Is something that has been said to me more times than I can count. (Truly, if I had a pound for every time I’d heard this line, I’d have enough to fund a comfortable retirement in a third world country.)
In some cases, it’s fair enough. For example, an old acquaintance of mine who was on the losing side of an altercation with a lorry becoming, to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi, “more machine than man”, will never barbell back squat again.
But not so much in others.
Here, what is generally happening is they can’t use the terrible form they used to get away with when they were younger without their knees, hips, and back shrieking to high heaven.
Combined with the postural and flexibility issues caused by the “modern lifestyle”, you can see why these guys (and increasing numbers of girls) believe they can’t squat.
Truth is, they can – or, more accurately, they have the potential – but only if they take a good chunk of time to learn and practice the movement.
This starts with doing good, old-fashioned bodyweight squats (something I rarely see people doing) until they’ve mastered hitting proper depth with the right torso angle, no medial knee drift, etc, for multiple sets of a great many reps.
Only then should they think about putting a bar on their back (itself no simple thing, requiring a staged approach for best results).
For more detail on how to work up to performing barbell back squats efficiently, effectively and, most importantly of all, safely, consult pages 26-34 of “The Back and Legs Bundle” which is on sale until Wednesday the 9th at 23:59.
A couple of things to note if you are interested:
1) The book is expensive as far as books go, even with the discount (but it’s still cheaper than a large bag of whey protein from some brands to give you some context), and,
2) This is a compilation of two issues of my paper and ink newsletter “The Phil Tyreman Letter” plus some bonus material. So if you own one or both issues of the newsletter, you need to carefully consider if the content you don’t already own is worth the asking price.
A detailed breakdown of what’s inside is on the below-linked page, and you can claim the discount by entering the code HORSE at the checkout:
https://philtyreman.co.uk/bundle/
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman