Friday, January 23, 2009

Perfect Squat

This is the body position at parallel in a normal squat:

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This is the body position at paralell of the Perfect Squat:

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In case it is not clear arms are against the sides in the perfect squat but they are extended forwards in the conventional bodyweight squat Another difference is that legs are shoulder width or wider in the conventional squat and they are together for the perfect squat).

The perfect squat is not actually possible, it would require infinite force to sustain. But as you move from the normal squat to the Perfect Squat you will be in effect applying greater and greater force. The only limiting factor is your strength.

When trying this maintain a lot of body tension and go slowly. This will allow you to find the limits of your strength without tipping over.

The principle at work here is torque and you can make similar modifications to make other exercises insanely hard. It definitely works for pull-ups, or lever or planche variations.

7 comments:

  1. Interesting but you would need some sort of equipment to hold your legs in order to do a "perfect squat"

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  2. no the idea is to do it without equipment, and to try to get as close as you can to the perfect squat knowing that you will never quite make it.

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  3. If you cant use equipment how would you counter balance? Is there a special technique you use? Can you post a video or something because I do not understand how to do it, Thanks.

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  4. you will need to counterbalance to a greater or lesser extent by doing any of the following or all of them to a lesser extent: letting the knees drift forward, moving the feet apart, bending at the waist, or rasing the arms. The stronger you get though the less you will have to counterbalance. That is how you make the movement progressively harder.

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  5. That makes sence, now how do you go about counter balanceing less, I find this very intresting.

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  6. you just have to keep a lot of body tension and gradually fight as you squat down to get closer to the perfect squat position. You might be far from it and closer to a normal squat but as you get better you will start to close the gap. Try it I guarantee you will feel the intensity.

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  7. Can you please post a video of and example or progressions, thanks.

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