Hating to Squat…No More
By Dan Wagman, Ph.D., CSCS
Dan squatting in the good ol’ days. Those days are now in the future, too.
Prolog
It’s late 2021 now and I’ve recently been taken back to thoughts and feelings I had training while stationed at Ft. Bragg in the late 80’s. At some point I developed a hard time benching and endured my strength dropping to 425 – with effort – and frustrating the living heck out of me. On one of those benching days, my training partner O.D. Wilson spotted me and gave me a liftoff, which turned into him doing a deadlift to save me and sharing this observation: “Dan, why’s your grip so narrow?” I gave him the stupid look, not knowing what he was talking about. After setting up again and working through things, it became clear to me that over time, for some reason, my grip had migrated inward turning the bench press in to a close-grip bench press. I had no idea how that had happened and set out to correct it immediately. And here we go again…
2021
So here I am, hating the squat like I once hated the bench. I’m weak, my body feels like I’m straining to get out of a straightjacket every time I bend my knees, I’m frustrated, and ready to stop squatting all together. I’m thinking, “Who needs to suffer like this? Training is supposed to be fun. I’ve had it!” And yet I continued to force myself through squat sessions…again and again and again. I reached a point of despair and was but a few ounces away from giving up. Then I finally decided, ”This is the last time I’m squatting.”
It’s difficult for me at times, remembering the principles of science. Training to me is fundamentally a raw, barbaric, testosterone laden activity where the blood drains from my brain in to my muscles…and oh, how good that feels. The consequence is, of course, a less than optimally functioning brain. Just as I was ready to complete the last squat session of my life, a drop of blood somehow entered my brain, a neuron or two fired, and I thought to myself, “Why not take a movie of your squat?” Such a simple thought. Such an easy thing to do. I have my Mac with me in the gym every time I train so that I can crank to some nasty metal and the shelf it rests upon is adjacent to the squat rack. Perfect vantage point for a squat movie…
I hadn’t analyzed my squat in forever and after taking a movie on that day I was disgusted with what I saw. Mind you, there were many more problems than just squatting high…as if that wasn’t bad enough. Exercise science research has determined what the fundamental principles of a proper squat must be and it appeared as though I had violated all of them. How could my squat technique deteriorate by so much, to the point where the movement crushed me, hurt me, sucked the life out of me, and me hating to do it?
2021 and Beyond
Just like my bench press deteriorated decades ago, so did my squat, and unbeknownst to me. As an exercise scientist I have to recognize that there must be a reason this happened. But frankly, I don’t really care about expending too much brain power on trying to figure that out; I want to get the squat back instead.
The main symptom, both times, was an inexplicable loss in strength for the affected lifts. In a properly designed program, that should not occur. So looking at technique can provide clues as to what might be going on. Once I determined technical errors, the solution was clear: start over.
The first thing I did was to stop squatting, albeit, unlike before, not with the intention of never squatting again. Quite the contrary. For much of the summer I didn’t squat at all and found other exercises to maintain some degree of quad strength and muscularity. I was basically wiping the squat hard drive clean. Then, at the beginning of fall I started to squat again, but started from scratch. I started to populate the hard drive with new data, the proper-squat sorta data. Basically I’m forcing my body to relearn the movement. And if you’re curious as to what that looks like, let’s just say that I’m benching way more than what I’m squatting.
Epilog
I’m writing this just after getting done squatting…less than bench weight and yet I feel GREAT. My mood is positive, I’m excited about squat days, and I’m motivated, driven even, to make improvements with every week. Proper technique is the main goal; squatting what I can bench—and eventually more—comes secondary. And my body feels incredible. I just started my second mesocycle for the squat and things are, for a lack of a better description, clicking. My body is going through the movement and it feels natural and easy. I’m no longer fighting the weight; I’m one with the weight.
Having something like this happen to me twice in a training life-time is enough. Never again. Don’t learn the hard way like I had to. If you find yourself struggling with a lift, assess your technique and determine what errors might exist. Then delete the hard drive (stop training that lift for a while), then begin putting little pieces of data back over time (train the movement again with perfect technique, increasing the weight little by little over a prolonged period of time). In the process you’ll not only begin to love that lift again, but your body will feel oh so good during and after training.