http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/noglutes.html
Great article by Kelly, as usual.
Would performing squats with the toes slightly elevated (on a 5 or 10 lb. plate, for example) help to increase glute activation?
I have seen that tool used to help with glute activation, as the heel always has a solid platform to push through that way as the tendancy to roll onto the toes is removed.
I am unsure as to which category I fall into based upon the relative athletic strengths. For example, my top end speed is better than my acceleration, but I would argue my vertical jumping ability is better than my sprinting ability. However, I would say my vertical jump from a run up is mroe impressive than it is from stationary if that makes sense??? Perhaps from that article that would imply I am more glute dominant??
Everyone is going to jump higher with a run up than stationary. If you’re a one footed jumper over two footed, you’re probably more reactive than you are strong and thus, probably more posterior chain dominant. This is because you don’t need the extra time on the ground of a two foot jump in order to use your strength. If you’re naturally a reactive person, you are more than likely posterior chain dominant.
Vertical jump ability doesn’t tell you a whole lot about sprint performance. Many people can jump high but do it descending slowly = not very reactive = not good for sprinting.
Sprint performance will tell you about jump performance. If you are fast you are going to jump high. Reverse is not necessarily true.
I’m naturally very quad dominant. I’ve found that as I’ve activated the glutes over the last 2 years the weights tend to hit the posterior naturally. This has been difficult however as I started squating quad dominant and have well developed quads as a result… this just made them take more of the movement. But now squats and other lifts are hitting the posterior much better and it has changed the way that I walk! Now when I walk up hill I keep a straight leg and use the glute, whereas I used to walk bent leg and use the quad - I wonder whether this glute activation will actually cause atrophy in the quads as they arn’t used as much now??
Just an interesting anecdote: A few years ago when I focused on the posterior chain exactly what you are worried about happened: quads lost their size and performance dropped. This was while my “posterior chain” dramatically gained in size/stregnth. My take: all individuals lever structure is unique, and what develops fastest does so for a reason. Focus on your weaknesses, but not to the detriment of your natural strengths.
Sounds like the operation was successful but the patient died! I would have to agree that some individuals do well with quad dominance, such as Calvin Johnson as evidenced by clips of him jumping. Most individuals however would do well to emphasize the muscles of the posterior chain rather than the quads.
I’m not saying emphasise the quads by any means, but don’t deemphasise them to such a degree that they become the weak point. The word balance comes to mind.
I agree with your points. I think in the end, as long as all the muscles are firing properly and whatnot, deep squatting will develop, as you stated, your “natural strengths.”
when you are talking about focusing on the PC and losing quad strength what exercises did your PC strength increase in? Were you still squatting regularly with your same old quad dominant technique? Did you sit back and use a wider stance to hit more PC? Also did your deadlift and squat numbers go up? Trying to get some “context” from your trial and error with the PC JoeCole!
Personally I always carried muscle in my butt and quads - however my glutes weren’t as active as they should have been and i was therefore quad dominant. Since getting more activation in the glutes/PC and getting a better squat position the quads have done less work (although there is still enough quad use to avoid atrophy i feel)… however, if I get into any trouble during the squat the quads just kick straight in involuntarily!
As far as strength/weakness argument goes I still believe that if a quad dominant sprinter doesn’t learn to use the PC more then they won’t reach their potential as far as top end speed is concerned.
Changed from high bar ed-coan style bomb squat to westside style low bar, including box squats. Core lift numbers went up, stats (VJ/SLJ/5B/30) went down. My “half squat” went down significantly post this phase of training. I am approaching this from a pure jump perspective rather than sprinting though, so YMMV.
It could have been many factors that caused the decrease in tests, but I do feel it was a lack of balance in the program, which was the major change.
By how much did your westside wide stance squats increase? How much did your ed coan style squat decrease?
Increased width a lot going to westside. From memory, coan squat stayed about the same, westside style squat increased at least 50kg’s, possibly more as PC was definitely weak link at that stage.
The reason westside squats low bar, super wide is because they can get higher numbers. Period. I know they justify it also with saying it hits the posterior chain more (I’m not sure what the EMG results would say about that), but the main point is that they have better leverage and a shorter ROM, so can use higher weights without necessarily increasing any real “strength.”
I am sure I have seen a study showing there are differences between the two types of lifts via emg, but couldn’t find it in the quick look I had.
Agreed though - if Inzer came up with a new suit that allowed you to rest the bar at the L1 level everyone would start doing it tomorrow 
Joe sorry for hijacking this thread but i recall sometime ago you experimented with DB hammer’s stuff? How did you progress and have you now altered your training?
It was really good for someone who didn’t have a schedule 
Also, it wasn’t really db hammers program but my own computerised version of it which basically went like, from memory: Quantify fatigue at each session and estimate time to new peak. If no peak, adjust time till next session. Sessions alternated between strength and endurance focus.
Or in numbers (simplified):
t+1[sessiontype] = k[sessiontype].fatigue(t); Optimise for k.
The problem I had with the program was that as t+1 always changed I never knew when the sessions were going to be, and sometimes clashes happened (because e.g. pull needed 3x more recovery than push).
So I stopped using the “system” and just took what I learned about the interaction of fatigue and session type on recovery as a guide and adjusted by feel.
Note: One nice side effect of the concept (which I never tried) was that it should have been possible to rearrange if you had to peak on a particular day:
fatigue = t+1[sessiontype]/k[sessiontype]
If you know k, and know when you need to peak, you should be able to determine how much fatigue to induce to get you there.
If that’s what you mean by db-hammer, then yeah, I guess I still use it in a way. I love the concept of quantifying fatigue, and actively work in that area.
Interesting point of view as Louie Simmons has stated in his articles that EMG studies show quad activation to be the same in a wide stance squat as a regular squat. So why wouldn’t ham/glute activation be the same as well?
Although, just by looking at weightlifters it’s hard to argue that deep squatting doesn’t hit the VMO better than wide stance.
I say I’m not sure what the EMG would say for a variety of reasons. There are all sorts of stances and hybrids, with important points being bar position, stance (both width and foot angle), and depth. There are probably other points I am missing, but these are at least 3. Anyway, all of these will obviously affect which muscles are used and also load, which can affect which muscles are used. Surely, if you use a stance that allows you to use more weight, muscles that are required to stabilize the trunk will be forced to do more work with that stance than another.
I’m not sure which one is good/better/best and a lot of people have success with each one, just things to keep in mind.