Adarq.org

First thing I need to say is i didn;t watch the whole video so this is a half assed response... but some of the info and images were annoying me.

not sure if I buy what he is selling.  All high level athletes have these curved toes?  Is that because they are high level athletes or because they wear athletic shoes all day.  Look at a womens feet.  the ones that cram their feet into dress high heel shoes have curved toes.  The ladies that wear flip flops all day tend to have straight toes (no foot fetish, I just watch people move all day long).  Also looking at calluses is only half the story.  the foot is where the rubber meets the road.  literally.  but the engine comes around the hips.  so are the similar calluses the function of the foot or are they a result of the function of the hip muscles and their impact on leg swing and gait patterns.  In other words the foot doesn't necessarily dictate where it strikes and toes off (your calluses) it is the hip and core that mainly influence that.

Dwayne Wade lands on his heel, now I am not a big basketball fan so I have not analyzed his movement BUT the photo they chose you can clearly see that wade is about to change direction.  You do not change direction on your toes very well (not enough traction esp at full speed on the toes).  So to turn you need to slow down.  That involves braking forces and getting your COG behind your foot.  When we accelerate our COG is in front of the foot strike.  So Wade is slowing down and turning.  EVERY player in that instance would be heel striking.

I am not saying he is wrong but with an olympian, multi nba championship winner, all star, and probably future HOFer there sure should be a better photo showing wade heel striking during acceleration.

So foot function is important... Yes, We've been talking about it for years.  Broad generality here: You accelerate on forefoot, maintain speed on forefoot-mid foot, and slow down on heels (unless your name is reggie bush, then the rules go our the window)

I could make a video selling the foot and ankle as the key to high level football playing.  In it I could say that after evaluating a ton of NFL athletes that the commonality is they all have little to no ankle rocker (BTW this is true, it is a horrible weakness).  So is that why they are in the league OR is it because they tape the shit out of their ankles so they are basically walking around in casts 3-5 hours a day?  I could also say the key to being a lineman is having a flat foot (most do) but is that why they are in the league or because their foot experiences high forces and they weigh ~300lbs.  Most people around 300 have flat feet.  See what I am getting at.

Again i didn't watch the whole video and there could be some great info but...

Bingisser's bondarchuck approach is interesting.

Research shows us that high speed work Moves the FV curve with it;s greatest impact at the V side.

Strength moves the FV curve with it's greatest impact at the F side

Strength work also positively impacts V to a greater degree than training at high speeds impacts the F side

Thus strength has more general carryover to athletics than Speed work (it is great GPP)

I think the high speed work improved the Snatch because the snatch may have been limited by bar speed.  He got faster.

Personally I like bondarchucks approach to strength training.  He follows something similar to Pavel's Easy Strength or Even Easier Strength (the 40 day program dan john wrote about).  these programs let volume and frequency drive strength as opposed to intensity.  This allows for more time to be spent on SPP and let practices drive performance improvements.  Bingisser described his strength program as a few basic lifts trained every day in the 60-80% range using lower reps (5 or fewer)  So Squat, Press, Pull every day, wave the load, minimize fatigue, keep intensity to 60-80%...  Thats Pavels Even Easier Strength workout.  Pavel would add 1-2 sets of swings and 1-2 sets of a core exercise.

I think an  approach similar to this 70% of the time would be great.  You could drive conditioning up in this period (Strength and endurance form the basis of GPP).  Then in a peaking approach go through a power phase where the loads are similar BUT you emphasize CAT.  Finally finish with a HIGH velocity/peaking phase in the 25-50% range.  Power and peaking phases would have little "strength" work other than the high speed stuff.

Finally everyone on Bingissers team benches around 500# (I believe that is what was said in his interview)  So what good is it to focus intensely on driving that up to 550 or 600?  That drive would require high intensity methods which would fight for compensation with sport practice taking away adaptive reserves that should be left for throwing.  It would also increase the risk of injury rather than taking the slow approach.

Food for thought

I guess the most important question about this was why do you want to squat like that?

From your response it sounds like you want to be an olympic lifter.  That is one technique that you can use to be a better olympic lifter.  I have never seen anyone actually train their back squat n the positions shown in the picture (the vids showed theory but lacked in their technique when under a bar).  I am not saying they are wrong.  For Olympic lifting they may very well be correct.

IMO it borders on the point of diminishing returns for an athlete.  The further one goes down the rabbit hole of sport specific training for olympic lifting or powerlifting the further they stray from their goals as an athlete.

Jst did a quick google search of images showing olympic squats back and front.

The only pics where the knees even come close to that far forward is in a front squat.  Even then most front squats dont have the knees that far forward. 

My question is why do you want to back squat like that?

Kinda lame

Pavel calls this rooting and has been talking about this for over 15 years (that I know of).  OLympic lifters and powerlifters have been doing it since the dawn of time.  Basically you are taking the slack out of a joint and making it more stable.  More stable joint = more efficient force production from prime movers cause you are not leaking energy.

the downside of the starrett book is that i'm thinking too hard now during squats. i need to relax and trust my form, which is still solid, and not overthink mid-set. also i think my legs were tired from yesterday. might be time to move away from straight sets of 4x8 and switch back to 3x3 + 3x8 once a week and MSEM once or twice a week.

Happens to me all the time.  I will spend time reworking the squat and then my back will get sore.  My wife will watch my squat and say stop overthinking it.  Then, as any smart husband does, I listen to her and everything gets better.  I just need to remember that I have mastered the squat for my body type.  Don;t fix it if it aint broken.

Liked Kellys book BUT he needs a more clear application. 

For example he could do one of the following ideas:

In the exercise section when he shows the fails he could include all the correctives from later in the book in order that he would have worked through them with appropriate page numbers. 

Or a list of common injury areas and then list in rehab order the page numbers.

For example Plantar Fascitis: roll out bottom of foot P#,  massage between toes P#, Foam roll peroneals P#, heel cord smash P#, heel cord saw P#

I know all of these are not in the book but I don;t remember all of the correctives.

With out this when I have an ache pop up I end up having to read the whole section on that joint all over to figure out which drills help it.

OK read.  I am not a fan of the overcorrection into posterior pelvic tilt.  I guess we should expect it because spinal flexion was bad so there was an emphasis on lordosis/ant tilt.  Now we are hearing how bad excessive lordisis is and are correcting to flexion/post tilt.

Of course the answer lies in the middle.  Train proper core function (neutral spine and pelvis) and then layer on hip mobility, strength, and power. 

Not to say I don't ever cue posterior tilt, as it is handy when trying to get an athlete from ant tilt to neutral.

The clean pull on to toes looked like a nightmare.  Cant imagine a group of guys doing that one well.  Also why do we have to always include an olympic lift variant in any discussion about training an athlete.  To be honest it didn't look much like a clean pull.  I like his suggestion of bounds for the ankle and hip pop.  Korfist has some good ones as does bosch.