In this shortened episode (sorry, we had some technical difficulties!), Pat and Dan discuss common Easy Strength mistakes, then take a listener question on what to do if someone only wants to train one day per week.
Dan John on the 1 Day Per Week Training Programming
(Plus 5 Common Easy Strength Mistakes)
Dan’s Article – Squats and Easy Strength
Squats and Easy Strength
Years ago, I wrote an article, I thought a BRILLIANT article, and someone posted this on the comments below:
TL;DR
I asked Lindsay (my daughter) what disease this was. She said: “Too long, didn’t read.”
I weep for humanity.
For those of you who want the quick answer: I can’t get squats to work in the Easy Strength protocol. Oh…I tried! Others have, too.
Squats are golden for the warmup, great for mobility and mass building, and the heart and soul of powerlifting and Olympic lifting.
But: they don’t work in ES. And, yes, I apologize.
Let’s look at this issue in more detail.
Years ago, I stopped trying to stuff round pegs into square holes. I decided to simplify the way I overview strength movements into just five movements:
Push
Pull
Hinge
Squat
Loaded Carry
As Steve Ledbetter, Coach Stevo, noted, the “Sixth Movement” is everything else. That can be groundwork, brachiating and whatever else doesn’t fit into my Old School mindset on training.
Of course, hands go up. “What about horizontal and vertical pushes and pulls?” Yeah, that’s what most male North American trainers need…more upper body work.
“What about the one-legged Assyrian lunges and one-armed Pekinese arm bars?” Please put your hand down.
The Five Basic Human Movements, over time, expanded into the Movement Matrix. I try to keep the number of exercises low on the matrix. Certainly, we can rabbit hole into nearly infinite variations of regressions, progressions and corrections.
(Insert Matrix here)
My idea is to keep the total number of movements, including relatively simple things like planks and goblet squats, to under forty. Some take a moment to teach; others take a lot longer. Most of the movements progress the trainer towards more ballistic and complex movements. Some of the movements, for sports performance success, are simply more important long term.
For success in my world, the advice I received in 1974 still remains true:
“Brian Oldfield, Al Feuerbach, Bruce Wilhelm, and Sam Walker favored the quick lifts, while George Woods and Randy Matson leaned toward the strength lifts. …if there was any real consensus among the champion shotputters, it was that a mixture of quick and strength lifts is effective.”
Dave Davis, Track Technique, March and June 1974
When I originally began experimenting with Easy Strength, I originally thought I could use Davis’s insight and simply mimic his ideas:
Push: Bench or Military Press
Pull: Hmmm, that’s not as clear as we review Davis’s list
Hinge: Snatch, Clean or Deadlift
Squat: Front or Back Squat
Loaded Carries: Farmer Walks (I know, I know, Davis doesn’t list them, but they are marvelous)
It’s taken a while to realize a few things. Before I get into the hard-earned lessons, let’s look at my most recent template:
Push: Vertical Push
Pull: Vertical Pull (Pull ups or chin ups)
Hinge: Deadlift variation
Squat: As a warmup
Loaded Carry: Any variation of Farmer Walk, Prowler or Sled Pull
As I look over my early attempts with the pull movement, I see my gap in coaching and training. Like many people who spent too much time under the bar, I had pushed my way to success.
And…I ignored pulls!!!
Certainly, a big deadlift, a kettlebell snatch, or the O lifts work the pull, right?
Well, no. Well, maybe yes. For most of the people I train, the pull is Grand Canyon of gaps.
For the record, doing the horizontal pulls, like rows, have never worked doing Easy Strength…from my experiences. Some have had some success with machine rows, but rowing requires a disciplined hinge, a pause at the top and no herky jerky movements. That level of discipline while training five days a week while repeating the same movement certainly CAN be done.
I have just never seen it. I have just never witnessed it. The Loch Ness Monster keeps a close watch on Big Foot while they do the Easy Strength horizontal row protocols.
Here’s the issue: for a collision sport athlete (or collision occupation person) or a sport that is ballistic (like throwers), the horizontal rows put that lower back on notice. It’s not IF the lower back is getting set to pop and cause misery for weeks, it is WHEN.
