Is it better deep knee squat or just go to the
infamous 90 degrees?
90 degrees!! -you’ll hurt your joint and ligaments like shit if u go deep!!
Ass to the grass
Both and either one. Depends a lot on your condition/flexibility/hamstring strenght/experience/and a plethora of other factors I don’t know anything near enough about to discuss. Being on the tall and long-torso side, even getting to 90 without turning it into a bent-legged good morning takes a lot of stretching for me. I get as deep as I can without losing control/centering (this remains a static for me regardless of loading - If I can’t control my form and range, I’ll do less)
King recommends terminating movements after the body moves beyond a 45 degree angle.
older than the tah-MAY-toe, tah-MAH-toe arguement. I haven’t recently started to come to believe that the reason some cut it short and go to 90 is ease and laziness. Fatigue and doubt make cowards of us all. You see a whole lot more going to failure on nearly every other move, but when is the last time you saw going to failure or forced reps on squats, that is if you can get the curlers out of the damn squat rack.
Screw squats! They make your ass big & widen your hips. Do front squats instead. You can stay upright alot better & you get to work that cool looking tear drop muscle.
OK, if you have long femurs go just above or below 90 degrees not ass to grass. With long femurs you recruit the glutes like nobodies business. Next, the 90 degree point is when the joints are at their weakest and you don’t want to be stopping there. Also, NEVER go ass to grass and just sit on ur calves without tension in the quads, this will seriously fuck up your universe. However, you CAN go ass to grass if you keep tension. Personally, I prefer front squats because I myself have long femurs. Doing fronts got my quads so ridiculously big it is like, not even funny at this point. so i agree with the guy with the long name that posted before me.
It depends on your goals!! What do you want from squatting?
I agree with both the above postings. I love front squats because they made my thighs grow. Regular squats just gave me top heavy thighs.
To determine if you have long thighs you have to measure them in relation to both your lower leg and your upper body. My thigh bone is longer than both.
Best of Luck.
Whenever your knees travel forward past your toes you cause a sheering effect on the joints of the knees. Most, if not ALL people,cannot keep their upper body straight enough when squatting heavy(and I mean heavy) to keep their knees behind their toes because you’ll fall over backwards. So if you want to sound like a tough guy and have fucked up knees- go all the way down. If you want to have big legs and still be able to walk when you are an old man- stop just past parallel.
Go down ALL THE WAY. 90 is where the knee is most likely to be injured FACT. So go below or be a pussy and go above 90-just don’t stop at 90!
Trade your skirt in for some Chuck’s and squat like you give a fuck.
Tate
Damn… bodyweight only, I can’t squat even to parallel without my knees going past my toes. Maybe I just have short feet…
Can someone explain the ‘front squat’ for me or point me to an article that describes it. I perform squats all the way down but am finding lately that the growth in my upper thighs is outpacing the lower mucles (ie. getting top heavy), so something else besides extensions that works the lower mucles would be awesome…
Try taking your stance out wider.
you should not post unless you know what you are talking about. 90 is the most dangerouse and un protested part of the knee! It is more effective to go all the way down and MUH safer!
Taking a wide stance also recruits the glutes more than the quads. I of course didn’t know this for my first 6 months of weight training and have a quite massive ass. (been lifting for 3 years now)
True. But squatting wide still hits the quads significantly. If you have ever seen the westside videos you will notice that these guys have tremendously well developed quadriceps and they NEVER do quad specific work. PLus a wider stance will help most people to squat heavier once they get used to it which will lead to better gains in the future.(and chicks dig a well developed ass!)
Yeah, I have to do wide squats to get any stability at all, and you’re right, my knees don’t go past my toes that way. I have horrible hip flexibility, so wide is the way to go… it ends up hitting my entire lower body that way, so I just go lighter on hamstring specific exercises (since they get hit on squats).
powerlifting squats do not hit quads (they may be used as stabilizers but thats it), do not do them for quad development. i would say ass to calves for bbing, probably ass to calves front squat.
i personally think the “knees beyond the toes” is a load of crap
watch what you do in everyday life, walking down stairs, running, jumping…a lot of the time the knees are going beyond the toes.
dont forget that at 90 degrees and past the hamstrings are also contracting hard too, this helps offset the “shearing” force by stabalizing the other side of the knee.
imo people who only squat to 90 degrees (and i see fuck all people even going that deep) are in the same school as people who think a bench press should only be lowered till the elbows are 90 degrees (so they can lift lots more weight and not hurt thier shoulders)
stop worring what people think about the weight you can move and do the exercise with a full range of motion