It Matters How you Squat.

It matters how you squat.

Many uninformed personal trainers, fitness professionals, physical therapists, and strength and conditioning coaches, even doctors will say things like “it doesn’t matter how you squat it just matters that you squat” or “Ed Coan and babies squat like this so that's how you should do it”. But with things that are worth doing, the fine details do matter.

You walk into any gym in your local area, and you’ll see people squatting all sorts of ways. Half squats, quarter squats, ass to grass squats, kettle bell squats, band squats, slant board squats, you name it. The people running these classes will be able to supply you with peer reviewed “research studies” as to why their method is correct.

But if you walk into the gym at GZS during coached hours, you’ll notice a few things about how our clients are squatting on the platforms.

First, everyone will be barbell squatting. The barbell is a simple, ergonomic, well-balanced tool that can be lifted using normal human movement patterns while being loaded incrementally and indefinitely. There is never a limit on the amount of load you can do - and getting stronger requires stressing yourself with incrementally heavier weights over time. We select the lifts to do and perform the lifts in a particular way to 1) Utilize the most muscle mass, 2) Through the longest effective range of motion, 3) Allowing us to lift the most weight so we 4) get stronger.

Everyone will have the bar lower on their back than you may be familiar with. Everyone will be looking down 4-6 feet in front of them. Everyone will have a shoulder width stance, with toes pointed out. Everyone will bend over more than you are used to seeing. Everyone will drive their hips up hard out of the bottom. Everyone’s knees will be shoved out in line with their toes. Everyone will squat down to a spot where their hip crease is just below parallel and bounce out of the bottom utilizing a stretch reflex. Everyone will be taking a giant breath, bracing hard, and holding that brace the entirety of the rep. They will be doing heavy sets of 5 reps and 3 reps, not 8-12 reps. You’ll see a lifter grind through his last set of 5 reps and add 5lbs to his next session working weight.

You’ll hear me, the coach, yelling things like “bend over”, “chest down”, “Hips up”, “Sit back”, “Knees out” to ensure each rep is as close to our movement model of efficiency.

The exercise selection criteria and the models of performing the lifts we select to do in the gym, the programming and progression, are all distilled from the fundamental principles of anatomy, adaptive physiology, physics, and biomechanics. These principles are put together to get our clients as strong as possible, as quickly as possible, through incremental increases in force production and accumulation of physiological strength adaptations. These strength increases allow our athlete clients to hit harder, run faster, and jump higher. These strength increases allow our middle-aged businessmen clients to feel better and walk taller into meetings and go home to a wife who is enthralled with his new-found energy and strength. These strength increases allow our grandmother clients to keep up with their grandkids, and ensure strength doesn’t limit them in their daily life and activities they love to do by fighting frailty and building resiliency. This strength acquired is measurable by improvement in weights on the bar. These improvements are quantifiable. On day one, we can show you how much you squatted and compare it to the number you squatted 90 days later. You can feel the improvement in performance, energy, robustness and strength your body holds all from just getting stronger at 4-5 movement patterns. We didn’t just starve you and force you into hours of cardio with pink dumbbells over 90 days and take a picture at the end with different lighting. Barbell training provides us with tangible results over time.

Everything we do has a reason behind it. At no point will you ever hear me or another coach say, “because that's how we do it”. Performing an exercise in a way that “feels good” is often the wrong way. Discomfort in your lifts is what is going to lead to efficiency and improved performance. It is HARD to hold your back rigid with a heavy load in your hands. It is hard to keep bent over, reach your hips back, and feel the massive stretch at the bottom of a well-balanced full depth squat. But this is how it must feel in order for them to be effective. It's comfortable to not squat down to depth. It is comfortable to not hold your back in position during a deadlift. It’s comfortable to not brace as hard as you can during a rep. But comfort is the cage keeping you locked away from progress.

If it’s comfortable, arbitrary, or random, it's probably wrong.

