hamstrings in the squat: hip drive and knee slide

[JohnHanleyFanAccount]

Here are some thoughts I would like feedback on.

One of the key SS concepts is "hip drive," which I understand to be using the hips to power out of the bottom and through the sticking point in the squat. Recall the picture of Rippetoe on a ladder holding a chain attached to a trainee's ass. My mental image is of a fixed back angle rising out of the hole and through the sticking point, driven by the hips.

(Personally, I have a weak trunk and this leads to pseudo good-morning squats when the weight gets heavy. This seems to be a common consequence of this cue. Nuckols thinks the problem can be solved by stronger quads, cf. https://www.strongerbyscience.com/fixin ... ing-squat/. I'd be happy to discuss this here, but it's not the main point of the thread.)

In short, my understanding is that the SS model has the hips driving up through the sticking point while maintaining torso angle.

Enter Greg Nuckols. See point 3 in this essay and the accompanying videos:
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-s ... -about-it/

He presents an interesting case for cuing "hips forward" and "shove the traps into the bar" instead. An SS acolyte shows up in the comments to argue with him, and while the entire exchange is interesting, I would like to extract the following comment:

Greg Nuckols says
December 2, 2015 at 4:48 pm

“Hips forward isn’t a good solution as it slackens the hamstrings”

That’s not an overly relevant consideration, as the hamstrings hardly change length at all through the squat, due to being a biarticular joint.

“and increases the moment arm acting on the knee joint”

Which is a good thing through that ROM. RME for the knee extensors is lower than it is for the hip extensors through the sticking point, so shifting some of the work back to the quads balances the work between the knee and hip extensors and makes it a more efficient exercise.

Two questions. The second is more interesting.

1) What do you think of Greg's argument for cuing "hips forward"? (You'll probably want to read the link and the exchange in the comments to understand his position fully, as it relates to the SS cue.)

2) If Greg is right and hamstring tension is only a minor factor in the squat, does this invalidate the usual SS argument for fixing the knees halfway down and preventing "knee slide" in order to better "bounce off the hamstring tension" at the bottom? Obviously letting your knees go haywire is a bad idea, but most people I see squat have their knees travel forward and back continuously and smoothly throughout the movement instead of fixing them partway down (or, God forbid, using a "TUBOW"). Greg's comment would suggest that continual movement is not actually a disadvantage in getting a bounce out of the bottom.

Personally I have never been able to feel any advantage from fixing the knee position on the way down, but then again I'm quite bad at doing it and it seems awkward to me.

[OCG]

1. I would take most things Nuckols says with a whole truckload of salt. If you actually read his articles critically and look at his sources they're mostly not that good. He tends to make leaps in logic and just expect the reader to agree. Most of the studies he uses aren't terribly good. Pretty much all of the technique and form advice is, aside from being very wishy washy "do whatever works bro", straight up stereotypical powerlifting informed by nothing more than "it's what works for me".

2. An efficient squat should maintain the back angle out of the hole and the knees should be more or less fixed. Thinking about driving the hips up strongly is not always the best way to do this. Technique, doesn't vary so much. Cues on the other hand, are unimportant as long as they get the job done. So if you've got two different people, one who drives their hips up, and another who drives their hips forwards, and they both look pretty similar, who cares?

[cwd]

There is in fact some wiggle room in the squat around the sticking point. You can do it over a small range of back angles.

The more upright angles put more work on the quads, the more bent angles more work on the glutes (and isometric work on the back/hamstrings). Given individual strengths/weaknesses, some particular angle will be strongest for each person.

I don't understand why we would expect to find One Universal Best Cue for all lifters.

[JohnHanleyFanAccount]

1. I would take most things Nuckols says with a whole truckload of salt. If you actually read his articles critically and look at his sources they're mostly not that good. He tends to make leaps in logic and just expect the reader to agree. Most of the studies he uses aren't terribly good. Pretty much all of the technique and form advice is, aside from being very wishy washy "do whatever works bro", straight up stereotypical powerlifting informed by nothing more than "it's what works for me".

I tend to agree with this in general, but he articulates a relatively precise argument here backed up by videos of strong dudes doing what he suggests. I think it deserves more than just a blanket brush-off. People have been skeptical of the hip drive stuff for a while and think Greg presents those concerns well.

[OCG]

What is "hip drive" to you?

[JohnHanleyFanAccount]

What is "hip drive" to you?

What I said in the original post. In contrast with Nuckols, the belief that the hips should be driven "up" through the sticking point.

[OCG]

So, the cue to drive the hips up?

Do we disagree that the bar should be moved in a straight line and that the back angle out of the hole (and into it) should remain constant?

[Wilhelm]

So, the cue to drive the hips up?

Do we disagree that the bar should be moved in a straight line and that the back angle out of the hole (and into it) should remain constant?

As long as the nipples are parallel to the floor, you're good.

[JohnHanleyFanAccount]

So, the cue to drive the hips up?

Do we disagree that the bar should be moved in a straight line and that the back angle out of the hole (and into it) should remain constant?

We're in complete agreement there (coming out of the hole). The conflict between the two cues comes at the "sticking point," a little higher on the ascent.

[OCG]

So, if I have two lifters, one who I tell to drive the hips up, and one who I tell to drive the hips forwards and their squats both looks the same, does it really matter?

