When I look back at the Performance Menu articles I’ve been writing in recent months, I notice that several of them have dealt with topics such as coaching philosophy, mental strength, team building, etc. They’ve been fun to write and I definitely still have a lot to say about all of these areas, but I think it’s time to break things up and make this month’s article specifically dedicated to a training topic. Everybody who reads this magazine (as far as I know) is some kind of strength athlete, and most of you probably use the Olympic lifts as some component of your training life.

And that’s why we’re going to go back to the basics this month and take another look at SQUATTING. I wrote a PM article about squatting once, many moons ago, but it mostly focused on the technique differences between high-bar and low-bar squats. This month, we’re going to analyze squats as they apply to athletes who focus specifically on the Olympic lifts. I’ve wanted to revisit this topic for a long time because, in a nutshell, squatting is absolutely one of the most important tools in the training of any type of strength athlete. If you’re an Olympic lifter, powerlifter, strongman competitor, bodybuilder, shotputter, general barbell trainer, etc., then squatting has to be part of your basic belief system. You have to believe in squatting the same way a Christian missionary believes in the Ten Commandments. Just like the missionary relies on his biblical principles to guide him through life’s struggles, you have to rely on squatting to get you through the tough times of your quest for strength. When everything else has failed you, you still have squatting. Squats will never fail you. If you do them, you will get results. Your body will be strong. If you can’t squat because of injury, disability, or lack of motivation, you will end up with nothing. The most important muscles of your body will shrink and you will eventually become weak. You’ll be like a formerly dedicated religious zealot who has lost his way and drifted into a sea of drugs and hookers. You must be washed clean through surgery, rehab, mental re-commitment or whatever else needs to be done to put you back on the road to strength righteousness. It will be a baptism by fire, because hard squatting isn’t exactly designed for your comfort. But the pain is just something you’ll have to accept. If you want things to be easy, you might want to read another magazine.

Open your hymnals, brothers and sisters. It’s time to read the scriptures. We’re going to take a look at five basic principles of squatting that will steer you in the right direction, if you follow them. Feel free to shout hallelujah, speak in tongues, or be slain in the spirit at any moment.



The First Principle: Squatting is the most important assistance exercise in Olympic lifting, but it is still an assistance exercise.

Squatting proficiency cannot be undervalued for athletes who want to improve in the snatch and clean and jerk. Both of the full competitive movements obviously involve a squat phase, and it is impossible to achieve maximum results in these lifts if squats are not being used in training because the benefits in overall body strength are impossible to replicate with any other assistance lift. Some people view the squat as a lower body lift, but there is much more benefit than simply what happens in the muscles of the legs. Squatting is one of the best core exercises in existence. The postural muscles of the abdomen, spinal erectors, obliques, and even the middle/upper back will be strengthened every time a squat is performed. The rewards of the squat exceed those of any other barbell exercise, plain and simple.

However, it’s important to understand the place of the squat in the training of an Olympic lifter. The squat is the finest assistance exercise available, but it is still an assistance exercise. Sometimes I think American Olympic lifters get carried away with squat enthusiasm and they start to believe that heavier squatting will fix anything. Their philosophy becomes, "Squatting will make you a better snatcher. Squatting will make you a better cleaner. Squatting will make you a better jerker." This type of thinking has good intentions because it shows respect to the squat as being hugely important. But there is a caveat here. Olympic lifters often get so focused on bigger squat numbers that they will start squatting incorrectly to get them. The depth starts to get shallow, the torso starts to lean forward, knee wraps come out, etc. All of these things start to happen because the lifter is obsessed with getting bigger squat weights, but none of them will translate into the movements of the snatch or clean. If you are an Olympic lifter, you have to always understand that the squat’s purpose is to make you stronger for the Olympic lifts. This means that the technique and positions of the squat have to stay as close as possible to the technique and positions of the snatch and clean. If you want to become a better snatcher, correctly practicing the snatch is the best way to do it. Squatting will make you stronger, and that strength will give you a better chance to snatch more weight. But the squats have to be used correctly if there is going to be any carryover to the competition lifts. When I was doing my best lifting, one of my close competitors had a one-rep max in the squat that was twenty kilos heavier than mine. But in competition, I could stand up with a 180 kilo clean easier than he could. Who was using the squats most effectively in training?

The Second Principle: Front Squats are a "position lift."

Because of the basic movement of the clean and jerk, Olympic lifters use the front squat as an essential training tool. In fact, there are some voices in the weightlifting community who believe that front squats are more important than back squats. Much of this philosophy comes from the perception of the Bulgarian program. Several outsiders have mistakenly believed that the Bulgarians only use front squats in their training, no back squats. As I said, this is not the case. But the idea still lingers on message boards, forums, etc. Regardless, front squats are one of the primary weapons of the Olympic lifter. Everyone agrees to this.

One of the reasons why front squats are so beneficial is the upper body strength gains that accompany the movement. That’s right. Front squats are as much an upper body strength movement as they are a lower body strength movement. When I started training for the Calpian weightlifting club in the early 90s, coach John Thrush explained to me that front squats are a "position lift." This means that they are used not just to strengthen the muscles of the legs, but also the muscles of the upper body that hold the barbell on the shoulders in the receiving position of the clean. When an athlete performs a clean or a front squat, the muscles of the chest, shoulders, arms, and upper back are used to maintain the proper form of the movement (keeping the elbows high, the chest expanded, the shoulders wide, etc.) Heavy front squatting develops the stabilizing strength of these muscles, even though the arms and shoulders are basically immobile throughout the lift.