Thus, it matters how you squat.

Many uninformed personal trainers, fitness professionals, physical therapists, and strength and conditioning coaches, even doctors will say things like “it doesn’t matter how you squat it just matters that you squat” or “Ed Coan and babies squat like this so that's how you should do it”. But with things that are worth doing, the fine details do matter.

You walk into any gym in your local area, and you’ll see people squatting all sorts of ways. Half squats, quarter squats, ass to grass squats, kettle bell squats, band squats, slant board squats, you name it. The people running these classes will be able to supply you with peer reviewed “research studies” as to why their method is correct.

But if you walk into the gym at GZS during coached hours, you’ll notice a few things about how our clients are squatting on the platforms.

First, everyone will be barbell squatting. The barbell is a simple, ergonomic, well-balanced tool that can be lifted using normal human movement patterns while being loaded incrementally and indefinitely. There is never a limit on the amount of load you can do - and getting stronger requires stressing yourself with incrementally heavier weights over time. We select the lifts to do and perform the lifts in a particular way to 1) Utilize the most muscle mass, 2) Through the longest effective range of motion, 3) Allowing us to lift the most weight so we 4) get stronger.

Everyone (with exceptions) will have the bar lower on their back than you may be familiar with. Everyone will be looking down 4-6 feet in front of them. Everyone will have a shoulder width stance, with toes pointed out. Everyone will bend over more than you are used to seeing. Everyone will drive their hips up hard out of the bottom. Everyone's knees will be shoved out in line with their toes. Everyone will squat down to a spot where their hip crease is just below parallel and bounce out of the bottom utilizing a stretch reflex. Everyone will be taking a giant breath, bracing hard, and holding that brace the entirety of the rep. They will be doing heavy sets of 5 reps and 3 reps, not 8-12 reps. You’ll see a lifter grind through his last set of 5 reps and add 5lbs to his next session working weight.

You’ll hear me, the coach, yelling things like “bend over”, “chest down”, “Hips up”, “Sit back”, “Knees out” to ensure each rep is as close to our movement model of efficiency.

The exercise selection criteria and the models of performing the lifts we select to do in the gym, the programming and progression, are all distilled from the fundamental principles of anatomy, adaptive physiology, physics, and biomechanics. These principles are put together to get our clients as strong as possible, as quickly as possible, through incremental increases in force production and accumulation of physiological strength adaptations. These strength increases allow our athlete clients to hit harder, run faster, and jump higher. These strength increases allow our middle-aged businessmen clients to feel better and walk taller into meetings and go home to a wife who is enthralled with his new-found energy and strength. These strength increases allow our grandmother clients to keep up with their grandkids, and ensure strength doesn’t limit them in their daily life and activities they love to do by fighting frailty and building resiliency. This strength acquired is measurable by improvement in weights on the bar. These improvements are quantifiable. On day one, we can show you how much you squatted and compare it to the number you squatted 90 days later. You can feel the improvement in performance, energy, robustness and strength your body holds all from just getting stronger at 4-5 movement patterns. We didn’t just starve you and force you into hours of cardio with pink dumbbells over 90 days and take a picture at the end with different lighting. Barbell training provides us with tangible results over time.

Everything we do has a reason behind it. At no point will you ever hear me or another coach say, “because that's how we do it”. Performing an exercise in a way that “feels good” is often the wrong way. Discomfort in your lifts is what is going to lead to efficiency and improved performance. It is HARD to hold your back rigid with a heavy load in your hands. It is hard to keep bent over, reach your hips back, and feel the massive stretch at the bottom of a well-balanced full depth squat. But this is how it must feel in order for them to be effective. It's comfortable to not squat down to depth. It is comfortable to not hold your back in position during a deadlift. It’s comfortable to not brace as hard as you can during a rep. But comfort is the cage keeping you locked away from progress.

If it’s comfortable, arbitrary, or random, it's probably wrong.

And so, it matters how you squat.