[quote]Wilderman wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Wilderman wrote:
Many smith machines have slight angle to the track with the low end more to the front of the rack the top end more to the rear. When squatting in one of these types it would be better to place your feet slightly in front of the track. With your feet directly under the bar the travel of the bar will force your torso forward which will result in a poor alignment and more lower back activation (poor form). By placing your feet more forward you can stay more errect and squat more safely.
Several made the point that a free weight squat is superior and this is true. You can still get plenty of good work from a smith machine squat though.
It was mentioned that the OP was a powerlifter. If this is the case I have to question why use the smith machine at all for squatting? It would be more benefitial for you to train squats with free weight. The squat should account for 30% or more of your total score in PL. It would be a shame for you to lose your familiarity with the lift by training in a smith machine.
HE WON’T STOP SQUATTING, HE JUST WANTS TO USE SMITH SQUATS AS A HYPERTROPHY ASSISTANCE EXERCISE GODDAMNIT!
Have fun going for 20 rep free-weight squats after your max-effort work ?
Seriously, why are you guys commenting on this if you aren’t even remotely familiar with his situation?
The free-weight squat is not a superior quad exercise than the smith squat. More stabilization means less weight and that stabilisation isn’t even done by the quads.
You can do both squat versions and won’t suffer from it unless you’re stupid and set up wrongly/use crap form on either squat variant.
All this dogma-bs.
Hmmm. Sounds like somebody needs less caffeine in their diet. Dont get your boxers in a bind fella. I answered his question. No need to yell and cuss.
20 rep squats are not fun but effective. But no I wouldnt use them for a finisher.
We are commenting on this because this is an open forum where people share their opinons and experience. A concept that seems to agitate some. I suppose you will just have to learn to deal with it.
More muscles being worked is the biggest advantage free-weight squats have over leg press or smith squat for that matter. For that reason it is a superior exercise.
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What about load? I’ve never seen anyone even come close to free-weight squatting 1,700+ lbs, but I’ve seen people leg press it.
Your assertion that more muscles=better just isn’t true in all cases. You are using more muscles doing squats on a the flat side of a bosu ball, while juggling bowling pins, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to build more muscle than doing a machine hack squat.
Stabilizer muscles can actually limit/hinder the amount of weight that you can use in an exercise. Hence one of the reasons why machine exercises (like leg press, hack squat, smith machine, etc…) can be very beneficial if one wants to be able to really overload the target prime mover (in this case quads).
But why is having a large number of muscles being used and advantage? Because they allow you to increase the load being used. That’s the primary advantage of compounds over isolation exercises. The additional helping muscles (not talking about stabilizing muscles here) allow you to use more weight and place the target prime mover under more load than it could move if worked in isolation.
Well, he did post it in the “BB’ing” forum. So, it’s probably as fairly safe bet that it’s BB’ing related.
Says who?
But it would also have resulted in a significant strength increase in his quadriceps, which would most likely lead to an increase in his free weight squatting numbers when he went back to them.
Sure, he might be a little rusty when he went back to free weight squats, and it might take him a workout or two to really get back in the groove. But ultimately it would most likely do more good than harm.
[quote]
If he is still squatting free-weight, great. If he is looking to replace free-weight squats with smith squats and still expect to be a powerlifter, then that is a mistake. The work will not translate well. To squat big free-weight in competition you had better be squatting big free-weight in your training. That is all that I meant to say. [/quote]
You’re right, specificity is important. But last I checked the Westside guys still do isolation work, and different variations of exercises and it hasn’t hurt their performance. You don’t need to only do your exact competition exercises to get a benefit, or carry over to your sport. A stronger prime mover, is a stronger prime mover, regardless of what exercise you used to get it there.
Once you start practicing your sport specific movements regularly again, you’ll likely have improved beyond your previous level, and will likely surpass your previous bests.