We're arguing about cues here, which really don't matter.

[JohnHanleyFanAccount]

So, if I have two lifters, one who I tell to drive the hips up, and one who I tell to drive the hips forwards and their squats both looks the same, does it really matter?

We're arguing about cues here, which really don't matter.

Well, the purpose of cues is to produce a change in the movement. If they don't matter, why cue at all?

Presumably each of those lifters would move differently according to the cue, and the question is which cue results in a more efficient lift.

[Wilhelm]

I never even knew The SS strict view on the knees not traveling forward.

i'm pretty sure i'm glad i didn't.

**Just did a vertical line in Kinovea. Knees go a little past my toes. Nothing drastic at all.
Seems like a real pain trying to adhere to that completely fixed position.

[simonrest]

Presumably each of those lifters would move differently according to the cue, and the question is which cue results in a more efficient lift.

a cue is just a cue, it's not a methodology: you use it to help of the lifter think about the pattern in a different way. The movement will be (roughly) the same (not accounting for anthropometry, high bar, etc)

[JohnHanleyFanAccount]

Presumably each of those lifters would move differently according to the cue, and the question is which cue results in a more efficient lift.

a cue is just a cue, it's not a methodology: you use it to help of the lifter think about the pattern in a different way. The movement will be (roughly) the same (not accounting for anthropometry, high bar, etc)

I don't understand this response, sorry. To reiterate: my understanding is that cues are supposed to produce a change in the way the movement is performed, not just the way it is thought about. "Hips up" and "hips forward" should produce different changes. My question is which change is preferable.

If the movement is the same regardless of cuing, then it wouldn't make sense to cue at all.

[TimK]

I don't understand this response, sorry. To reiterate: my understanding is that cues are supposed to produce a change in the way the movement is performed, not just the way it is thought about. "Hips up" and "hips forward" should produce different changes. My question is which change is preferable.

If the movement is the same regardless of cuing, then it wouldn't make sense to cue at all.

Wouldn't it depend on what they were doing wrong to start with? The end goal could be the same but require opposite cues to get them there if each person is erring in different directions.

[KyleSchuant]

Yes. For example, we want the weight to be midfoot; if someone is coming onto their toes, we tell them "push through your heels." They won't actually go through their heels, since that would make them fall over backwards, they'll just go through their midfoot.

A cue is just a verbal version of physically pushing them into some position, because it's not good to poke or fondle someone while they have a big weight on their back. If you follow the method and use the same 3-4 cues then you can get 80% of people more or less right in the first session. For the other 20% you have to get creative.

[JohnHanleyFanAccount]

My understanding of Greg's article is that he isn't suggestive a corrective cue to fix a problem, but that he's suggesting one that enforces a certain movement pattern (different from Rippetoe's preferred model).

[simonrest]

My understanding of Greg's article is that he isn't suggestive a corrective cue to fix a problem, but that he's suggesting one that enforces a certain movement pattern (different from Rippetoe's preferred model).

there's many ways to squat the weight. You could high bar, you can lead with your hips, you can push more with your quads, you can Gm the weight. Greg is advocating for a quad dominant squat (is the way I read his article). SS advocates for a hip drive squat. Wendler says something like "keep your elbows under the bar and get your hips under it as soon as possible". I think of these as squat methods

A cue is something different, like Kyle said its a way to encourage a movement pattern: "knees out" is a common one in SS - "chest up" is common elsewhere. "Stay Tight" is my main cue.

*take all my comments at your peril, I'm not exactly thrilled about my squats, or any of my lifts tbh. Better than even chance I'm talking our my arse*

[fishwife]

First, those examples are all of high-bar squat, which has some important differences in mechanics.

Second, both those lifters actually shift their hips back at the sticking point/increase their hip angle/lift hips faster than the rest of the torso ( note that the knees move back immediately as they come up out of the hole). To recover from that movement pattern, they have to slide their hips forward again.

In the LBBS,"GMing the squat" can happen, which is also indicated by knees moving back as the lifter comes up out of the hole, the hips rising faster than the rest of the torso, and an increased back angle, in which case, in the moment, the "push the hips forward" could help correct that and save a rep. It wouldn't be taught as a cue when teaching the form, however, because when teaching the movement, we normally take a lot of care to make sure the lifter avoids that movement pattern. The Starting Strength method pays a lot of attention to knee placement and maintaining knee position in the bottom in a way that people who coach HBBS usually do not.

Also, the HBBS, with its very closed knee angle and therefore more slack in the hips/hams overall, is just a harder movement during which to avoid forward/backward sliding of the hips on the way up. In addition, there's a good case to be made that some backward slide in the hips when initiating the drive up in the HBBS may not necessarily be "wrong". It occurs to me that it may be a way of working in a little extra hamstring stretch reflex in a movement that has much less of it in the bottom than the LBBS. I haven't spent as much time thinking about HBBS, so I'd have to ponder that a little more.

When things start getting heavy and more likely to drift into non-ideal when LBBSing, the "hips forward" cue could be helpful to some lifters in the moment, especially when form gets wonky doing max efforts/as a rescue tactic to keep in the pocket for competitions. If they need that cue all the time, though, they're not LBBSing correctly, which is why I wouldn't include it as a standard teaching cue.

[KyleSchuant]

Fishwife: when are you going back to coaching people?