Maximum leg development… Part I

Maximum leg development: the squat and shin position

The following article comes from T Nation and once again does a pretty good job of covering the technique of lower-body exercises, squats and deadlifts in particular.

I didn’t see a reason to translate the whole article, but I’ll bring you the most important part. Maximum leg development starts with the fact that different squats don’t work the body in the same way.

…take the front squat and the powerlifting-style box squat, for example. Both are squats, right? Yet even a fairly untrained observer can clearly see, just by watching these exercises, that they are in fact quite different.

Let’s stop attributing the effect of a movement to one specific muscle (or muscle group)…

The problems with the “quad-dominant” vs. “hip-extensor-dominant” concept arise precisely when we take one specific exercise, such as the squat, and try to rigidly classify it as either quad-dominant or hip-extensor-dominant.

Going back to the original comparison of front squat versus box squat: the exercise is called a squat in both cases, yet the effects on the muscles doing the work are drastically different.

Instead of simply linking an exercise name to certain specific muscles, we should assess very specifically what happens during the movement, even within a single movement pattern (exercise). What position is the body in, and how and at what angles do the limbs move?

As for the effect you get from squatting specifically, a major determinant is shin position. Some experts try to describe the effect of a squat through the position of the back, but others have started describing it more precisely through the position of the shin. Gray Cook, for example, has taken one more small step in this regard and even talked about exercises with a vertical shin or an angled shin.

In other words, if the goal is to target the hamstrings and glutes more, then in lower-body exercises (mainly squats and their variations) you should keep the shin as straight (vertical) as possible. Conversely, consider what happens when the shin is at a steep angle. When the knee travels forward during a knee-bending/hip-extending squat movement and goes past the toes, more emphasis falls on the front of the thigh, or the quadriceps, and the posterior chain carries less of the load.

Or here is another way to describe the situation. If you don’t like approaching things by describing shin position, look at what happens to the torso when you squat one way or the other. Torso and shin position are usually closely linked across the different squat variations.

When the torso leans far forward, the glutes and hamstrings take more of the load; when you squat with a more upright posture, the work comes mostly from the front of the thigh.

Now that we’ve analyzed the biomechanics, we also have a better picture of how the different squat variations differ. In a front squat you typically squat with a very upright torso, while the shin travels at a fairly steep angle during the squat. It is a purely quad-dominant exercise.

Looking at the box squat, on the other hand, in this variation the shins are in a relatively vertical position and the torso leans forward quite a lot. It is an exercise that loads purely the posterior chain.

The conclusion from the discussion above…

Forward-leaning torso + vertical shin = hip-extensor dominant

Upright torso + angled shin = quad dominant

How do you take this into account in your programs?

By keeping the shin angle in mind during squats, we can certainly take a thing or two into account. The more the shin deviates from vertical, the greater the load on the knee joints.

What is dangerous and how it is dangerous: the line here is razor-thin, and it runs where the functional – anatomical mobility of the joint ends and begins.

If you’re familiar with bodybuilding, you probably know that bodybuilders are mostly “hunting for” quad-dominant exercises. They even go so far as to let the heels come off the floor during different squats, so that the knees travel as far forward past the toes as possible.

The moral, though, is that the farther heavily loaded knees are allowed to travel past the toes, the greater and more harmful the twisting forces acting on the knee joints become. While letting the knees go past like this can be a great way to build very powerful quadriceps, it’s still open to speculation how long you can keep squatting with this tendency in the long run.

It’s quite clear that if you’re a mere mortal, you won’t last long performing lower-body exercises in that style. Your knees won’t hold up.

If your goal is to put the emphasis on the thigh muscles, the quadriceps, build properly strong legs and keep training for the long haul, the front squat is certainly one of the most popular choices. In this version of the squat, the forward-leaning shin angle delivers a sufficiently large training load on the quads while minimizing excessive negative load on the knee joint.

The pronounced forward travel of the knees past the toes, and the harm of taking that approach too far, is also why so many coaches believe the knees should NOT go past the toes AT ALL during the squat.

Watch how small children squat: their execution and technique, if you can call it that, are practically perfect and flawless. Their knees go past their toes, and they can stay active in that position for a long time, playing for ages in the bottom of a squat.

Now take a typical sedentary adult squatting down. The heels come off the floor, the knees are pushed abnormally far past the toes, and with that technique they still dare to whine that squatting hurts their knees. Of course it does: squatting like that is abnormal, and it hurts.

Author: Janar Rückenberg (translation)

Source:Turg.Fitness.ee

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