Squat. And don't die.

After my squat rant the other day, Charlotte asks:

I love lower body work. I really do. But please tell me how to do heavy squats without getting hemorrhoids. Not trying to be gross. Just saying it took a good six weeks to recover from my last 1-rep max.

She raises an excellent point. Squatting is one of the best things you can do for your body because it involves so many muscles working together to do so many things all at once. Unfortunately, this also means that if you're doing something wrong, you have the opportunity to mess yourself up in so many different ways.

So how do you squat safely? Follow my simple, patent-pending 4-step program:

1 - Learn technique.

The squat is the most technically complex of the "slow lifts." It's worth taking some time to understand exactly what you should be doing before loading up a bar and putting it on your back.

If you can afford it and can find a good coach in your area, in-person training is the best way to learn. If you can't get one-on-one training, then there are plenty of resources out there. Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe is generally regarded as the Holy Gospel of Strength Training and will tell you everything you need to know about the squat, deadlift, bench press, press, power clean and other lifts. There are plenty of useful videos out there in the inter-webs, too. I'd recommend the Squat Rx videos.

2 - Practice.

As with any physical skill, learning to squat takes practice. Use a light weight -- the empty bar works just fine -- and practice doing all the things you learned to do from your extensive study of technique.

If you have access to a video camera, tape yourself squatting and then watch it to make sure your body is really doing what you think it's doing. You can even post the video online and ask for people to critique your form -- the Crossfit Message Boards and Rippetoe's thread over at Strength Mill are two great places for this.

3 - Take it slow

Once you feel comfortable with the movement and have a reasonable degree of certainty that you're doing it correctly, increase the weight in a CONTROLLED, GRADUAL and METHODICAL way. Increase your weight by a set increment between workouts: 10 pounds at the beginning, moving down to 5 pound or even 2.5 pound increases once the weight starts getting heavier. Making big jumps in weight that your body isn't prepared for (even though you think it is) is a great way to injure yourself.

4 - Rinse and repeat

Tiger Woods is possibly the greatest golfer ever, and his swing causes golf aficionados to drool all over their Nike Dri-Fit polos. But no two swings he's ever taken were identical, and he's completely re-tooled his swing more than once.

Squatting is no different -- even when you've been doing it for years, your squat is constantly changing and you need to be constantly monitoring your form to make sure everything is going well. Once you think you've gotten the squat down pat, take occasional form check videos to make sure you're really still on track, or ask a knowledgeable coach or friend to watch you squat. "Form creep" happens to everyone, and the earlier you spot and correct the little things that start to go wrong, the better off you'll be.

5 - BONUS! A few assorted tips

Some tips for safe & fun squatting for the entire family:

• Always warm up before squatting. A general warm-up to break a light sweat plus a set or two of light squats before your "work sets" will go a long way to keep you safe.


• No 1 rep maxes for beginners! Hate to call Charlotte out like this, but she probably shouldn't have been doing a 1 rep max in the first place. Things WILL go wrong in a 1 rep max attempt, and you should have a good deal of experience under the bar before even attempting one. Unless you're training to compete in a strength sport, 1 rep maxes aren't really ever necessary in your training. And many competitive lifters don't attempt a true 1 rep max outside of meets, anyway.


• Always have some sort of spotter handy. This can mean that you have the safety bars in a power rack or squat rack set to a height that will catch the bar if you get stuck at the bottom of a squat, or just that you have a friend who knows how to safely spot you standing by watching you in case things get out of hand.

Take the time to learn to squat safely and correctly, and you'll reap the benefits for years. Try to do too much weight too soon without learning proper form, and you might end up like this guy.

Squat, dammit!

I've discussed the value of the squat before. But it's frustrating to see so many guys in the gym doing nothing but 17 variations of bicep curls and then a set or two of "bench," so please indulge me as I rant a little more about the value of the squat, and lower-body training in general.

For some reason, the American male thinks of strength as an upper-body phenomenon. If a guy wants to get an idea of how strong another guy is, he asks how much he can bench press. Or, if he's not the "interact directly with others" type, he just sizes up the guy's biceps.

But WHY? If your idea of strength can be entirely contained between the elbows and the rib cage, then you're leaving out a significant portion of the human body.

In the real world, if your legs can't support it, you can't lift it. You may be able to bench press 300 pounds, but if you've never squatted or deadlifted, you'll be exactly as useful as your 95 pound niece when it comes to moving a couch or pushing a stalled car.

And please don't try to tell me that you don't need to squat because you run, and running is all the work your legs need. That's just silly. Is 500 dumbbell bench presses with 5 pounds in each hand the same as a heavy set of 5 with 200 pounds? No. Lifting heavy weights builds strength, endless repetition of a motion that is easy when done once does not.

