Squats: Below parallel or ATG?

[patrickodin]

After a long hiatus from squatting because of a knee injury followed by laziness, I'm trying to get back into doing squats dilligently. I am trying to decide whether to do powerlifting squats or the so called ass-to-grass squats.

My main goal is to gain strength for grappling. I am slightly concerned by the allegedly higher risk of lower back and/or knee injuries from ATG squats. Now I know that many people argue that ATG squats are perfectly safe if you use excellent form. But in practice it might not be easy to maintain good form, especially on later sets.

So what do you guys think? How many people in here actually do ATG squats and do you think that the benefits outweigh the risks?

 

[DEVILsSON]

I would suggest powerlifting style athletic squat....it takes stress away from the knees/quads and more on hips, glutes, hamstrings, etc....better way after knee injury imo...

you can still do other stuff to keep strength balanced by doing step ups/lunges/split squats/etc...

 

[jerrylundergard]

I concur with Devilson. Stay away from the so called atg for a while and stick to the parallel or so.

I dont know how bad you muffed up yer knee but if it were me I would scrap the squats alltogether and go with deadlifts instead. Or be carefull with squat and use good form and dont push it too fast on increasing the weights. If it hurts bad dont freakin do it.

If you replaced deadlift with squat you still get in the, "ill bust up your face if you look at me funny, bitch" lift.

In a perfect world youd do both in the same week but you gotta think about your particular situation and in this case dl puts little stress on the knee.

 

[patrickodin]

I concur with Devilson. Stay away from the so called atg for a while and stick to the parallel or so.

I dont know how bad you muffed up yer knee but if it were me I would scrap the squats alltogether and go with deadlifts instead. Or be carefull with squat and use good form and dont push it too fast on increasing the weights. If it hurts bad dont freakin do it.

If you replaced deadlift with squat you still get in the, "ill bust up your face if you look at me funny, bitch" lift.

In a perfect world youd do both in the same week but you gotta think about your particular situation and in this case dl puts little stress on the knee.

My knee is fine now. I injured it a long time ago and just never got back into the habit of squating because of laziness. But now my quad strength is pathetic, especially compared to my hamstrings, so I want to get back at it.

As of now I'm doing the WS4SB program with alternating squats and deads as my main lower body lift for the week.

 

[krellik]

For quad strength when you got strong hams atg is the obvious answer...

For overall power, wide stanced powerlifting squat is an possible answer...

 

[TheNerdKing]

I'd suggest doing deadlifts and front squats.

The front squats should be done as deep as possible. In most people, front squats use much less of a load than back squats so you will still be getting a good workout but you won't be pushing the tendons/ligaments in your knees as hard because of the reduced load.

Once you have gotten comfortable with your front squats and your knees are holding up well then start to slowly add stg back squats.

Power Squat -vs- ATG Squat is a stupid arguement really. For most people atg squats will have more benefits and be safer because you will be reducing your load slightly and going through a bigger ROM which will carry over to more situations.

Unless you are trying to be a powerlifter, I suggest atg.

Personally I do power squats where the top of the quad dips below parallel. That being said, I'm a wannabe powerlifter so it makes sense.

So what do you guys think? How many people in here actually do ATG squats and do you think that the benefits outweigh the risks?

A lot of people on this board do ATG squats and for the most part you will not see an increased rate of injuries from them so long as you do them well.

Do like I said and start with deep front squats. Once your body adapts to those, start adding back squats and increase the load you use.

Also, don't sumo deadlift, its teh ghey.

 

[KeyserSoze]

I have been doing ATG squats only, and I like them. It sounds like you aren't too worried about your knee, which to me makes it sound like maybe it shouldn't be limiting you. I say start up doing ATG squats with a fairly light weight (say something near what you bench), work on form, and go from there.

 

[bacon]

This may just be me....but I find that if I go too light on squats (front or back) my form isn't as good as when I'm going heavier.

