The danger I was talking about is from athletes trying to wait too long to put the feet down, reaching out further than they are capable, and landing on "locked" knees. There are many cases of this and Ive seen several at combines myself during broad jump tests.
The reason your squat hurts your knees is because your using so much forward knee travel. In a properly performed, below paralell squat, the glutes feel like they almost completely take over until about midway up. You are essentially performing a hip thrust up to that point if you think about it. Your squatting technique wont permit you to drop the hips low enough below your kneecaps to experience this. When you go lower it requires even more forward knee travel, hence your increased pain. Ive already tried to explain to you that this "pretty" squat you have in your head that a 4 foot 5 Chinese olympic lifter wearing weightlifting shoes performs is not going to be the optimal squatting position for taller, longer limbed guys like us. Long legs, short torso, you are going to have to create some forward lean to squat correctly. Its really that simple, long torso/short legs- can stay very upright, short torso/long legs- need some forward lean. Neither is better and neither is worse. Whats bad is when a long leg/short torso lifter like you tries to emulate a perfectly upright torso position, causing crazy forward knee travel, or a long torso/short leg lifter tries to lean forward too much causing too much low back activity. Their torso is a longer lever than ours, they have to keep it upright.
yup great post.. I wish I had more video of eddie squatting. Raptor just tries to be someone he is not, sometimes, kind of like CCJ wanting to be SquatDR. I think it is a very unhealthy mindset, and leads to all types of injuries. For example, I would have raptor just half squatting (comfortably) and working hard on unilaterals. It's the same thing I'd have eddie do, shit, he didn't even get to half squat usually, it was more somewhere between half and quarter. He got so strong though it was insane. His legs were insanely long and his torso was short, so why waste years trying to get him to squat like Zhang Guozheng, like you said.. Too many coaches adopt this mindset.
I'll give a quick analogy.. In high school, I literally was ridiculou at basketball, but I had a major beef with the varsity coach. I was more of a point guard who could create a ton. I could always get to the hoop, to dish, get fouled, or put up some buckets. But my varsity coach RAPED MY MIND by having the team run some Princeton offense: "3 passes before any shot!". So, i'd intuitively just take advantage of a gap in defense and get to the lane etc, creating a play/opportunity, then i'd get benched.................................... "IT'S 3 PASSES BEFORE ANY SHOT!"... So needless to say, my brain got completely fucked and wrecked my passion for basketball at the time. I just couldn't understand that shit.. On JV I didn't start, but I was 6th man off the bench with a few 20 point games and shit, so I mean I wasn't garbage.. The JV coach had a way different style than varsity.. I was allowed to create on JV.. So here I am thinking varsity will be great, everyone thinking i'm going to play, and instead, I end up being forced into positions that are so foreign to me that it wrecked my love for the game.. Now, some people might be saying, "well ya dude that's league level basketball, deal with it", which is totally fine, that's why I quit and played street and got into boxing etc.
That one experience changed the entire course of my life.. if you try and confine me, I adapt... if you try and "get me to squat deep when it is unnatural for me", I adapt.. I don't give a fuck who is telling me to squat deep, my body is not meant for it.. I will not waste my time doing something that doesn't take advantage of my natural leverages or abilities..... we all have unique abilities that introduce little changes into how things should actually be done, rather than just following the norm.
ok sorry for the rant, but that's kind of how I see the whole "do it like this" mindset in s&c.. sure, we need to train with good form, but that form will change based on how we are built, so small changes are necessary.. why box yourself in trying to become something you aren't? Most high jumpers half or quarter squat, they don't really give a shit about ATG
peace
