Starting Strength Read Free Page A

are trained correctly. Given this anatomical situation, we want to squat in a way that maximizes the use of all the muscle that can potentially be brought into the exercise and thus be strengthened by it. So we need a way to squat that involves the posterior muscle mass, making it operate up to its potential for contributing to strength and power. The low-bar back squat is that way.
    Done correctly, the squat is the only exercise in the weight room that trains the recruitment of the entire posterior chain in a way that is progressively improvable. These are the things that make the squat the best exercise you can do with barbells and, by extension, the best strength exercise there is. The squat trains the posterior chain muscles more effectively than any other movement that uses them because none of the other movements involve enough range of motion to use them all at the same time, and none of the other movements train this long range of motion by preceding their concentric , or shortening, contraction with an eccentric , or lengthening, contraction, which produces a stretch-shortening cycle, or stretch reflex .
    The squat’s stretch-shortening cycle is important for three reasons:
     
The stretch reflex stores energy in the viscoelastic components of the muscles and fascia, and this energy gets used at the turnaround out of the bottom.
The stretch tells the neuromuscular system that a contraction is about to follow. This signal results in more contractile units firing more efficiently, enabling you to generate more force than would be possible without the stretch reflex.
Because this particular loaded stretch is provided by the lowering phase of the squat (which uses all of the muscles of the posterior chain over their full range of motion), the subsequent contraction recruits many more motor units than would be recruited in a different exercise.
    The conventional deadlift, for example, uses the hamstrings and glutes, but it leaves out much of the adductors’ function, and starts with a concentric contraction in which the hips start out well above the level of a deep squat. No bounce, shorter range of motion, but very hard anyway – harder, in fact, than squatting, due to the comparatively inefficient nature of the dead-stop start – yet not as useful to overall strength development. Plyometric jumps can be deep enough and might employ the requisite stretch reflex provided by the drop, but they are not incrementally increasable the way a loaded barbell exercise is, they can be damned tough on the feet and knees for novices, and they are not weight-bearing in the sense that the whole skeleton is loaded with a bar on the shoulders. In contrast, the squat uses all the posterior chain muscles, uses the full range of motion of the hips and knees, has the stretch-shortening cycle inherent in the movement, and can be performed by anybody who can sit down in a chair, because we have very light bars that can be increased in weight by very small increments.
    The term “posterior chain” obviously refers to the anatomical position of these muscular components. It also indicates the nature of the problems most people experience under the bar, trying to improve their efficiency while squatting. Humans are bipedal creatures with prehensile hands and opposable thumbs, a configuration that has profoundly affected our perception as well as our posture. We are used to doing things with our hands in a position where our eyes can see them, and we are therefore set up to think about things done with our hands. We are not used to thinking about our nether regions, at least those unrelated to toilet functions. The backside of your head, torso, and legs are seldom the focus of your attention unless they hurt, and they remain visually unobservable even with a mirror. The parts you can see in the mirror – the arms, chest, and abs, and the quads and calves if you’re wearing shorts – always end up being the favorite things for most people