Thought of Bill's words..

[Bill Glasheen]

I found this side view visual of squats to be very helpful for those who want to understand the forces and alignment involved. This is a bit of a side-track (bad pun...) from the original topics, but certainly a good visual study.

- Bill

[chef]

From that picture it appears the back is straight but just leaning forward...hmmm, I was arching my back. I also noticed that the drawing does have the knees further out than the toes though somewhat.

One of the other issues I have been having with squats is my left shoulder. It has been giving me problems for over a month. The way the grab is seems to torque the shoulder and make it hurt doing squats.

I gues I am just falling apart but will try doing a walking lunge with a 30 pound weight bar and see what happens.

Regards,
Vicki

[IJ]

vicky, there's a straight line drawn through the person for illustration, but you probably won't see the normal lumbar lordosis and thoracic kyphosis (subtle curves) vanish. I won't tell anyone if your knees go a hair in front of your toes either but that should be minimal as well. Have you tried using a Smith machine so you can rest the weights on your sad shoulder without asking much of it? You lose some of the benefits of free weights taking that work out of the equation, but if its troubling you it deserves a break.

[Stryke]

Never squat in a smith machine , they are worse than terrible .

JMHO but I think there dangerous and unatural

not sticking the knees out to far is a good sign of strength and form , its not bad to start with box squats to develop form .

as for knee circles there great without load , hence not standing on them , more Intuflow from Sonnon , guys got that one covered .

[Bill Glasheen]

Never squat in a smith machine , they are worse than terrible .

JMHO but I think there dangerous and unatural

I think "unnatural" about sums up my feelings about knee circles. I try so hard to have people do "natural" mechanics that will help them avoid problems outside the dojo like in pick-up games of basketball (lost quite a few students there...) or the ski slope (there as well). Then we introduce an exercise where we don't just allow a person to practice bad mechanics, we actually ask them to bend the knee in a direction that it was not intended to bend. It's kind of like twisting your car door so that it will open and close better. All that's going to do is make the hinge sloppy and make the fit loose. Car rattle anyone?

I sort of get what Marcus is saying about the Smith machine. It creates the possibility of you learning "unnatural" mechanics that you cannot transfer to a free-form motion. In my opinion it's better to cut way, way back on the weight and start a free-weight squat from scratch. Or in Vicki's case, walking lunges are done one leg at a time so you put half the stress on your back to get a good kick-butt exercise. (And I MEAN kick butt. Nothing makes my glutes sore like this exercise.) Plus with this exercise, you get to challenge your balance as well. What's not to like about that?

By the way, Ian's comments about lumbar lordosis (curve in small of back) are spot on. I used to try to do squats with a perfectly flat back and no lordosis. Now I let my body have an ever-so-slight natural curve in the lumbar region when going down. In my opinion it avoids the potential for herniating a disc down there. I had a long conversation with a physician weight trainer about that.

Back hyperextension exercises as a follow-up to squats can also work that lower back and get the spine moving. When I come up, I'll actually arch my back a little bit to get some spinal movement - sort of like a reverse crunch. I do this while holding a weight on my head. I can almost feel my lower back saying "Thank you!"



- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

While looking for pics of someone doing a squat, I found this great photo of a fellow practicing a classic Olympic lift.



On average and pound for pound, competitive Olympic weight lifters have the best vertical leaps of any athlete. Why? Impeccable mechanics and lots of exercise of the dynamic stretch reflex.

Don't try that lift unless you are in peak shape, and have been properly coached. I now practice this lift - in my fifties. However I do it as a means to an end rather than going for max weight. (You won't find me doing that much weight, or going down that far.) It's a pretty amazing challenge for the human body - one that transfers well to other activities. Martial arts is all about efficiency and explosiveness, and that's exactly what you're working on here.

Note that the fellow is NOT muscle-bound. After exploding up with the squat-lift, he throws his center of gravity under that of the rising weight. A grappler can appreciate the concept.

- Bill

* Source: CrossFit discussion board

[Van Canna]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXU ... re=related

The kind of knee exercises they practice...

[Van Canna]

Knee strenghtening exercise we were made to practice on my soccer team:

We worked much on Jumping 180 degrees always landing on soft knees_

_ On Single leg hops - forwards/backward, lateral

_ Single leg 45 degree lateral hops

_ Double leg jumps - forwards, lateral

‘Plyometrics’ under any other name, I think.

[Van Canna]

Although 'soccer legs' are still subject to knee and ankle injuries [the bane of players] the type of muscle armor all around the knees allows them to take hellish punishment.

Shoot for those legs in training.

[Glenn]

In my first Uechi class, way back when I was a teen in the mid 1980s, we did sit-ups while in the seiza position every class, in fact that was the only way we did sit-ups. Talk about rough on the knees, although I did not realize it at the time. And of course not knowing any better, even after the class ended I continued to do them periodically on my own during my 20s. I am pretty sure this was the source of some knee issues that developed during that time, my knees frequently ached and occassionally would seem to 'catch' slightly, and once I caught on that the exercise might be causing it I stopped doing it. My achy knees persisted in some form until I learned some knee therapy exercises in my current Uechi class, now I have no problems at all with my knees.

I now think it interesting that back in the old class the instructor regularly complained about knee problems, but he attributed them to playing football in high school rather than exercises like this that he did for karate.

You couldn't pay me enough to do a seiza sit-up now.

[fivedragons]

Glenn, I read your post earlier today, and it has been fermenting in my mind for a few hours now. I finally came to the conclusion that I am really tired of karate and martial arts in general.

