GM squats, balance and quad strength

[fishwife]

I also say "chest." I'm not interested in either me or my lifter thinking about their nipples during a training session.

You say this like there's something wrong with nipples.

As KOTJ would say, cues are individual.

I'll have to quote myself after all this cue discussion. Nipples, chest, taint, crotch, chin, hips, whatever: cues are only as good as the their effect on the lifter and in the coach-lifter relationship. And as in any relationship, communication is key.

Yes, I don't rule anything out summarily. Everyone's different. But the thing is, you kind of need to know who you're dealing with and how they'll take it if you want to use some of the saltier cues. If you're teaching a stranger how to squat for the first time, caution is warranted.

That said, "point [any part of the upper body at the ground]" is going to be counterproductive for the majority of trainees new to the squat. Hunching is a likely result. I prefer to explain it something like "reach forward with your chest, like you're trying to touch the bottom of the wall in front of you with it" so that I can just say "reach!" when the person isn't leaning forward enough during the fog of squatting.

[quark]

<>the fog of squatting.

I keep hoping to ingrain enough patterns that the fog doesn't matter.

[cgeorg]

I also say "chest." I'm not interested in either me or my lifter thinking about their nipples during a training session.

You say this like there's something wrong with nipples.

There's nothing wrong with buttholes either but I would hazard a guess that many female trainees wouldn't want their male trainers using them as a cue.

[fishwife]

I also say "chest." I'm not interested in either me or my lifter thinking about their nipples during a training session.

You say this like there's something wrong with nipples.

There's nothing wrong with buttholes either but I would hazard a guess that many female trainees wouldn't want their male trainers using them as a cue.

Yeah, I was being goofy. Probably should have used an emoji or some shit.

[cgeorg]

There's nothing wrong with buttholes either but I would hazard a guess that many female trainees wouldn't want their male trainers using them as a cue.

Yeah, I was being goofy. Probably should have used an emoji or some shit.

All good

I'm going to see how many sentences I can start with "There's nothing wrong with buttholes but" for the rest of the day.

[platypus]

I also say "chest." I'm not interested in either me or my lifter thinking about their nipples during a training session.

You say this like there's something wrong with nipples.

There's nothing wrong with buttholes either but I would hazard a guess that many female trainees wouldn't want their male trainers using them as a cue.

There's a video of Ed Coan coaching some guy on the squat and instead of "knees out" he said "open your taint" or something like that. I was somewhat incredulous, but apparently it worked for Ed.

[cgeorg]

I also say "chest." I'm not interested in either me or my lifter thinking about their nipples during a training session.

You say this like there's something wrong with nipples.

There's nothing wrong with buttholes either but I would hazard a guess that many female trainees wouldn't want their male trainers using them as a cue.

There's a video of Ed Coan coaching some guy on the squat and instead of "knees out" he said "open your taint" or something like that. I was somewhat incredulous, but apparently it worked for Ed.

"unstick your nuts from your legs"

[fishwife]

There's a video of Ed Coan coaching some guy on the squat and instead of "knees out" he said "open your taint" or something like that. I was somewhat incredulous, but apparently it worked for Ed.

I have used the taint in cues.

[fishwife]

I'm going to see how many sentences I can start with "There's nothing wrong with buttholes but" for the rest of the day.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have been known to tell people having trouble setting up for the deadlift, "Imagine you're trying to show the gym your whole asshole".

But the point of all of this seems to be that cues are individual. Acceptable obscenity levels need to be socially gauged. As in all social interactions, when in doubt, don't get raunchy.

But something like "point your nipples at the floor" is something I wouldn't use for coaching the squat not because of the nipples part, necessarily, but because it's a cue that is likely to encourage undesirable thoracic flexion in most trainees.

[Murelli]

I'm going to see how many sentences I can start with "There's nothing wrong with buttholes but" for the rest of the day.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have been known to tell people having trouble setting up for the deadlift, "Imagine you're trying to show the gym your whole asshole".

But the point of all of this seems to be that cues are individual. Acceptable obscenity levels need to be socially gauged. As in all social interactions, when in doubt, don't get raunchy.

But something like "point your nipples at the floor" is something I wouldn't use for coaching the squat not because of the nipples part, necessarily, but because it's a cue that is likely to encourage undesirable thoracic flexion in most trainees.

Navel to the floor. That would be good.

[Stenson]

I'm not sure who came up with the "nipples" cue, but there is a guy (who I think is an SSC) in the StSt Facebook group that looooves to use that cue. Along with using "eat more" to solve every stalling question, regardless of the situation.

[fishwife]

Navel to the floor. That would be good.

Yah, I think that would work for a lot of people.

[chrisd]

I'm not sure who came up with the "nipples" cue, but there is a guy (who I think is an SSC) in the StSt Facebook group that looooves to use that cue. Along with using "eat more" to solve every stalling question, regardless of the situation.

Everyone in that group uses this cue, whether it's appropriate or not. They also can't judge depth.

[Stenson]

Everyone in that group uses this cue, whether it's appropriate or not. They also can't judge depth.