For those of you who don't train for strength, but just want to "look muscular," all I can do is slap you upside the head and tell you to go read up on exercise: if you want to look like an athlete, you have to train like an athlete. And that includes squats, Sonny Jim.

So, please, if you're lifting weights to get stronger, SQUAT. Or deadlift. Heck, do dumbbell lunges if you can't stand the thought of putting a bar on your back. But strengthen your legs with heavy weights, or all you're doing is trying to build a brick house on a foundation made of toothpicks.

Dude...

I've sucked at this blog thing. To be fair, I was on vacation in China for pretty much the entire month of May, but I logged back on this blog and saw that my most recent post was on April 8!

A quick update on where I've been since then: I started modeling my programming after Crossfit's 3 on, 1 off schedule. I'd lift on the 1st day, do the workout posted to the Crossfit website on days 2 and 3, take a rest day, and repeat. This only lasted for about 2.5 weeks before I headed off to China, but it seemed to be greatly improving my general conditioning while still helping me build strength.

But then I went to China, and had nothing but myself and occasionally some playground equipment to work out with. I did a pretty good job of working out, averaging about 2 workouts for every 3 days I was there. But it was all bodyweight stuff and sprints, so while my conditioning improved a little, my strength definitely went downhill.

So now I'm working on building my strength back up, although I still haven't really gotten back into a steady schedule. I was intending to go with a lift-rest-lift-rest, rinse, repeat, schedule until my strength returned to previous levels, but I've let other things get in the way of that. I'll have to tinker and find a schedule that fits both my goals (get strength back!) and my life.

I generally use squats as a measure of my overall strength, and I'm scheduled to attempt 5 sets of 5 with 245 pounds for my next workout, compared to 275 pounds before I left. It's a little frustrating working with what I previously considered "light" weights but I know it'll come back quickly, provided I can actually get my rear in gear and re-establish the habit of getting in the gym.

Strangers with candy

Today was a tough day at the gym. I missed or skipped 25 reps out of a possible 65 with my target weights over 3 exercises. It was absolutely brutal. It was my own fault -- I only got about 5 hours of sleep last night and I'd eaten very little all day, but it was still rough.

But it was also one of the best days I've had at the gym in a long time.

When I arrived at the gym, a middle-aged couple was using the only squat rack. I asked how much longer they had, then went and warmed up while they were finishing. They let me know when they were done, I started squatting and they went over to do some other exercises.

The squats were brutal. I only got 4 reps on my first set, then another 4, and then only 2 on my third. I was furious at myself, but I calmed down and realized that today was obviously an off day, so I dropped the weight by 50 lbs and started doing sets of 10.

After my first set of 10, the wife who had been using the squat rack before me came over and complimented me on my squats. She was impressed with the amount of weight I was squatting and the fact that I was squatting below parallel. We talked for a while about lifting -- she and her husband have been lifting weights together for over 20 years!

That little conversation was the boost I needed to get through what was, up to that point, an extremely frustrating workout. While I was busy berating myself about my poor performance, that couple was watching me work out and saw me working hard and moving a respectable amount of weight.

It's a reminder that we're always our own harshest critics. Sure, I didn't do as well as I'd hoped to do today. I failed miserably by the standards I set for myself. But the important part, the part that that nice couple saw, was that I kept working hard despite the frustration and turned what could have been a completely wasted workout into something productive, at least.

Sometimes it's nice to be able to get a glimpse of yourself from a stranger's point of view. It's even better when that glimpse shows you something better than you expected.

Exercise Crack

Inspired by Mac's post today at Get Fit Slowly.

Everybody knows that they should exercise, but it seems that only a small percentage of the world population acts on this knowledge. If you're one of those who knows you need to start but just can't seem to drag yourself into the gym, try a few of these ideas to motivate yourself:

1 - Write down every reason you can think of that you should exercise. Fitness reasons, health reasons, body image reasons, social reasons, family reasons, mental health reasons, etc. You'll be surprised how long the list gets. Then write down every reason you can think of that you shouldn't exercise. When you compare these two lists, you'll see that the "should" list will be much longer. And the "shouldn't" list will consist mainly of variations on "I don't want to."

3 - Find an exercise buddy. It can be a neighbor, coworker, friend or dog, but if you have somebody who you know is depending on you to show up, lots of excuses go away.

4 - Tell people you're starting an exercise program. That way you'll be motivated because you know they'll ask you how the program is going.

