Starting Strength

their distal attachments at the knee are as close together as they can be at the bottom of a squat. Here, the hamstrings are functioning isometrically to hold the torso in the nearly vertical position required of the front squat, a much easier position to hold than a more horizontal back angle because of the reduced leverage against the hips (much more on this later). But when the hamstrings are shortened, there is not enough contractile capacity left to contribute much to hip extension. In essence, the hamstrings are already contracted in the bottom of the front squat and can’t contract much more. This leaves the glutes and adductors on their own to produce hip extension, and this is why your butt gets so sore when you front-squat heavy: it’s having to do all the work the hamstrings normally help with in a squat.

    Figure 2-8. Squat variations commonly seen in the gym. (A) The low-bar squat, our preferred position and the form referred to in this text as “the squat.” (B) The front squat, used to catch and recover from a clean and as an assistance exercise by Olympic weightlifters.

    The upshot of this situation is that the front squat leaves out much of the hamstrings’ function, and we’d like to use the hamstrings when we squat so that we can get them strong. The front squat is therefore a poor choice for training the posterior chain. To best recruit the hamstrings, and let them contribute the most they can to hip extension, we need to use a squat form that produces a more closed hip angle and a more open knee angle. At the bottom of this squat, the hamstrings are contracted isometrically – that is, they are stretched out proximally, by the attachments at the pelvis, even as they are shortened distally because of the flexing knees. As the knees and hips extend during the ascent, the hamstrings have to work hard to maintain tension on the pelvis, and to control the effects of the increased leverage demands of the more-horizontal back angle. The back angle largely determines the hip angle, and the back angle enables the hamstrings to contribute more force to the squat.
    And when we use that more horizontal back angle, the bar must be placed on the back such that the bar is over the middle of the foot. The lower the bar is on the back, the more horizontal the back angle can be. The bar should therefore be in the lowest secure position it can occupy on the back, right below the spine of the scapula – that bump on your shoulder blade you can feel when you reach across and touch the back of your shoulder. Any lower than this, and the bar scoots down a little every rep of the set.
    If the adductors – the groin muscles – get their share of the load, too, that adds muscle mass to the exercise. When we use a moderate stance with shoulder-width heels, toes pointing out at about 30 degrees, and knees shoved out so that the thighs stay parallel to the feet, then the groin muscles stretch out as the hips are lowered. If the muscles are stretched out, they are in the position they must be in to contract and contribute force to the hip extension. The muscles that hold the knees out – the external rotators of the hip – are engaged as well, thus adding to the muscle mass involved in the squat.
    The low-bar squat, or in this book, just the Squat, is not the same form used by suit-and-wraps-equipped powerlifters, who are trying to get the most out of their squat suit, an expensive, very tight singlet that is designed to resist hip flexion and store elastic energy in the eccentric phase, and therefore aid hip extension. To this end, some powerlifters use a very wide stance and as vertical a shin position as they can produce. Some lifters use a high-bar position with low elbows, a more vertical back angle, and an upward eye gaze (quite different from the squat style used in this book). A wide stance and vertical shins open the knee angle and close the hip angle, thus permitting the more effective use of the suit/hip extension. Knee wraps are used to resist knee flexion, and like the squat suit, they store elastic energy during the eccentric phase. Our stance, which is not nearly as wide, permits more forward travel of the knees and more use of the quadriceps. In fact, every aspect of the technique used in our version of the squat has been chosen specifically to maximize the amount of muscle mass and the range of motion used so that we can lift as much weight as possible through that range of motion and thus get