Author: andrewelsass

There is never an absolute answer to everything, except of course that you have to do your squats.
-Mark Rippetoe, American strength coach and author

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More than any other exercise, none has been more vilified- or misunderstood- than the squat.

Which is massively ironic considering that people- especially those with desk jobs- perform multiple squats every waking hour of their life.

Getting up from your office chair, out of your car, or even off the toilet… if you are going from a sitting position to standing or vice versa, you are squatting.

Why wouldn’t you train a movement that has a direct carryover to your everyday life?
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Like barefoot-style running and diet, squatting is another one of those things that humans did one way for a million years, and now that we’ve changed it up in the last few hundred we have a plethora of new maladies.

Unfortunately with squatting, the solution to the problem isn’t as simple as orthopedics or medicine, but surgery.

Squatting to the ground is a natural range of motion for our species, and the natural position in which to relieve oneself. There is a reason toddlers go into a squat when they are beginning their potty training or picking something up off the ground– it’s how our bodies are designed.

The sitting toilet as we know it is unique to Western society (a few European nations being notable exceptions), and surprise- there are lower incidences of colon and pelvic disease in nations that use a squatting method to go to the bathroom.

Around the time the sitting toilet became in vogue in Victorian England and eventually the rest of Western civilization, so too did appendicitis, irritable bowel syndrome, colon cancer, and other fun diseases known mostly only (even today) to squatting nations.

The short of it is that our organs don’t empty themselves completely and properly when sitting versus squatting- consider gravity for even a few seconds and you’ll get the picture.
How could this movement ever possibly be a detriment to your health?
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While tearing out your commode might not be a realistic solution, there is another way for our bodies to reclaim the flexibility and range of motion that gets lost by sitting all day: with a barbell, of course.

When a squat is done properly (i.e. with the hip crease going to parallel, or below, if possible), virtually the entire body is being strengthened from the ankles through the abdomen through the arms that are securing the bar against the back. And of course the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes get their fair share of the load, too.

Contrary to the popular misconception that squats are bad for your knees and back (which is ridiculous- when a squat is performed properly most of the force is taken in the hips anyway), the movement has been said to prevent and deter injuries by way of strengthening the stabilizing muscles, ligaments, and tissues that surround the knee.

Where did these misconceptions come from? Similar to many of the myths that have become ‘conventional knowledge’ in the world of diet, many believe deep squatting is bad for your knees and spine because of some bad science that has been perpetuated for decades, despite studies proving the contrary.

When injuries occur while squatting, the cause is usually from the athlete only going into a partial squat. In these, only the quadriceps are activated and the movement never reaches its natural conclusion, forcing the knees to absorb a tremendous amount of stress in order to halt the movement.

Conversely, in a full depth squat, the hamstrings and glutes are activated when the hips drop below parallel, which in turn balance out the load distribution evenly on both sides of the knee.

Partial squats are also the source of the myth that the movement is bad for your spine. Rippetoe:

“Another problem with partial squats is the fact that very heavy loads may be moved, due to the short range of motion and the greater mechanical efficiency of the quarter squat position. This predisposes the trainee to back injuries as a result of the extreme spinal loading that results from putting a weight on his back that is possibly in excess of three times the weight that can be safely handled in a correct deep squat. A lot of football coaches are fond of partial squats, since it allows them to claim that their 17 year-old linemen are all squatting 600 lbs. Your interest is in getting strong (at least it should be), not in playing meaningless games with numbers. If it’s too heavy to squat below parallel, it’s too heavy to have on your back.”

Like with any new exercise, start slow and with light weight. Even if you are just squatting with your body weight or an empty bar in the beginning, you are guaranteed to be sore in the days following, and your strength gains the next time you go to squat (or to stand up) will be more than apparent.

In lieu of keeping this post a readable length, squats will make athletes (and anyone) more explosive, give them stronger abs and core strength, increase their vertical, increase bone density, make them more flexible, run faster, help achieve normal hip function, and of course give them a bomb ass.

Essentially it makes anything you could possibly do, in or outside the gym, easier.

Even if your athletic focus is on more cardio-oriented sports like running or cycling, cross training with squats is going to be incredibly beneficial. If, in the case of running and cycling, your power output on every stride or pedal is X, and that power is coming from your quads, hamstrings, and the rest of the posterior chain, doing something to increase the output of that X variable is only going to make you faster at your given discipline.

