock Bottom vs. Parallel

I think I’m going to give it a try. I’m going to cut my weight by a lot and just watch my form. I know others in my gym have always commented that I had good form and that I go real low. I know that most people in the gym don’t know what they are talking about but these are the few who know their shit. I don’t think I will have a problem with flexibility or form but I guess I’ll see. Thanks for all the responses.

DD90- Yep, that’s where you got it. I just wanted to clarify that, because putting quotes on it signified that it was something Zatsiorski had said word for word, and I didn’t want somebody looking that up in his book and calling BS on you.
Anyway, my opinion is probably obvious, but I do want to echo the point that rock bottom is only good when done with proper form. If you can’t squat rock bottom, fix the problems and work towards it! Loaded stretching of the calves pre-squatting is a great way to improve form if the heels are coming up. An aggressive stretch of the hip flexors before/between sets of squats is also a great way to keep good posture when traveling “down under”, and should even improve squat strength.

Z, great point. Along similar lines, squatting in front of a mirror is bad too.

One other thing I thought I’d mention that kinda goes along with Marc’s post… Many times people will try to do full squats and experience some sort of pain or discomfort. They then blame it on full squats. But in actuality it’s an indication of a pre-existing condition that needs to be fixed, such as lack of flexibility, which is causing the discomfort… not the full squat itself.

I’ve tried rock bottom many times, but my flexibility limits me to poor form and very little weight. However, I can front squat much deeper and without any problems with form…thus, my program now (usually) has two squat days - one back squats to parallel or slightly below, and the other with full front squats. On a side note, I love that feeling of power when rising out of a front squat with 200+ having sat in the bottom for a 2 second pause…

Rock bottom won’t get you any extra quad developement than a PL (1"below parallel) squat. Maybe a little more glute and ham.

When your that far below parallel its your lower back, hams and glutes that get you out of the hole, not quads. This is why the average PL’ers quads wouldnt’ be that great compared to a bber, who often only does half squats.

Judah, I would have to disagree. Many strength coaches and rehab experts have noted the vastus medialis as being largely responsible for the initiation of the full squat out of the bottom position. Sure, the glutes and erectors become more involved simply because the torso is flexing forward more to allow the depth, requiring the extensor chain to fire to a greater extent at the beginning of the concentric phase, but don’t discount the added quadricep involvement.

FYI. I have a couple of comments to make about going deep in the squat. This is based solely on my experience but other trainees seem to concur. From high school (football, basketball, track, baseball), through college ( D1 football), and trying to play various pro/semi-pro/just the boys having fun/ levels of football in 3 years since college I never trained with the deep squat. I had several knee injuries starting at age 17 that include torn meniscus, torn ACL, knee dislocation(s), and worn skeletal cartilage. All during this time I subscribed to my doctors advice to limit full range squats. Oh yeah, it hurts to do them correctly so it was not as though I was eager to do them anyway (my own cop-out). To compensate I did massive amounts of knee extensions, hang cleans, hip sled, lunges, way-to-heavy partial squats, jump squats? get the point, anything but deep squats. You can see where this is going, right? Low and behold I wore the cartilage on my kneecap and femoral grove out. While rehabilitating again (post surgery) I began to re-think my methods and look for the root of this deterioration. I noticed that my flexibility was good over all but while in a bent knee stance my Achilles was tight. While addressing this it became obvious that my quad and hip flexors were also part of the problem. Flash forward two years and my knees feel better than ever. The single most important part of my rehabilitation, the deep squat. It forced me to achieve tendon and muscle flexibility or else fall on my face. Sure, I had to start over on the learning curve, drop the weight down (my poor ego), and eat some crow but the results more than justify the means. I guess the point of this rant is to underline the point that not only will this lift improve your overall strength levels, but is a great indicator of your capacity to stave off injury. While I?m at it, man this is getting long, here are some other freebees:
The person who is standing up straight in football is the one who gets hurt. Move around and be aggressive.
Just because you are doing something better than other people does not mean that you are doing it right. You need to be able to do things for a long time to be able to filter through to the big ponds lil? fish.
Make it a point to seek out people who don?t agree with you, hell, maybe even dislike you. High fives are great but if everyone is getting them they can?t be worth much.

Crap, this too long. Just go deep, and if you can?t, find out why.

Crow on the lips but less pain in the knees.

I tried rock bottom squats last night and experienced no problems with flexibility or form. I had to drop the weight a lot but I still managed to do 155x6 with ease. I might go up a little next week but I don’t want to overdo it. Does anyone know what weight I should do if I was doing 260x6 in parallel squats. Again Thanks.

Bump for Anyone.

Jason- Just leave it where it is at 155x6 until you feel comfortable doing more. Treat it like an all new move that needs it own attention and don’t exactly associate it with normal 90 degree squats.

Jason, it would just be a guess, but I’d say you could probably rock bottom around 200 or so for the same number of reps. Of course that depends on a number of factors, so it’s only a guess.

Just an aside here, but what gym do you train at here in New Orleans?

I actually live and train on the westbank. I live in Belle Chasse, but I train at Manhattan Gym in Harvey. Where do you train also?

Good deal. I’m out in Metairie at the small Elmwood, Heritage Plaza.

Well, I’m not going to comment on whether r-b or p is a better way to squat. However there was a great deal of talk about the spectre of knee injury that seems to hang over the squat. Here it is:

When you squat your knee rotates around an axis that sits on top of your tibial plateau. This doesn’t mean too much, what is important is that there’s an axis of rotation: < around a single point.

When you squat deep your calves and hamstrings will eventually connect (unless people are constantly asking you whether you’re being piggy backed by a chicken. . .) When this occurs that axis of rotation moves. It becomes the point where your hams and calves connect. The issue with this is that now your knee joint is subject to a scissoring action that actually forces the knee joint apart as the squat goes deeper. I can’t think of a good way to do this with ascii graphics. . .

Take your hands and touch your index fingers together with the palms toward each other. Keep those index fingers straight but now use your thumbs to make a heart shape (the knuckles of your thumbs should touch, as should the nails). Now, if we pretend that the joint between your fingers is your knee joint you can move your hands keeping that as the axis of rotation. When your thumbs connect you can think of that as your hams and calves connecting. If you maintain that same hand position and continue to try and decrease the joint angle you’ll find your finger tips pulled apart. Voila, knee injury.

I’m not saying deep squats are bad, I love them personally. But you can probably see that you’ll need to limit the range of motion so that you stop prior to that scissoring action if you want to ensure maximal safety.

STU