Yet…we need pulls.
If you want to embarrass the average O lifter or powerlifter, walk them over to the pull up bar. You may have to explain what it is first. Yet, the benefits of doing vertical pulls, especially for the health of the shoulder, is without peer.
Dr. John Kirsch published a book called “Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention,” subtitled “The Kauai Study” as he did the work on this island. Simply hanging from a bar daily seems to improve shoulder health remarkably. I tried it and it undid the damage from an old Olympic lifting injury. Hanging is the staple of many of my warrior training programs.
Sure, horizontal pulling is good. Vertical is better. Back to our template.
Push: Vertical Push
Pull: Vertical Pull (Pull ups or chin ups)
Hinge: Deadlift variation
Squat: As a warmup
Loaded Carry: Any variation of Farmer Walk, Prowler or Sled Pull
So, again, why don’t squats work?
It could simply be that many people still don’t know how to squat. Yes, the goblet squat, and humbly I admit that it might be the most important insight in the history of strength and conditioning, has done miracles in teaching that we don’t squat ON our legs, we squat BETWEEN them. During one of our discussions, it was noted that maybe the squat relies on too many joints: the whole body has to be orchestrated to get in and out of the hole.
Too many joints? That got me thinking (generally, a good thing). Compared to other movements, the squat does seem to demand a hinge, a knee bend (both ideally), shoulders, elbows and arms (more or less depending on the squat variation) and some ankle bend.
When I deadlift, I think “crane” like the big rigs my dad used to wield at E. H. Bean Trucking and Rigging. A max deadlift might look for several seconds like the bar is glued to the floor before that magic moment when it breaks off the platform.
Squatting is more complex. Maybe it is the joints.
Never discount the squat…and this leads us to the next insight about the real value of squatting. The deadlift, an amazing display of raw strength, doesn’t do much for mass building…generally.
I don’t have an books or articles that ask for fifty rep deadlifts and a Gallon of Milk a Day (GOMAD). But I have squat books that teach this work out. Our old friend, John McCallum who wrote the Genesis of lifting, The Keys to Progress, comes back to the high rep squat in many of his bulk and power workouts.
I have a simple idea here: Homunculus Man.
He’s no fashion model. He reflects the neurological map of how the brain is wired to the body. Yes, the lips and eyes are huge.
But LOOK at the hands! The hands are amazingly complex. They are heavily wired.
Great.
What’s that got to do with squatting? With squatting, you don’t really grip. Certainly, irridation is a key to squat performance but you don’t really use the grip in squatting as you do in the O lifts and the deadlifts.
Squatting might be easier on the nervous system than deadlifting. Strength is neurological. Easy Strength focuses on training the nervous system. Yes, no question, someone squatting 1,000 pounds is strong. One could easily argue that deadlifting 1000 is stronger.
One other quick story connected the dots for me. I had a discussion with a young man who began doing handstand pushups and quickly noted an increase in upper body muscularity. It set off an alarm bell in my head.
Dips. In my youth, dips were the “go to” exercise for guys wanting to “look good.” I believe this is still a popular goal. Dips and handstand presses are easy on the grip and maybe this is why hypertrophy improves with their inclusion.
I’m not sure there is an exercise worth doing that is totally “hands free.”
Deep, high rep squats and dips were part of McCallum’s bulk and power routines. The dip motion was the model for the Nautilus Chest Machine. Many of us used this machine, not the Nautilus training principles with great success.
It cost the same as a nice automobile, so not many home gyms had one.
One small caveat about dips: some adolescents find the dip to be excruciating on the middle of the sternum. I don’t test on dips because of this and the smart coach will ask for feedback. Once growth has finished, this issue seems to clear up.
Maybe it is as simple as this: save squats for hypertrophy work. Strength is a learned skill and Easy Strength focuses on the goal of getting weirdly strong.
A final point: mass building is great for American football, Rugby and basic bodybuilding. In the majority of sports, gaining mass can often hinder performance. An obvious example would be the High Jump. In pursuit of elite goals, “enough is enough” when it comes to mass building.
Save the squats for hypertrophy work.
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