5 - Read health studies. Seriously. If you keep on reading about how good exercise is for you and how eating crap and sitting on your butt will kill you, you'll want to act on that information. Charlotte at The Great Fitness Experiment will hook you up with more studies than you can shake a stick at.

6 - Give yourself a "carrot." Do you love lattes? Make it a rule that you can only get one after your workout. Had your eye on a new pair of shoes, video game, etc.? Tell yourself you can buy it if you work out 3 times a week for a month.

Once you've started exercising, tracking your progress will help keep you motivated to exercise for the long haul. Mark every day that you exercise with a big X on the calendar and keep a written record of how far you walk/jog or how much weight you lift. Seeing your progress over time can be a powerful motivator to keep on exercising!

DON'T TRACK YOUR BODY WEIGHT. Weight fluctuates from day to day and hour to hour based on a whole schmorgasboard of variables, and is a very inaccurate way of measuring fitness and health. If you must track a physical attribute, track body fat percentage. Even better, take a picture of yourself in your favorite outfit every week or so to see how much better you start looking after a few weeks/months of regular exercise.

Everybody should exercise. That includes you. So go do it.

Sad

I'm saddened by what's going on over at StrongLifts. Mehdi, the author, is changing the entire forum over to paid membership. The hundreds of people who contributed to make that forum a great place for lifters, especially beginners, to go for information, help and support are now being shut out of the community they've created.

I understand that Mehdi needs to make a little cash to pay for hosting, etc. and that he eventually wants to make a living from the site. Many readers suggested adding advertisements, a donation button or a "premium" section of the website as alternatives to closing off the message board community in this way, but Mehdi summarily dismissed all of these ideas. By doing so, he's choosing short-term cash flow over the long-term growth of his site and over the interests of his customers.

I'm further disappointed by today's post on the StrongLifts blog. In it, he calls everyone who voiced their dissatisfaction with his decision "crabs":

The Crabs story.

The thing about AFCs are that they’re a bunch of crabs in a barrel. Just as one starts to lift himself out of the barrel, the other crabs will grab him and pull him back in.

AFCs are Average Frustrated Chumps. Guys who don’t get the girls and whine about it. If this sounds familiar, don’t worry it’s curable.

The people he's calling "crabs" are people who, for the most part, voiced their concern that this move would damage the viability of the blog as both a place for people to learn about strength training and as a profitable business venture for Mehdi. I'm included in this group. I'm shocked and disappointed that Mehdi chose to respond like this to expressions of genuine concern from people who really want StrongLifts to succeed.

It boils down to this: Mehdi's actions tell me that his number 1 priority is making money from his blog. Spreading good information about strength training, helping people learn and creating a supportive community are obviously second-tier goals for him.

For this reason, I am removing StrongLifts from my blogroll and will no longer be linking to any of his posts. He could care less, since I probably get something like a whopping 7 readers a month, but I'm not comfortable with promoting the site of someone who is comfortable making a move like this.

Iron Zen

I'm not a very spiritual person. It's not that I don't believe we humans have a spiritual side -- it's just that I don't think about it that much. But sometimes I do.

I've heard meditation described as entering a state in which the ego is dissolved. The line between you and the world dissolves and you feel the energy of the universe flow through you.

I don't meditate, but I get that feeling sometimes, too. I get it through lifting. When you've pushed your body to its absolute limit on an especially heavy lift, or on the last rep of a particularly tough set, sometimes you push so hard that all you can see is a mass of color, and all you can hear is a high-pitched whine.

Your feet feel like roots, planted into the earth, immobile. Your body feels simultaneously like it's dissolving into the world around it and like it's permanent, immobile, legs and back and shoulders forever locked in support of the weight on the bar.

That feeling -- the complete unconsciousness of anything but the energy flowing from the world through you and into the bar, and the way that flow of energy negates your normal sense of yourself as a being independent of and distinguishable from the universe around you -- is, as the kids say these days, freakin' sweet.

I'm sure that the more scientific among us would (accurately) describe this feeling as nothing more than a brief period of semi-consciousness caused by momentarily interrupted blood flow to the brain due to extreme exertion. But those people are just killjoys. I call it iron zen.

It's why I love deadlifts and power cleans. For some reason, the heavy movements from the floor produce the intensity necessary to get this feeling much more often than squats or presses. I think that presses just aren't strong enough movements to produce the intensity necessary to reach iron zen, and I'm not yet proficient enough at squats -- during heavy squats I'm usually focusing too hard on keeping my form to give the all-out effort necessary for iron zen.

But however you reach it, it's a great feeling, it's a sign of a damn good training session (excuse my French), and it's a perfectly valid excuse for we non-spiritual folk to take a minute to think about the connection between mind and matter.