I have the body of a chimpanzee and the mindset of a pitbull, and I have no use for either.

I realized that I have absolutely no desire to teach anything I have ever learned to anyone. Maybe if my children beg me to, I'll feed it to them in little drops, and wait to see if they are ready for more.

I would only set foot in a karate dojo, self defense studio, or martial masturbation treehouse if someone paid me for my time.

I'm grateful for the opportunity I've had to learn what I don't need in my life (violence as a form of art, yuck), and I have learned a lot about how to condition my mind and body by different people operating under different cultural labels, but I don't appreciate the labels or the traditions anymore.

The kneeling sit-ups thing just seemed to be the last straw, the camel's back is officially broken. Thank you for your time.

[IJ]

Well, now, that THAT is off your chest (sorry you had some bad experiences).... this is the first few paragraphs from a review article on ACL tears published in the current NEJM and touches on some issues from this thread.

From Spindler and Wright, "ACL Tear." Volume 359:2135-2142

The Clinical Problem

The passage in 1972 of Title IX legislation, which guarantees equal access to athletic programs for both sexes at any high school or college receiving federal funds, has led to an exponential rise in the number of female participants in sports. Although this has resulted in many benefits, including the promotion of physical fitness and the fostering of team-building behavior, it has also led to an increase in sports-related injuries among female athletes, particularly tears in the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

The ACL is the most commonly injured ligament in the body, for which surgery is frequently performed. It is estimated that 175,000 ACL reconstructions were performed in the year 2000 in the United States at a cost of more than $2 billion.1 This number continues to increase. Incidence rates for tears are difficult to assess because some injuries remain undiagnosed. A recent study at West Point, where injuries are consistently reported, showed an incidence of ACL tears of 3.2% for men and 3.5% for women during a 4-year period.2 When considering sports or activities in which both sexes participate, women had a significantly higher rate of ACL tears than men (incidence ratio, 1.5; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.3 to 2.2).3 The majority of ACL tears (67% in men and almost 90% in women) occurred without physical contact. In other studies, the injury rate in female athletes has ranged from two to six times the rate in male athletes, depending on the sport studied.4,5,6,7 The increased risk of an ACL tear in female athletes remains incompletely understood but has been attributed to several factors, including sex differences in leg alignment, with an increased rate of valgus deformity (knock-knee) among women; in notch width, with possibly less space for the ACL in women; in hormonal factors, including an increased risk during the preovulatory stage of the menstrual cycle8; and in neuromuscular control.6,9

Besides the immediate associated morbidity and costs, an ACL tear significantly increases the risk of premature knee osteoarthritis.3,10 It is estimated that osteoarthritis develops in 50% of patients with ACL tears 10 to 20 years after the injury, while they are still young.3,11,12

[fivedragons]

Ian: "(sorry you had some bad experiences)..."

Nope. The sun came up and burned away the mist that was hanging in the air.

[Bill Glasheen]

I realized that I have absolutely no desire to teach anything I have ever learned to anyone.

Umm.... Maybe you haven't learned anything then. FWIW, I am jumping in a controversy with both feet, and yet have no plans on leaving anything.

I am a professional researcher. It is my job to look at what is, and make it better. And yet I wouldn't presume to know it all, nor would any of my peers whom I admire for their leadership in the field of reality-based self-defense.

All "experts" and "authorities" stand on the shoulders of those from the past who did the ground work. Everyone does the best they can, and then passes the baton on to the next generation. We were never expected to pass this baton on unchanged, nor were we handed a box of immutable "things."

Here's the way I see it. We are handed a set of principles of human movement that are meant to apply under extremes of autonomic physiology during human conflict. It is up to us to breathe life into those principles. We will always be arguing about the particulars. IMO that's what makes it worth getting up in the morning. This is the fun stuff. This is what helps us focus our understanding - like a laser beam - on what really matters.

Seek not what our elders did; seek what they sought. When you see it this way, you will appreciate what you have been taught, and understand how gracefully to pass the baton on to another generation.

I look forward to more from you.

- Bill

[Glenn]

I finally came to the conclusion that I am really tired of karate and martial arts in general.

I think all martial artists go through this at one time or another in their lives, I know I have. It's easy to get into an tiring rut. I think it best to take a break when it happens and come back when you're ready. For me it never seems to take long, I find myself thinking about some aspect and then some question/insight occurs that I then want to explore...and I usually come back more refreshed, enthusiastic, and with a clearer vision of how I want to proceed with my training.

I'm grateful for the opportunity I've had to learn what I don't need in my life (violence as a form of art, yuck), and I have learned a lot about how to condition my mind and body by different people operating under different cultural labels, but I don't appreciate the labels or the traditions anymore.

There are many motivations to train and many demotivators to not train. Focus on the motivators and drop the demotivators. The martial arts are such a broad spectrum that you do not have to train within a framework that doesn't work for you anymore. Clear away what you don't like and work with what's left. Don't like the traditons, then don't do them. Heck, I haven't donned a gi since the last time Bill flew out here...2005 I think!

In my opinion it rarely is beneficial to toss something completely away when it has been a (presumably) significant part of your life to date, just because there are some aspects you do not like...to throw the baby out with the bath water, to quote a phrase. A break is clearly in order, but be careful jumping to extremes. Just my suggestion of course, the decision is ultimately yours.

The kneeling sit-ups thing just seemed to be the last straw, the camel's back is officially broken.

Now don't be blaming the poor camel's spinal issues on my knees!!!