Is Barbell Squatting Really Worth It?

Yes.

That retired NHL player, Zdeno Chara, I watched him on tv one year squatting some unbelievable amount ( over 500 pounds )and thinking to myself, yeah but he couldn’t do distance and suddenly now in retirement, he runs Boston in 3:01

so, do squats today!

You probably should be lifting only hard enough so that you have no soreness for your next hard running effort. For me, that's probably only one set of a few reps.

I'm now a big proponent of Bulgarian split squats: they are unilateral and don't load up the back. Lower weights (e.g., for me (6' 2", 175-lbs, 62 years old), 30-35 lbs in each hand) are very effective with Bulgarian split squats.

I may also experiment with cossack squats. I do them now for flexibility with as little as a 10-lb dumbbell but as I progress I may use them for flexibility and strength. They are also unilateral.

It's worth it only if you want to be JACKED everywhere! Not every day is arms day.

Ass to grass, baby!!!

Those are good thoughts thank you. I may try the Bulgarian again.

It is true, that barbell squats have a profound effect on the physiology. If I haven’t done them in a while, I will be sleepy and hungry for a couple of days after doing them again.

Detrimental advice for a runner

Once you've squatted for awhile, you'll stop getting sore and will just have some fatigue/dull muscles or light tightness the day or two afterwards. That said, you might be getting excess soreness if you're leaning forward too much and doing a "good morning" style squat, which will reek havoc on your hamstrings. Make sure you are squatting with proper form!

Don't squat. Not applicable to running improvement.

Why not? I note that some of the fastest people in the world can squat, huge amounts of weight, double or triple their body weight. Are the two not connected?

Thank you for the tip. It is true that sometimes I do pitch forward as I bring the bar upward. I wonder if that adds to fatigue.

Who?

They squat a lot because they are fast. You can also squat a lot and be slow. Squating a ton is not the path towards being fast.

squats for basic strength are great. But if you think you are picking up a ton of speed by going from day 2x bw squats to 3x, I think you will be disappointed.

If you are sore for 5 days after lifting, you are over doing it for athletic performance.

Serious question: Is this your first week or two squatting? I would expect those symptoms with anyone new that lacked any recent muscular adaptation to the exercise. You could feel similar after doing a hard hill sprints session or stadium stairs coming off running flats for many months.

Maybe scale back the weight to 135 for a few weeks and give your body a chance to adapt to the stimulus. After a month or so, it should be much better and you can start adding weight again. You can still expect some DOMS, but not debilitatingly so. To limit the overall impact to your week, try to load up on workout days (e.g., track/tempo AM, squat PM).

Stop squatting 170 for 4 reps and do 145 for 8 reps. Work your way up to 170 for 8.

Well, this guy.

And him

Look I’m fully prepared to be wrong, but the two do correlate.

Thank you. It is possible that I am doing too much weight.

Oh, I didn’t know you were a 100m specialist

In my non-coaching, but lots of running, experience, exercises should be running-specific. As a runner, the only time you would ever put force into the legs while the knee is bent 90 degrees is when sprinters come out of the blocks.

Let me be clear. I'm not saying "never do squats." What I'm saying is that there are better exercises for the legs for runners than squats. In my opinion, these are mostly one leg exercises, like Bulgarian squats, skater squats (aka curtsy squats), lunges, and 1 leg press on the leg press machine. Note: the Bulgarian squat can be done with the back mostly vertical to work the quads or with the back at an angle so your upper body moves diagonally forward and back as you go up and down. That works the glutes.

There are lots of other leg exercises so these aren't the only ones to consider. I'm listing these because I know what they are called and they are part of my regular leg routine.

In short, the risk (of injury) vs the reward of the squat FOR RUNNERS isn't as good as the risk/benefit of other leg exercises.

NOTE: If you're a sprinter, then, yes, you should squat, but if you've been doing them long enough to see a change in your physique, as you say you have, then you shouldn't be doing them so hard you're wiped out for 5-6 days. Reduce the weight.