Leg Training are Squats Necessary!?!?!

Are squats really necessary in leg training?   The answer is yes and no....  The squat is a fully body lift and extremely valuable for strength training but it is also very tricky to learn and needs to be done properly.
After training for about 15 years my body has gotten a little beat up.  When I was 23 years old I was squating 405 every week to parallel for 15 reps.   Lets just say my lower back didnt hold up over time and eventually I blew out my Sacroiliac joint and ended up in the hospital multiple times.  Yes multiple times because my stupid ass couldn't accept the fact that I was actually hurt and I went back to throwing heavy weight on the bar again. 

My main problem was a very common issue in squats known as the butt wink.  A combination of tight hip flexors and adductor muscles were causing my lower back to round ever so slightly at the bottom of the squat.  Eventually this caused a nice pop followed by excruciating muscle spasm and me getting stuck sitting on the toilet bowl unable to get up at 3 in the morning. If you look at the video above you will clearly see that his lower back is rounding at the bottom of the movement.  The vertebrae of our spine do not do well when this happens.  Intervertebral discs are designed to cushion the pressure of a vertical movement.  When that pressure moves into the horizontal plane the discs become very vulnerable for herniation.
So what can we do to fix this?  There are many ways, number one being stretching the proper muscles of the hips such as adductors, psoas, sartorius, rectus femoris and tfl.  There are many great stretches you can look up for these muscles.   What I have found to be very useful in eliminating injury is the box squat.

Dave Tate is one of the masters of power lifting and strength training and has really revolutionized the way people train heavy.  If it wasn't for Elite FTS and Westside Barbell I would probably still be breaking my back once or twice a year squatting.  I personally train a combination of power lifting and bodybuilding but these guys know what they are doing. I have found box squats allow me to control the weight and the depth that I go down while maintaining my form
So should we squat...YES but we need to do it safely.  I have also learned to use other machines to go extra heavy.  Despite my now near perfect form on squats I still worry about that one mishap where I blow my back out and cant move for weeks.
I have found a lot of success building leg muscle with hack squats and the leg press.  Yes I said leg press, I know all you hardcore lifters hate the leg press but it allows me to safely load up massive amounts of weight with out fear of blowing out my back.  I have also found that on the hack squat I can take the movement ass to ground without sacrificing my lower back posture.  I really like this because it allows me to focus on my quads a bit more then the squatting that focuses more on the posterior chain. Sometimes I get upset about not squatting really heavy, but I have learned some of my limitations as I age.
Squats are a great exercise but they are not the only way to work your legs.  I believe if you do things right you can build a great set of wheels without doing extremely heavy squats.

Another day training with the SIEGE FITNESS crew and GEAR!!!

Just another day training with the SIEGE FITNESS training crew and our gear!!

Rotational Core Work

Rotational Core Work is the most important and also the most overlooked exercises done.
We all know that the majority movement if performed in an upright position , whether we are talking about sports or the everyday mom cleaning and carrying her child.  The majority of injuries to the back occur because of a twist or turn while lifting something improperly.
We've always been told to bend with the knees and lift with the legs, not the back.  This is of course correct but in reality there are always instances where this just does not happen.  We need to build our muscles to prepare for a strain and be strong enough so that we do not injure ourselves.  It should also be recognized that the midsection of the body is a dynamic moving segment of muscles that twist and turn every which way.  To simply do crunches or situps and think you are getting a complete well rounded workout for your core is ludicris.

When training the core for functional uses the main idea is to do exercises that do not require you to lay down.  Yea crunches and leg raises etc have their place for building muscle but at no point during a sport or functional activity are you laying down.  Unless your a car mechanic working off his back under a car but for the rest of us, get up!

I favor activities that involve all the muscles of the core to work synergistic-ally as they would in any upright movement a person would be performing.  For the sake of bodybuilding or strengthening a weak link we can always isolate certain muscles to strengthen or define them but they must be able to work as a whole.  This is the way to improve performance and to minimize injury.

CROSSFIT SUCKS

CROSSFIT SUCKS but I love the idea
Ok look I dont hate crossfit its just that you it does so many things that are terrible bio mechanically for your body.  The whole idea of getting people into fitness in a really unique and hardcore way is awesome but to sacrifice form and bio mechanics to get people to think they can do things they cant is not going to work.
If you have ever watched someone do a kipping pull up or a muscle up on rings when they are tired you will begin to understand why its so easy to get hurt.  You cant stress the joints in this manner for very long before you pay a horrible price.
The question becomes how do you make crossfit safe and effective for all so that people can enjoy this form of fitness without serious concern for injury.

This is the attitude I love, nothing better then a girl that is not afraid to hit the weights hard!
Crossfit has done a great job marketing itself and getting out there but it needs to learn to do a better job of managing who can open a facility.  I personally know a Spin instructor that opened a Crossfit box, this guy has no business what so ever teaching olympic lifts!!  In a nutshell that is the problem with Crossfit, give them a $1000 and they'll give you the rights to use their name on a "box".  

They have developed a massive cult following with members more then happy to dish out $150 or more a month to be a part.  Who is smarter then a man who can get girls to pay him big money every month to toss kegs and lift heavy weight!?!?!

The common person out there has no idea how much practice and learning is involved in completing an olympic lift.

If you think this guy just walked into the gym and started doing this lift his first time, you're out of you're mind.  This is a lot of practice a lot of stretching and a damn good coach.




In the end we can only hope for Crossfit to take a turn for the better and not for the worse.  There are enough people getting hurt out there lifting weights the wrong way, we dont need anymore.

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