“Do this squat and you’ll have bigger quads in no time!”
“Put your feet here when you squat to work on your Hamstrings.”
If you’ve been stress scrolling your instagram page before bed recently, you’ve been seeing more and more home fitness routines that tout how many different amazing workouts you can do at home or at your local gym.
Things like Sissy Squats, Cannon Ball Squats, Zercher Squats, and Jefferson Deadlifts all get thrown around on the daily by fitness influencers and are touted as the secrets to their results.
Amazing athletes like Juji Mufu work on insane lifts all the time and have amazing lifting numbers while looking like the picture of perfect health.
So, why don’t we mix up squats like that?
“Whole Ass One Thing. Never Half-Ass Two Things” – Ron Swanson
Squatting, Deadlifting, and Pressing are some of the most natural movements in the human repertoire.
These movements come relatively naturally because we have to do them every day. We sit down and stand up (squatting), we pick stuff up (deadlift), and we put stuff away (shoulder press).
Now, let’s pause for second because you as a Vegvisir athlete know that all 3 of the movements are not easy. In fact, you have probably got 3 different cues in your head for each of those lifts that you coach tells you regularly to help you do those lifts even better.
“Knees out!”
“Keep your chest up!”
“Brace! Brace! Brace!!”
You and your coaches actually spend a lot of time and effort working on just making these movements lockdown tight and safe. We might change certain aspects of your stance and movement, but you are basically working towards your best squat.
Why? Because having the best possible squat will do far more for you in the long run in terms of safety, health, and progress than fumbling about improving the 20 other squat variations out there. If we did it would be like a French major skipping to learning Cajun French in the middle of their sophomore year. It can be done, it’s just gonna slow down your progress on what you’re really working to improve!
Do These Exercise Variations Even Help?
Yes they do! (Apart from the Jefferson Deadlift. Don’t do that one! AND NEVER DO STEINBORN SQUATS)
But, they shouldn’t be used in terms of the bread and butter of your training routine. Things like Front Squats, Back Squats, Deadlifts, and other lifts we use during our classes to measure and improve our overall strength.
These mixed stance deadlifts and other variations of lifts serve as accessory lifts (movements designed to improve performance in a main lift).
We throw in strange things like this into our optional after class work because they help improve our performance in our main lifts!
Since we only have an hour to coach you each day, it is better that we focus on making the basics amazing and rely on the main lifts to make you the best athletes possible!
So, have fun scrolling instagram and YouTubing all the strange lifts that were mentioned up here. They are great to watch and most are actually beneficial in assisting your lifting. But, regardless of where you are at in your fitness journey, those fundamentals are pretty amazing as they are!
If you have questions about accessory work or anything you see on social media, schedule a No Sweat Intro through the link above so we can talk about your questions in person and help you with your fitness goals (: