Squat descent speed

[coolcolj]

I was reading on the Dogcrap training sticky about a discussion of squat lowering speeds.

Well as you know I always put a timer on my vids, and even on my slower lowering speed on attempts I did with fairly heavy weights for me - around 90% of 1RM, and I do full squats, the eccentric only took 1.5 secs tops.

Its even lower when I go fast! Even my slower lowering light sets take only 0.5- 0.6 a second

If any of you have the Jan 30th squat vids I posted you can see for yourself. And they looked pretty damn slow to me. Hell the single with 295lbs I did took 2.5secs from start to finish!

 

[coolcolj]

here is the quote in question

"One last thing I wanted to say about the eccentric phase in my training methods-Ive noticed alot of people have gotten caught up in the negative portion of my way of training. And this is partly my fault because I want people to control a weight on the way down. I saw casual BB cite a study saying 2 second eccentric phases is the way to go---Your in for major knee surgeries if you think you can do a 2 second eccentric phase in hacks or squats with extremely heavy weights and back up again. Do you know how fast 2 seconds is? Thats a drop and a bounce! I tend to doubt that it will be a major difference if 4 seconds is done, 4.8 seconds is done, 6 seconds is done, 8 seconds is done etc, etc. I dont know many successful squatters who dont take at least 4 seconds from the top to the bottom on a descent. Next time your squatting count one onethousand, two onethousand etc from the top to the very bottom of your squat--I bet it will be 4-5 seconds. Alot of other people on other boards fret that controlling the weight on the way down (4-7 seconds) is going to screw up the weights they use. I would never want to see someone drop down with 300lbs on their back in a squat and bounce back up in one second and I dont get why controlling the weight on the way down scares so many people. Besides the various eccentric studies you can look at powerlifters who are held to descending control standards during their lifts with no bouncing as an example. By and large powerlifters are incredibly thick and have huge amounts of muscle mass. Olympic lifters on the other hand predominantly lift in positive phases and even with the ever increasing weights they dont carry the muscle mass that powerlifters do. The exception being in the legs where during snatches etc there is a an eccentric movement. But with all the pressing movements done by Olympic lifters you would think their shoulders would be monstrous and they aren't (due to mostly positive movements) I say 6-8 seconds alot because ive noticed people count fast and it ends up being 4 seconds (which is what i want-control)--I should state it like this....I just want you to control the weight down and explode up.
"

 

[coolcolj]

proof baby

2.4megs - right click on the link and save before vieiwng
http://www.members.optushome.com.au/coolcolj2/Movies/CCJ_Squats_30Jan03.mpg

 

[spatts]

By and large powerlifters are incredibly thick and have huge amounts of muscle mass.

That's my favorite part....and let's see, PLers work in WHAT rep range?



CCJ, you be a speed freak.

 

[coolcolj]

I could be faster

 

[Legion Kreinak2]

CCJ, you really are insane. Odd, I've never descended slow on squats. I always felt it would put too much stress on the knees.

 

[collegiateLifter]

CCJ, you really are insane. Odd, I've never descended slow on squats. I always felt it would put too much stress on the knees.

the irony is of course that greater velocities and accellerations put much higher levels of stress on the knees.