The vaunted back squat. One of the foundational (and dare I say more Important) movements in the world of strength and conditioning. Be it Powerlifting, Olympic Weightlifting or Athletic Development, developing this lift is crucial. That said, it is important to consider why we are squatting, and how that will affect programming.
Powerlifting
In Powerlifting, the back squat is one of the competition lifts. As a result, the end goal of any training cycle should have one goal: improve the results of the one rep max. We need to consider that one variable that we can manipulate to drive adaptation is volume. The more we can push the volume, the more we can move the needle (as long as recovery is adequate). Outside of timing these to minimize the affects on deadlifting, there are no other variables that we need to consider. This allows us to hit hard back squat sessions twice a week with minimal concern on how fatigue will affect the lifter for the day or two following the session. And as we do not need to worry about rate of force development, we can push these sessions to the point where slow/grinding reps play a role at times.
It makes things easy, squat hard (high volume and/or heavy). Recover. Repeat.
Olympic Weightlifting
As important as the back squat is for training Olympic Lifting, we have to remember that it is just a means to an end….a lift to help drive the results in the snatch or clean and jerk. At the end of the day, it is just an assistance exercise. For those who have a b sq of approx. 140% of their cnj: all that is needed is enough work to maintain their current strength level. Time spent trying to push the squats is time wasted. We can better invest that time in improving technical proficiency.
For those whose squat is lower, we need to work to improve the squat. But when we program we need to keep in mind the dynamic nature of the competition lifts. This means we need to make sure that the load or volume is adequate enough to stimulate growth, but no so high as to leave the lifter feeling slow/incapable of producing the power output needed to perform the technical lifts in the sessions after they squat. Another consideration is that heavy reps with a slow rate of force development should not play a large role in the training of an Oly Lifter. Outside of those rare individuals who have the combination of high power out put/GREAT technical development and weak legs, we need to maintain a certain level of rate of force development in our daily training sessions. . Slow reps are fine on test out days are fine. But we want to make them the exception, not the norm.
To say that programming the back squat for an Oly lifter is a balancing act is an understatement.
Athletic Development
As with Oly lifting, the back squat is simply a means to an end for an athlete. It serves to improve their force production and power output. But there are multiple things to consider.
Rate of force development is crucial. No sport that I can think of involves slow, plodding movements. Things happen quick. Therefor even when working to improve the squat numbers, we need to remember that very rare is there a direct correlation between improving the 1 RM back squat and the results on the field. it is better to keep the bulk of their load in a range that allows them to maintain power output and proper form. This may inhibit the development of max effort squats….but as that is not the goal is a sacrifice worth making.
They play another sport….so we have to consider both practice and games. Outside of the rare times when those are not a factor, we always have to consider how their squat load will impact their performance on the field. We can go aggressive with the programming and push them: but if that adversely impacts their performance, it is not worth it. We need to realize that moving the back squat is not as important as their performance on the field. And show constraint when programming.
Partial movements need to be used. Outside of certain instances there is a standard depth that Power or Oly lifters need to hit in training. Often this depth standard is applied to athletes. But they will inevitably develop to the point where improving the results of the back squat with full range of motion will no longer yield improvements on the field of play. When this occurs (as both the training age and proficiency in the sport grows), we will need to program partial squats. Be it box squats, pin squats or 1/4 squats: at a certain point those partial reps will apply more to the sport than full depth.
As we can see all three modalities of training have different parameters to consider when programming. It is not as simple as finding a squat program that works for one of them and using that as a model for everyone.