This is why it is imperative that the lifter performs the front squat with exactly the same upper body position as the clean. There will be no upper body strength development if the front squats are performed in the sloppy manner we have all seen at some point (shoulders rounding forward, elbows dropping, fingers popping off the bar, etc.) A small amount of this technical sloppiness might occur when an athlete is pushing for a new one-rep max in the front squat. That’s understandable. But letting incorrect upper body positions become a regular part of your front squat technique will limit the benefits of the lift, and also increase the chance for injury.

The Third Principle: Stop Squats are a misunderstood ally.

Stop squats are not difficult to explain. A stop squat is a high-bar, Olympic style back squat with a one-second pause at the bottom. Some people refer to these as "pause squats" but "stop squat" is the name I use. I don’t think there are many weightlifting coaches or athletes who use stop squats as a regular part of their training. And I don’t understand this, because the rewards are tremendous. I have used stop squats throughout every phase of my serious weightlifting career, and also with every serious lifter I have ever coached. All of these lifters have done the best lifts of their careers while using stop squats. When I was doing the best lifting of my life, I used my top stop squat triple as the barometer of how strong I was. In other words, the heaviest weight I could do a set of three with in training told me how ready I was for a big clean and jerk.

People sometimes misunderstand the purpose of stop squats. I was reading a discussion on the internet recently where a group of lifters were explaining how the main purpose of the stop squat was to prepare an athlete to recover from a botched clean. Because of the pause at the bottom of the stop squat, the lift resembles a heavy clean where the athlete gets "planted" in the bottom of the clean and has to pause or double-bounce before standing up. Let me make it clear that stop squats are not intended to improve the athlete’s performance of an incorrect clean. It might be one of the residual benefits of stop squats that the athlete has more reserve strength for standing up from a paused clean, but that is not the primary purpose.

Stop squats are a valuable exercise for two reasons. First, the pause at the bottom of the squat forces the athlete to maintain total muscle contraction with a heavy weight on the shoulders, which increases the stabilizer strength of the athlete’s torso. And second, the lack of rebound momentum prior to standing up from the squat forces the muscles of the lower body to push harder to complete the lift, which increases the potential power output of the entire body. But don’t take my word for it. The proof is in the pudding. Incorporate stop squats into your lifting program and you will get stronger. So let it be written.



The Fourth Principle: Sets and Reps: the possibilities are endless.

How often should an Olympic lifter train the squats? How many sets and reps should be performed in a typical workout? How often should new one-rep maxes be attempted? In other words, how in the hell should you implement the squats into your training program to improve your lifts?

I’ve said this many times in the past, but there are several different ways to train the squat effectively. Nobody has the one magical answer. Throughout my years as a lifter, I’ve probably seen at least fifty different types of set/rep programs, and many of them have had outstanding results. My personal preference is as follows:

How many times per week should the athlete squat? Three. One front squat workout, one back squat workout, and one stop squat workout. The best days to do them are Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. Friday and Sunday will always be off days, and Tuesday will always be a relatively light workout.

What kind of sets and reps should be used? Sets of three reps (triples) are always reliable for an Olympic lifter. I’m an old-school lifter, so I have always liked the old 3x3 method. This means that the athlete performs three or four warm-up sets before picking the “target weight” for that workout and doing three sets of three with it. Now, variety is always going to have some benefits. I have never used sets higher than five reps when training competitive lifters, but that’s just the method I prefer. There are other accomplished coaches who use sets of 8-10 reps with their lifters. One of our top American coaches has a volume phase for his lifters where the athletes are doing sets of ten reps in squats, pulls, push presses, and other assistance exercises. I don’t think any Olympic lifting coaches would stay with this many reps throughout the entire competition year, but using high-rep sets during a “volume phase” can lead to positive results for some athletes.

How often should Olympic lifters attempt new one-rep maxes? Not often. And when the athlete does attempt a new 1RM, it would be wise to do it at a time when it won’t negatively affect the athlete’s snatching and clean and jerking. Planning those squat max-out sessions around the same time when the athlete is attempting heavy attempts in the SN or C&J can get dicey.

The Fifth Principle: Bigger squats = better snatches. True or false?

An athlete can improve their leg strength without moving up their one-rep squat max. It’s true, it’s true. Let me give you a personal example to illustrate this. When I was twenty, my best squat was 500 pounds at around 215 bodyweight. I did this squat at the beginning of a workout when I was totally fresh, I wore light knee wraps, the bar was sitting low on my shoulders, my depth was around parallel, and there was a lot of forward lean with the torso. My best snatch was 120 kilos and best clean and jerk was 150.

Shortly after this 500 pound squat, I changed coaches and my training program became completely different. After one year, I maxed out in the squat and did 217.5 kilos (479 pounds) at 218 bodyweight. I did this squat at the end of a hard workout, I wore nothing on my knees, the bar was sitting high up at the base of my neck, I sat down to 100% full depth, and my torso basically stayed straight up and down. This squat max was 21 pounds lower than the 500 pound squat I had done a year earlier. At this time, my best snatch was 135 kilos and my best clean and jerk was 167.5.

The point here is that the athlete’s leg strength and overall power output can increase simply by squatting in a stricter, more technically disciplined manner. Making your squats sloppier and higher for the sake of a few more kilos will not make you a better Olympic lifter. Adding new kilos to your squat max while maintaining perfect technique in the squats will translate into stronger competition lifts. The athletes (and the coaches) have to be perfectionists about squat form.

Amen, brothers and sisters. Now you have five principles about squatting that will absolutely, positively make you a better Olympic lifter if you decide to make them part of your training life. If you implement all of these ideas into your training and your total doesn’t go up, please contact Greg Everett for a refund on your Performance Menu subscription. I don’t think you’ll have much to worry about though, because regardless of exactly which squatting approach you decide to use in your training, everybody needs to follow some of the same basic rules. He who has eyes to see, let him see. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.