Powerhouse Training: Squats and Deadlifts

Grinding out more hours at the office and family responsibilities have made your already limited gym time that much more precious.

As a full-fledged recessionista, your man-cave ”third place” has taken on a new meaning - lighter on the scoping, chest-bumping and goofing around – heavier on the dedication and commitment.

An old-school your father’s father’s approach that has you re-focused on getting stronger and looking for the best bang-for-the-buck moves to get you there.

Machine Training Is Lame

Unfortunately the commercial gym environment, replete with its single station dumbed-down paint-by-numbers circuits, isn’t contributing much to your cause. Look, no one ever developed any appreciable levels of strength, nor necessary core-to-extremity systemic conditioning with their asses planted, or crutched on machines. And you won’t either.

But this is the predicament you face in the world of commercial fitness, where an overarching litigious theme of liability - the arbiter of your equipment choice and resultant range and path of motion, ultimately decides your fitness fate.

Now combine this with low-to-no-knowledge staffing void of the skill-set required to teach the rudiments and nuances of barbell training and you have the perfect storm for fitness-lite mediocrity–A dumbed-down fitness that uses impoverished modalities like the leg extension, leg curl and leg press to deliver a recreational grade, just enough is good enough fitness.

A Case For Squats and Deadlifts

To rescue yourself from this fate, a paradigm shift is in order, jock or no jock. You need to buy into two of the most complete free weight barbell training and athletically infused strength and conditioning exercises that you can do: squats and deadlifts.

Whether your goals are the functional dominance of an athlete, or a senior who simply wishes to extend their disability zone and to be functionally competent, including squats and dead lifts into your regimen are the bona fide means to this end. They’re natural movements that can be scaled to an individual’s ability and just can’t be duplicated on any machine.

Resistance in the form of cables, cams, pulleys, or any other contrivance pales in comparison to the neurological and kinesthetic directive that free weight training and its resultant earth-bound gravity loading offers. In addition (addressing a modern-day fixation) squats and deadlifts provide all of the necessary core work you’ll ever need simply by the inherent nature of their required isometric contraction and trunk stabilisation.

Wolf, Lombard & Mr Hise

The whole notion of squats and deadlifts are well rooted in scientific cause and effect rationale. The action-specific observational phenomena of Lombard’s Paradox curiously explains the simplistic yet complex nature of the sit-to-stand squat movement and its unique co-contraction. A daily move we perform extracting ourselves form the toilet. And the dynamics of bone deformation and strengthening theory in Wolf’s law adds to the credence and usefulness of both exercises.

It may also shed controversial light on modern-day pharmacological (“Fosomax Female”) interventions and whether the sociological implications of free weight training avoidance by women may indeed be a contributing factor.

Squats are also rooted in iron game history. Joseph Curtis Hise began barbell training in the 30′s and was considered the father of American weight lifting. By experimenting with a 20 rep squat regimen, along with other barbell exercises, he gained 29 pounds of muscle in one month. Hise was credited with starting a squatting fad that served to help hundreds of striving lifters who were unable to gain weight or increase their power.

In-Gym Dynamics

Your first call to action is to commandeer the squat rack, probably the only one, way over in the corner of your gym. Even the most blatantly lame commercial facilities have the token offering of a free weight section. It’s there solely to appease the small contingent of muscle-heads.

Racks of dumbbells are usually the given, but it’s the squat or power rack that’s imperative, the one piece of equipment where both squats and dead lifts can be performed safely and effectively. This rectangular cage of tube steel is truly the powerhouse of the gym, your new home, the best kept secret and ground zero for these two most complete, foundational, systemically challenging and functional exercises you will ever do.

In an act to control safety and liability (no surprise here) many gyms will substitute a Smith Machine for the power rack. A useless contraption that’s inadequate due to its predetermined vertical bar path’s failure to mimic the organic path and range of motion of a squat that’s executed in free space. This completely nullifies any proprioception or balance and skill acquisition. Smith Machines are best utilized as a place to hang your towel, or, with the bar raised in its’ uppermost vertical position, a place for chin-ups. Its’ presence may be reason enough to switch gyms.

Useful Cues

Squats:

• bar position is over spine of scapula
• feet hip width apart - externally rotated about 30 degrees
• look down 6-10 feet in front to maintain back angle and initiate hip drive
• hold breath for spinal rigidity
• descend to “ass-to-grass” to ensure thorough hip extension and posterior chain involvement

Deadlift

• bar position over middle of foot, feet hip width apart and shoulders just in front of bar
• grab bar just outside of legs with shins making contact with bar
• back in lumbar extension and head looking up
• gently squeeze/separate bar from floor by pushing feet through the ground
• keep bar in constant contact with legs in both directions by tracing your body with it

Add these two great exercises to your regimen and let me know your experiences. What are your current lower trunk exercises? How well does your gym support free-weight training and with what type of equipment? Please post to comments.

Related posts:

1. 10 Reasons to Love HIIT Training
2. Will Weight Training Make Me Huge?
3. Tabata Training for Beginners
4. Want BIGGER Muscles in Less Time?
5. Mix Up Your Workouts For Better Results