Starting Strength

drive with the aid of a coach.

    A common error is the tendency for some lifters to drive the hips forward instead of upward ( Figure 2-41 ). If your hips go forward, your knees will too, causing the weight to shift forward to the toes. This shift is bad for power because anytime the knee angle closes, the hamstrings have shortened from the distal end, and a slack muscle is not a source of contractile power. If the rebound out of the bottom depends on hamstring and adductor tightness, then any relaxation of tension in these muscles represents a loss in stored elastic energy, not to mention a loss in the ability to contract and generate force.

    Figure 2-41. Driving the chest up instead of the hips kills hamstring tension in the middle of the squat. The closed knee and open hip angles at right shorten the distance between hamstring origin and insertion, removing much of the hamstrings’ contribution to hip drive.

    Likewise, it is common to see the hips shift backwards instead of straight up out of the bottom. When this happens, the back angle will have become more horizontal, the hip angle more closed, and the knee angle more open, all in the absence of upward movement of the bar. This means that the hamstrings have not done their job of anchoring the back angle at their proximal attachments on the pelvis, the knee angle has opened because the gastrocnemius failed to anchor it, and the quads can’t contract the already opened knee ( Figure 2-42 ).

    Figure 2-42. Allowing the back angle to go horizontal on the way up from the bottom produces bad mechanics and inefficient use of the hip and leg musculature.

As we will see often, form errors in many exercises represent the loss of the ability to generate force due to a loss in the position required for force production. Your best power is achieved when your hips continue straight up out of the bottom, with your tibias, anchored by your gastrocs, serving as anchors for your hamstrings; your glutes and external rotators holding your femurs out; your hamstrings, glutes, and adductors contracting against the pelvis to produce hip extension against a constant back angle; your quads producing knee extension; and then your knees and hips locking out simultaneously at the top. Let’s examine the role of these muscles and skeletal components in detail.
    Squat depth has been emphasized since the beginning of this chapter, so let’s begin our analysis of hip function with its relationship to squat depth. When we squat, the standard range-of-motion criterion for the exercise is “below parallel,” defined as the hip joint (identified at the apex of the hip angle, the “corner” in your shorts over the hip) as it drops below the knee (identified as the top of the patella). Most people who have trouble with the squat are having trouble getting good depth while preventing their low back from rounding. Pretty much anybody can get deep if they allow the lumbar spine to relax into flexion. But almost every single human being on this planet can squat below parallel with pretty good lumbar extension if their stance is correct and if they simply shove their knees out to the sides as they squat. At the bottom of the squat, a type of impingement – a trapping of soft tissue between two bones – occurs, and it is relieved by shoving out the knees. This simple skeletal-position adjustment allows for a below-parallel squat, and at the same time, a drastic improvement occurs in the way the hips function.
    Most people think that the main problem with squat depth is hamstring extensibility, more commonly referred to as “flexibility” – the ability of the hamstrings to lengthen as the depth of the squat increases. This is not really the case, and loose, elastic hamstrings are not the key to a deep squat. Optimal skeletal mechanics is.
    If you stand with your heels at shoulder width apart and point your toes out at about 30 degrees, squat down, and keep your thighs parallel to your feet, then as your hip angle closes and your thighs approach your torso, your femurs will track to a position that is outside of the anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS), the “hip pointer” that you feel right below your waistline. But if you point your toes straight forward and let your knees follow your toes, or even if you point your toes out but still let your knees cave in toward the middle when you squat, then your femurs will approach the ASIS as you approach the bottom of the squat. So as your