Full RoM or heavier squat

[bort]

@idut Yes I meant parallel to the ground like 90° to a line perpendicular to the ground.

Somehow I never thought we were talking about the angle of the knees .

I will indeed try to go deeper now.

Thanks for the explanation !

 

[idut]

@bort Anytime someone says 90 degrees I assume they mean parallel, but Joel Seedman exists so I had to be sure.

 

[jayb05]

@idut Anytime someone says 90 degrees I assume they mean knee angle BECAUSE Joel Seedman exists.

 

[tonemonkey]

@bort For what it's worth, I squat 225 as deep and controlled as I can (ass pretty much touches ankles) for reps and regularly find myself having bigger quads than people "squatting 400". If the point is growing your muscles, moving the weight 3 inches for low reps isn't doing much of anything other than getting to "brag" to people. Why waste your time and load up your spine and joints like that if you don't have to?

 

[jedidiahanointing]

@bort dont shoot your hips too far behind you. you probably use your hips a lot and it probably is because they are stronger, which means youll have to lower the weight even more.

with any free weight squat i use a mental cue of like, "humping" my way up, which puts my hips above my feet and all the tension in my quads. i havent used this cue on backsquats tho since i havent done them in ages. hopefully it can help.

 

[regrone]

@bort Treat them as two exercises. Continue to progress weight on your shorter ROM squats but also train ass to grass full range squats and progress those separately.

Same as you would front squats or leg press. Still compound leg exercises but with a different focus.

If you need to work on mobility or flexibility in the ankles, hammies or glutes to make full depth less of an issue you can do that alongside without worrying about leaving leg gains on the table.

 

[h_hiltonhudson]

@bort if going into full ROM makes you feel like the load is shifting to your hips and glutes (basically turning the lift into a bastardized hip hinge), I would recommend getting your heels elevated. it’s a biomechanical issue - you probably have long femurs and a short torso.

you can put plates under your heels, get squat shoes, or (my favorite solution) a slant board. this will get your knees back over your toes and put the load back on your quads.

this is a good article on the biomechanics of long femur/short torso syndrome. people who don’t have to deal with this won’t get why your squat feels like a shitty hip hinge, or why traditional full ROM feels weird. you need to fix this form issue before you snap up your back (trust me from experience).

 

[overcoming1]

@bort what is your goal? a quad killing move? sure go for partials(paralel i mean with that) if wanna finish ass,adductors and quads at once? go deep

 

[addai]

@bort You can focus on heavy squats and use full range movements as supplemental for hypertrophy, if you care about numbers

 

[bensey]

@bort Both

 

[bismarkzam]

@bort Your hips will engage more the more ROM you have, which is probably why you're feeling it in your glutes when you actually get to parallel. Even though that's the case, it's not like your quads aren't working. Full ROM (ass to grass) will give you more of a stretch in both glutes and quads.

Squatting isn't an isolation movement for the quads. So, if you're looking to only activate quads then do something else (or do something more quad dominant like hack squat). If you're looking to squat or grow quads, glutes, adductors, abductors, etc. then squat.

 

[thunderbolt1990]

@bort Been doing full ROM squats for about 12 years I started at 15 I’m 27. Stayed in the range of 315-365 for sets of 3-5 high reps 8-15. It’s a killer but my lower body became my strength point.
A few things to add always warm up properly dynamic stretching and band work, plus a good pair of squat shoes.
YouTube: lower body squat warm up nowadays there’s plenty of great tutorials you could learn from

 

[ciggy]

@bort You want to grow muscle or hit powerlifting records?

 

[weepingwillow422]

@bort Full range of motion is good but is a bit buzzy. As with longer rest times, full ROM is more effective on a per-rep and per-set basis... but you can compensate for cutting either short by doing an extra set or two, or by adding rest-pause to your last set. You'd likely have a shorter session doing the rest-pause option with parallel squats as recovery demands between sets would decrease.

That said, you may lose a little bit of adductor, abductor and glute volume, but if you squatted to parallel, did a hamstring movement, then did deep leg press with rest-pause and finished your session with some rest-pause goodgirl/badgirl machine, I'd argue you'd

 

[weepingwillow422]

@bort What you feel in your muscles doesn't necessarily indicate what gets the most stimulus. You really have to train with a consistent ROM and see if your quads are still growing.

Full ROM is fine, but people overestimate the benefits. You can do shorter-ROM squats and add rest-pause to your last set of the session and it'll be equivocal or better for quads than you'd have from full ROM. Hell, you'd probably have lower recovery demands as there'd be fewer muscles doing 50 RIR stabilization work, and would be able to recover quicker between sets and between sessions (i.e. it could possibly be more time efficient to use shorter (within reason) ROM over ATG.

Only thing full ROM does that you can't directly compensate for is giving more work to the adductors and glutes... but I don't know that you wouldn't be able to do more RDL volume which would work these better anyways. Then there's always deep leg press and/or the lever abductor/adductor machines which I'd argue would also allow you to hit that musculature better (e.g. deep leg press for higher reps and using rest-pause)

 

[g_r_a_c_e]

@bort If you keep doing partial/non full ROM squats, not only are you not standardizing your form, you're also pampering your body into heavier loads with lower mobility and may eventually lead to structural problems, such as imbalanced hips and stability muscles

If hypertrophy is your ONLY goal probably irrelevant. If functionality, longevity AND hypertrophy is your goal I would incorporate some of the following in addition to lightening your squat loads until you can get comfortable ATG:

1) Ipsi/Contra lateral loaded Bulgarian split squats with other hand lightly holding onto something for stability. The contra version will most definitely expose your hip and oblique weakness.

2) ATG body weight squats as a to failure set for the BSS above.

3) Single leg hip thrusts, try no weight first they are challenging

4) Tibia raises with back against wall: flex the feet hard upwards and it's likely you will notice one has better flexibility and mind muscle connection than the other. The one that is weaker is a side you need to work on: somewhere along your hip flexor, hamstring or glute is likely weak and you need to work on with unilateral work.

 

[alexisfaith27]

@bort I'm a powerlifter and alway sgo as deep as I can when training. It's better for hypertrophy and feels nicer.

 

[justcc]

@bort FULL ROM for glutes and hamstrings. Quads aren't working as much at the bottom of depth. To get out of “the hole” thats glutes and hamstrings.

 

[newlivingplace]

@bort Keep your hips tucked and squat ATG. The more knee flexion the better

 

[rbnum1fan]

@bort Personally, I don't see the point in doing anything but ATG squats unless you're a powerlifter / competing.