To cite Rippetoe one last time, “All other things being equal, the stronger athlete always wins.”
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Anecdotal evidence: When I lived in New York for six months I didn’t make enough money to join a gym, so my workouts had to consist mainly of body weight exercises and running. While I would throw in air squats from time to time, it wasn’t enough.

After a few months of being away from a barbell and squatting, I couldn’t even run anymore as the pain in my right knee became too unbearable for me to jog for longer than a minute. My knee had become weak.

How do I know that was the problem?

Fast forward to after I had moved back to Ohio and was again on a regular squat routine, I tried running again after a month or two and was able to crank out four miles without a hint of knee pain.

The problem is not with the squat. It’s with the sit.

You know those moments when your mind is filled with a barrage of thoughts going 1000 miles-an-hour, making it impossible to focus on even one of them?

There is a way to stop that madness. And all you have to do is nothing.
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Of the many things that I wish I had discovered or been taught earlier in life, meditation is high up on the list.

When I think back to moments where I could not focus on a given task or come up with a quick-witted response in a situation that required one, it’s frustrating to think that the solution to both of these (and many other) circumstances simply required sitting for ten minutes a day.

Meditation, zen, and every other spiritual concept are going to mean slightly different things to many different people. However, meditation to me simply means strengthening the brain to be more aware of the present moment.

And it’s not necessarily scented candles, herbal teas, or “om-ing” it out in your darkened room (though you can do all of that if you want).
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I believe that most people in the world sporadically practice mindfulness- the act of having active attention on the present- their entire lives without even realizing it.

Those moments in life where you can vividly recall every single detail about your surroundings, who was there, and what was going on? Those are instances where you were extremely mindful.

It’s how athletes can recollect, with striking accuracy, an enormous number of details and facts about games and matches they played in their career. They are completely absorbed in the game situation and moment, having no other distractions going on in their heads. They are just ‘being’.

I can recall being on a family vacation when I was around 13-years-old, and we were walking along the beach at sunset. I remember thinking to myself that the moment was perfect, and wished that I could remember it forever. I took into account everything around me; the sound of the waves, the smell of the salt, and the shade of the setting sun. Not that I had much to worry about at that age, but because I took that moment to focus on everything around me, I can now revisit it in my mind anytime I want with absolute precision.

Like in a video game, mindfulness is similar to creating a save state you can revisit anytime you please, simply by being present. Meditation is the re-charge and strengthening of this ability.
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The practice itself is simple, and there is no right or wrong way to do it.

After setting the timer on my phone for ten minutes, I like to sit Indian-style (mostly because I’m not flexible enough to go full Lotus) on a pillow with my back against a wall.

I begin to ‘bamboo breathe’ (one big breath in, hold it in for a second, then release out in three segments), and try to focus on my breath and nothing else.

Sometimes I’ll repeat the phrase “What is my next thought?” over and over slowly in my head. On other occasions I’ll imagine a spiraling black hole, sucking in and vanquishing any stray thoughts that go flying through my conscious.

There are countless ways to “de-focus”, and meditation can be a creative exercise in a way as you feel your mind out and figure out the best manner in which to quiet it.

The thoughts will and do creep in, and that’s to be expected.

Sometimes these thoughts are random, forgotten memories from the past. And more often they are whatever you feel most anxious or worried about in your life at that moment. Many times I didn’t even realize how much something was bothering me until I observed that the thought kept floating through my head over and over again.

And on days where I know I am going to have extra trouble focusing on nothing, I have afew go-to songs I listen to in order to get me in state, which leads to an entirely different yet no less ethereal experience entirely.
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As part of my morning routine now, I use meditation mostly to clear my mind before work and increase my focus.

However, I have also experienced moments of intense clarity about my life and the world. On other occasions, solutions have ‘come to me’ regarding projects that I’ve been working on that I don’t think I would have come to otherwise.

Growing up, I always felt like I was more absent-minded than most (my fourth-grade teacher told my parents that it constantly looked like I was “in left-field”), and while sometimes I still am admittedly a ‘man-ditz’, my recall, both short-term and long-term, is easily better than it has ever been.

It’s a striking thought that in today’s world we always have something going on to fill our head space, be it the car radio, the TV on in the background while we cook, or even taking our phones out when we are using the bathroom. It’s like we are afraid of being alone with our thoughts, even though spending time with them is the best way to figure out what is best for us and who we really are.

It’s amazing how much something can come out of doing nothing.