WTF: Can most of you actually squat 1.5+ times body weight?

Breakfast In Bed wrote:

Your most limiting factor is actually not your lower body's capacity, but your upper body's capacity to hold the weight you're trying to squat while trying to squat. Most runners don't have the upper body strength to pick up and hold bodyweight on their shoulders, let alone 1.5x. But their legs can handle it. Try out a leg press machine at the gym and you might be surprised how much weight you can press.

Perhaps related, I’m curious whether or why it matters how you hold up the weight while squatting, especially with dumbbells or with front squats. It seems like the standard advice is against trying to hold it up with your hands/wrists and rather place the weight on your shoulders and use hands/wrists mostly for balancing.

Is my understanding correct? Why would it matter whether you push the weight up with your arms or rest it on your shoulders given that, physics-wise, your posterior chain presumably has to be doing the same work?

jacksquat wrote:

how does that work? wrote:

If you can't squat 1X your bodyweight, how do you stand up from a chair?

It’s not measured like that, rather 1.5x means you lower and lift 1.5 times your body weight of iron on top of your body weight itself, so if you weigh 150lb, you should be able to squat 225 lbs.

Sure, I get that, but if you are 150 lbs and can't squat 150lbs, then you can't even support your own body weight.

I can squat > double bodyweight and run fairly fast for an amateur runner (sub-5 mile, sub-2:50 marathon, 405 back squat, all done in the last half year).

I got there by lifting using a Wendler 5/3/1 progression for squatting, deadlifting , pressing and incline bench 3-4x a week on 'off days' (initially in place of an easy or recovery run, then subsequently with a recovery run). So I squat once a week and deadlift once a week.

I did all this because I like to lift heavy and I also like to run fast, but I think that a double bodyweight back squat to parallel is way past the point of diminishing returns for an endurance athlete. Once you adapt to training squatting and running on back to back days, I don't actually think it messes with your running training that much at all, but it as you approach higher levels of performance in either lifting or running you just need every hour of training time you can muster to get better, and there just isn't time to lift heavy and frequently enough to get and stay strong while still getting and staying fast.

Good stuff. I don't train to run fast anymore. I MIGHT be able to hang on to a 5:20 mile. Maybe closer to 5:30. Squatted 345 x 3 this morn at a bw of 185 and 43yrs old. I think to give the running a better shot I would have to run more than 3x a week but there's a balance there for me between lifting and running and even the types of running I do (more sprint/agility)

Alan

Assuming you have a squat rack there shouldn't be much stress on the arm/hands. The bar is across your traps/rear delts. Skinny people may have an issue with the bar laying there though as they don't have much musculature for a "shelf". Ideally the bar is across your traps/shoulders which are pulled in by squeezing your shoulder blades together and having a close-ish grip on the bar to achieve a "shelf" where the bar lies.

In a low bar squat the bar is a couple inches down the rear delts with a slightly wider open grip (thumb on same side as fingers not gripping the bar. This also means you will have a more forward lean and more "hippy" squat.

Alan

Hi Alan, I just use free weights and don’t have a squat rack, by which I assume you mean those safety hooks in gym setups that allow you to rest the bar at many different heights, yes?

With free weights, what difference does using more or less arm/hands make? Is it bad to do it with more arm force? I’m indeed quite skinny, so propping it up using more arm strength feels slightly better on my traps despite using a cushion wrap around the bar.

My current plan is to know if my connective tissue can handle it by observing whether something starts to hurt along the way, :) but that admittedly doesn’t seem like the smartest plan, assuming there is a smarter one. Is there?

I really don’t know, I’d just say I wouldn’t jump into lifting heavier weights than ones you can do 10 reps with just to be careful. It also gives you time to work on your form and build a foundation from which you can progress.

A grown man that can't squat 250 or 300 a few times without any prior training is just pathetic.

sepreh wrote:

A grown man that can't squat 250 or 300 a few times without any prior training is just pathetic.

That's probably 99% of the population... probably including yourself...

In an episode of Ryan Hall’s podcast, I remember him saying that he could squat around his body weight in his prime-140 lbs

OnTheBound wrote:

In an episode of Ryan Hall’s podcast, I remember him saying that he could squat around his body weight in his prime-140 lbs

Could or would? Its possible he could squat more than 140 but only squatted his body weight for reps.

I should have clarified. He said his max for bench, deadlift, and squat were all around 140.

Can one start at whatever weight they can comfortably squat 5x5 and increase by a modest amount (5lbs) per week? I’m currently at 80% BW but feel slightly unsteady already. Should I spend more than one three-day week before upping the weight further? Is the shaky feeling normal or am I likely doing something wrong? This is just my third week of the stronglifts program.