In June I went to a Perform Better Summit where I had the opportunity to learn from the superstars in the field of human movement.
It’s so interesting how much changes as we learn more about human movements patterns. Here are a few things that some of the best PTs, and Strength and Conditioning Coaches, Spine specialists, etc had to say:
Heavy Back Squats are out. Back squats are squats when the loaded bar is placed on the shoulders behind the neck (probably the most well known of this staple movement.)
Mike Boyle shared that he has removed back squats from his athlete’s training regiments all together. Stuart McGill would back this decision. There was a consistent pattern with athletic injury… lots of spinal injury that occurred during heavy back squats.
Some of the other greats also agreed this is a lift that places the spine in such a vulnerable position for injury to easily occur, especially when we load our back squats with an extremely heavy loads, the amount of compression directly on the spine is very great.
They haven’t eliminated squats all together… but with bilateral squats (meaning using both legs at the same time) they are going to the FRONT SQUAT and Goblet Squat.
These squats place the load in the frontal plane of the body and the compression on the spine is more in line with how we are designed to move.
Another thing changing In the foundations of how we train and will train in the future… is moving away from bilateral movements (both legs at the same time) and focusing more on unilateral movements (single leg movements. )
Gray Cook and Lee Burton really put this in perspective in explaining human movement patterns. Let’s start from a baby…when we start to crawl… we move one arm and one leg at a time right? Then when we go from the ground up … how do we stand up? One leg at a time right? And then how do we walk? How do we run? Unilaterally.
So wouldn’t it make sense that that is how we train?
Mike Boyle found that strength wise… his athletes were stronger on their single leg lifts (combining the weight per leg) then they were doing the bilateral equivalent on many lifts.
These guys are changing the foundation of how we will all look at training … and they already have with systems like Gray Cook’s FMS (Functional Movement Screen) and Thomas Meyers in his training fascia studies. Training fascia is the future of training! So cool- future post though . 🙂
As far as my training goes… I keep back squats but only with light to medium weight. I move well and practice with good form. I do not max out or train “heavy” back squats… I removed these from MY repitoire a while ago and felt super validated after hearing app these guys speak.
I strongly recommend checking out these guys on YouTube and their sites… they will teach you so much and the way you look at training and will help you move better!
Taking it one step at a time 🙂
Unilaterally,
Sammie Rose
SammieRose 