You have to be an SSC to judge depth, apparently. Us know-nothings can't tell if one point in space is lower than another point in space.

[chrisd]

Everyone in that group uses this cue, whether it's appropriate or not. They also can't judge depth.

You have to be an SSC to judge depth, apparently. Us no-nothings can't tell if one point in space is lower than another point in space.

Possibly, Joe Jabroni is not an ssc and seems unable to do it.

[quark]

I happened upon this SSOC squat discussion: https://startingstrengthonlinecoaching. ... c-coaches/

It includes

We have to teach these people that as soon as they break at the hips and knees, they MUST shove the knees FORWARD and OUT over the toes and BEND OVER ALOT (nipples to the floor). (They don’t have a problem sitting back early. The problem is that they don’t continue to sit back in the bottom, because they blew their load early on the “hips back.”)

FREEZE those knees (and really the back angle as well) 1/3 of the way down. They DO NOT MOVE from this point forward. Once they are here they just keep sitting back and staying on midfoot until they hit the bottom and then shove their ass up (HIP DRAHVE) to stand up.

I see other people (I’m sure you guys do to) who are firing their knees BACKWARDS coming out of the hole of the squat (hips follow back and back angle becomes more horizontal = bad).

I’ve been able to fix the knee issue (get knee position set 1/3-1/2 of the way into the descent) with TUBOW.

I believe most agree with the first two paragraphs, but I wonder about the third.

I didn't think knees back a bit coming out of the hole was a problem.

I have the sense many around here don't like TUBOW. If so, why not?

Am I confused about these things?

[Murelli]

I strongly disagree with the first two paragraphs. Cues are only useful in context of coach-trainee communication, so that barrage of cues (break knees and hips together, shove knees forward, knees out, bend over, sit back, freeze knees, sit back, push with your hips) is essentially useless for essentially everyone essentially.

You are confused because all that text is useless as TUBOW (hint, it's a crutch). They don't diagnose the problem (knees back is a symptom) so they don't know how to solve it. Most of those cues will reinforce the problem for most people, but let's allow SSOC to keep trying to teach people to smell their own taints with 100+ kg on their backs.

[quark]

I strongly disagree with the first two paragraphs. Cues are only useful in context of coach-trainee communication, so that barrage of cues (break knees and hips together, shove knees forward, knees out, bend over, sit back, freeze knees, sit back, push with your hips) is essentially useless for essentially everyone essentially.

You are confused because all that text is useless as TUBOW (hint, it's a crutch). They don't diagnose the problem (knees back is a symptom) so they don't know how to solve it. Most of those cues will reinforce the problem for most people, but let's allow SSOC to keep trying to teach people to smell their own taints with 100+ kg on their backs.

Isn't the substantive idea to set knees early, with the knees out sideways and out forward (not vertical shins)? At the same time, the hips go back and you descend with the bar over midfoot, which tends to involve leaning over?

How to cue these movements is another matter.

TUBOW is a crutch (or a last resort), but it might help getting a feeling where the knees should go, if you're not otherwise able to get a good feeling for this.

??

[Murelli]

I strongly disagree with the first two paragraphs. Cues are only useful in context of coach-trainee communication, so that barrage of cues (break knees and hips together, shove knees forward, knees out, bend over, sit back, freeze knees, sit back, push with your hips) is essentially useless for essentially everyone essentially.

You are confused because all that text is useless as TUBOW (hint, it's a crutch). They don't diagnose the problem (knees back is a symptom) so they don't know how to solve it. Most of those cues will reinforce the problem for most people, but let's allow SSOC to keep trying to teach people to smell their own taints with 100+ kg on their backs.

Isn't the substantive idea to set knees early, with the knees out sideways and out forward (not vertical shins)? At the same time, the hips go back and you descend with the bar over midfoot, which tends to involve leaning over?

How to cue these movements is another matter.

TUBOW is a crutch (or a last resort), but it might help getting a feeling where the knees should go, if you're not otherwise able to get a good feeling for this.

??

I'll work backwards:

TUBOW won't solve knees going backwards, for obvious reasons. It's maybe useful for knee slide, but I doubt it.

You can explain the "correct" mechanics of a movement, and you can cue the execution of a movement by a subject. You can't use cues to explain mechanics, that was what I was saying.

As many people already mentioned in this thread, upper back flexion and GMing squats is pretty common when you get anchored to the SSOC squat model (hips back, bend over with your milk glands pointed towards the center of the earth, freeze knees in an arbitrary part of the ROM, shove knees forward and out). That's a barrage approach - you don't know where the problem is, so bombard with all your weapons to try to solve it.

What we usually see is a lot of people GMing their squats from loss of tightness at the bottom, or exhacerbating the "hip drahve" cue (push the hips up). Most people should think about pushing the bar up. Most people should try to get their stance and gaze right for their anthropometry before thinking about cues. Most people don't know how to keep tight as hell through the whole ROM(Epic Valsalva™).

Also, focus on pushing hips back may lead to lumbar overextension and correction back to neutral on the bottom, which can cause discomfort, pain and loss of tightness.

[quark]

@Murelli Aha!