I dont know if I read this somewhere, but I did see a guy in the gym today doing squats, and he was standing on weights, about 10 lbs. His heels were on the plates about 1 inch off the ground and the balls of his feet were on the actual ground. I tried these and I found that I was able to improve my form a lot. Can i continue to do these or am I just doing something totally wrong? (My squat form sucks, I tend to lean forward a lot.)
Ive found that people with less flexibility in their ankles will benefit from elevating the heels.
Lack of flexibility will cause you to rock forward on your toes when you squat and that will put you off balance thusly your form will go to shit.
I say if it improves your form and allows you to squat better, go for it.
If you elevate your heels and it improves your form you possibly have tightness in your posterior chain. This is NOT something to reinforce. You should check your flexibility in your ankles, calves, and hamstrings, etc.
The knees tend to move forward more when you squat with you heels elevated. This put a bit higher stress on the kneejoint.
I would suggest you work on your flexibility.
[quote]greggonzo1 wrote:
If you elevate your heels and it improves your form you possibly have tightness in your posterior chain. This is NOT something to reinforce. You should check your flexibility in your ankles, calves, and hamstrings, etc.[/quote]
Elevating the heels allows one to get deeper into the hole in spite of poor flexibility of the calves and hip flexors.
Elevating the heels doesn’t reinforce anything, as you aren’t actively contracting the calves. Even if you were, the TUT of a single set isn’t sufficient to make such a dramatic reinforcement. It’s simply a training modification that one can implement until flexibility returns. The benefits of squatting deep (e.g. VMO recruitment) far outweigh the supposed negative consequences (which I have not yet heard explained) of elevating the heels. Poliquin and Alessi have both included heels-elevated squats in their programs, and Mike and I did in the first part of our NNM correction problem. I’ll even use it in programs as a means of slightly changing training stimulus between sessions.
If your leaning foreward excessivley during the squat make sure tight hip flexors aren’t to blame. Start stretching them and you might see a big difference.
According to an old article by Poliquin, he says that elevating your heels actually help you develop the “tear drop”. Comments?
peace.
k.
[quote]kike wrote:
According to an old article by Poliquin, he says that elevating your
peace.heels actually help you develop the “tear drop”. Comments?
k.[/quote]
The deeper the squat, the greater the recruitment of the vastus medialis.
So, I guess the answer is yes:)
The more the knee travels farther than the ankles, the more the vastus medialis is recruited. Of course it places more stress on the knees. Its a tradeoff. You will get more teardrop growth.