Anyone else?

 

[DEVILsSON]

yes....I had a couple freak slips when i was fucking around with light weights...in fact that's in part how i tore my meniscus...fucking around with some pussy lunges....another time I was doing high rep sets of very low atg squats at the end of a tough squat workout ...got dizzy and ended up on the floor with barbell over me ....I think when we do heavy weights we hold an inherent respect for the weight....but when we go lighter we start fucking around, lose concentration, and that's when shit happens...probably had more injuries with light weights than when I did 1rming...

 

[KeyserSoze]

This may just be me....but I find that if I go too light on squats (front or back) my form isn't as good as when I'm going heavier.

Anyone else?

I think this is probably true after you get stronger and do them awhile, for the reasons Devilson said, but starting out I think it is best to start light so you can figure out what you are doing and get comfortable with the weight. I think that nearly 100% of the gains people get when lifting the first month is just from comfort level, not actual strength gains.

 

[mschatz]

My form gets better with heavier weight for squats, but even more so for cleans/snatches. Its almost like the weight has to be heavy enough to lock you into the groove. I dont mean mentally. If the weight isnt heavy enough, my pull feels sloppy and the weight doesnt force me to drop under the bar in the catch phase. Yes, learn the motions with lighter weights, but i dont think youll understand the lift until you start getting close to your maximum output

 

[Mark Limbaga]

Start out with light weight and go below parallel, enough to get a white light in a powerlifting meet.

 

[Nezzer]

One thing that you can do if you have an imbalance in strength is to train your quads first. Do something that targets them directly like a leg extentions or hack squats and then do your squats slighty below parallel using a lower weight then you would if you did them first.

Once you feel your more balanced out then you can go back to making your primary lift squats.

And you shouldn't have trouble doing deadlifts.

 

[DEVILsSON]

There are much better things than pre-exhausting the muscles before squats....especially leg extensions which can really fuck up one's knees(along with other open chain exercises)......Also you say that one should focus on 'hamstrings' yet you suggested exercises for the quads.....so i dont understand where you're going with this? training hamstrings would involve heavy SLDLs or something along that line....

if you're quads are overpowering the hamstrings then a wider powerlifting style squat should take care of that....along with goodmornings and deadlifts....

 

[fat_wilhelm]

This may just be me....but I find that if I go too light on squats (front or back) my form isn't as good as when I'm going heavier.

Anyone else?

yes.

 

[Luke Bucknell]

ass to the grass is the way to go if your joints can take it

 

[Mark Limbaga]

deadlifts and dynamic rows will further develop the posterior chan and are a much better option than doing pre-exhaustiion and single joint exercises

 

[Nezzer]

There are much better things than pre-exhausting the muscles before squats....especially leg extensions which can really fuck up one's knees(along with other open chain exercises)......Also you say that one should focus on 'hamstrings' yet you suggested exercises for the quads.....so i dont understand where you're going with this? training hamstrings would involve heavy SLDLs or something along that line....

if you're quads are overpowering the hamstrings then a wider powerlifting style squat should take care of that....along with goodmornings and deadlifts....

The mention of hamstrings was a typo on my part and I corrected it. He mentioned his quads are weak compared to his hamstrings so that's what the information was based on.

I know everyone in this forum frowns upon anything that isn't a compound exercise, but in certain cases they're not always the best thing.

The reason why I recommended doing this is because I know it works. As part of a recovery for knee surgery I really couldn't do heavy compound exercises and I had some imbalances so initially I did do single joint exercises.

Having said that, as soon as I recovered I went back to the meat and potatoes.

 

[Jaxx]

Box squats?

They will allow you to squat as deep as you want without worrying if you have gone past parallel or not.

 

[DEVILsSON]

Nezzer why not prioritize Front squats in his training instead? it's compound, he can go heavier than he could on any isolation exercise...also I have mixed feelings on hack squats.....if he's able to do front or zercher squats then they are much better...