another leg mechanics question

[maccaz]

this is for all the physics and (bro?)scientists from my last thread re outer quad sweep.

I have shit hip flexibility, always have and physio reckons it will keep getting better to a point, but prob never be able to squat atg.

so my question is, i can squat a lot better with 2.5kg plates under my heels, how does this affect the mechanics of the movement and potential muscle growth?

my typical squat is toes pointing out a little, and 2.5kg plates under my heels, heels a tiny bit wider than shoulder width out.

 

might post a vid if i can get someone to film

[FellowshipOfTheRon]

nice thread, shame about the last one becoming confusing as hell though lol.

i just started doing that too. helped make big diff in depth either way. far as i can tell it's just helping me focus more on heel drive, helping keep me in a stable position all the way through the movement and most importantly helping compensate for that loss of ankle mobility. as you move lower down, ankle hips and knees do what they gotta do but when one of them suffers from natural range of motion (in our case hips or ankles), it forces the other joints to overcompensate for this by going a bit further hence some people complaining about knee or hip problems with squats. well, that's my broscientists take on it, would be more interesting to hear from someone who knows a lot more about all this though like dr squat

 

if i can add another question to this thread since it's all related : what problems could someone have if they experience hip flexor tightness/pain during deep squats and how might they go about fixing this?

[OnlyHuman]

....so my question is, i can squat a lot better with 2.5kg plates under my heels, how does this affect the mechanics of the movement and potential muscle growth?...

 

IMHO 

Your question is a bit open ended to some degree as it is influenced by your prefered squat style (eg sitting back like a powerlifter vs staying upright as much as you can like an oly lifter) as well as influenced by your individual leverages. 

So your individual levarages may help or hinder your ability to get to depth eg: 

• Peope with short femur and long torso has an easier time to get deep in ether type of squat.
• Someone with long femure and short torso will have a very hard time reaching dept if they do a "proper" powerlifting squat where they push the ass back as much as posible. Basicly the torso run out of lenght before the femure (your thigh bone) gets deep enough. 

Elevating the heel is an easy way to substitute for a lack of ankle mobility. So if you found that elevating your heels makes things much easier than it is likely that the proposed tightness/lack of mobility thus your problem of reaching depth comes from your ankles (or at least some of it). 

It is generally accepthed that the more you let your knees travel forward (squating like an oly lifter) the more it becomes a quad dominant movement. 

The more you "sit back" into your squat the more you load the hips/lowerback (but your quads still do quite a bit of the work as well).  

So I am not saying that in either style you don't work the rest of the musculature or it is either this or that. More like you shift some or most of the work onto those areas - thus could expect to see muscle growth in those areas that you stress more than the ones you don't load so much because your squat style. 

 

If you have flexibility problems I advice you to check this out:

http://www.mobilitywod.com/

There is a lot of great information there that would get you going in the right direction. 

 

Good luck! 

(I hope I made sense, just got out of a 5 hour exam, feeling brain dead.) 

[maccaz]

perfect thanks OH.

Hard to explain the problem I have but I squat with shoulders back, head up, bit of back arch. Ankles limit how far my knees can come forward so if I was to try squat deep with flat feet i'd fall backwards.

I'm also unable to squat with narrow stance or feet pointing forward, it doesn't feel right, but have been walking with toes a bit out ever since breaking my leg and being in a cast for 12 weeks in 2011 so thats probably contributing.

[Leeroid]

There is a very illustrative animation here which you can have a play around with. This is probably one of the best articles on the Internet regarding the biomechanics of the back squat. It's a 3 page article.

 

http://www.athleticdesign.se/athletics/squat_article_1_english.html#application2

 

The animations are on page 2 and 3.

 

"Limited mobility of the ankle (sometimes blamed on “short Achilles tendons”) is often pointed out as a limiting factor, but that is actually very rare. In fact most people can learn to reach a deep position with almost vertically aligned lower legs (tibias) and therefore hardly need to mobilize the ankle at all. The difficulty is rather due to inexperience and an incorrect technique that can be quickly corrected. To better understand how the squat movement is restricted in purely geometrical terms, the interactive application below is very helpful."