Are Low Bar Squats REALLY Needed for Strength and Size? (Andy Baker) | Ep 283

Download my free Progressive Overload Guide to maximize your progress in the gym and build strength and size.

—

What if sticking to just one squat style is actually limiting your gains? Struggling with joint pain or mobility issues from low bar squats but are afraid to switch?

I’m joined by elite strength coach Andy Baker to break down the myth that low bar squatting is mandatory for gains. We dive deep into the world of squats, comparing different styles to see which ones are best for building muscle and strength. Andy and I will help you figure out the perfect squat for your body and what you want to achieve.

Andy Baker is a highly sought-after strength coach, co-author of Practical Programming and The Barbell Prescription, and owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning. Through his Baker Barbell Club, he’s helped thousands of lifters get stronger by training smarter.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

05:59 – Why low bar squats aren’t as superior as you think
09:40 – The origins of low bar squatting and why it became dominant
16:40 – When and why you shouldn’t low bar squat
22:05 – How to know if you should switch your squat
29:20 – The real reason elbow and shoulder pain happens with low bar
35:40 – Why strategic variation makes you stronger and healthier
46:07 – The most underrated squat variation for quad growth
55:49 – The #1 most common squat mistake lifters make
1:09:05 – Best squat variations for quads—Andy’s top picks
1:20:52 – How to cue yourself for a perfect squat
1:25:00 – Outro

Episode resources:

• Baker Barbell Club: andybaker.com 

• Ep 60: Strength and Programming for Maximum Gains at Any Age with Andy Baker

• Ep 131: Andy Baker on Bodybuilding for Hypertrophy and an Aesthetic, Muscular Physique

The Truth About Low Bar Squats for Strength and Muscle

If you’ve ever forced yourself into a low bar squat because you thought it was the only way to get strong and build muscle, or if joint pain and mobility issues have made it a struggle, this is for you. Strength coach Andy Baker is back on the show to break down the role of squat variations and whether low bar squatting is truly necessary for size and strength.

Why the Low Bar Squat Became the Gold Standard

The low bar squat has been championed in strength training circles—especially in programs like Starting Strength—for its efficiency. It recruits a lot of muscle mass, allows for heavier loading, and helps beginners get strong quickly. But as Andy points out, this doesn’t mean it’s the only way to squat, nor does it guarantee better results than other variations.

• More weight ≠ more muscle – Just because you can lift heavier doesn’t mean you’re maximizing hypertrophy.

• Not all squats are created equal – Different squat variations shift emphasis to different muscle groups.

• Injury and comfort matter – If low bar is wrecking your elbows and shoulders, forcing it may be a losing battle.

The Real Difference Between Squat Variations

Andy sketched out a simple spectrum: on one end, not squatting at all (zero), and on the other, the low bar squat (rated as a 10 in effectiveness). But the kicker? Most other squat variations—high bar, safety bar, even some machine-based options—were clustered right behind it at an 8 or 9. The takeaway? The difference between them isn’t as drastic as people assume.

So if low bar is causing pain or limiting your progress, shifting to a high bar squat, safety squat bar, or even a well-executed hack squat isn’t going to derail your strength gains.

Does Low Bar Build More Muscle Than High Bar?

Here’s where it gets interesting:

• Low bar squats bring in more hips, glutes, and adductors, making them effective for overall strength but not necessarily optimal for quad growth.

• High bar squats put more demand on the quads while still engaging the posterior chain.

• Safety squat bar squats challenge the upper back more and can be easier on the shoulders and elbows.

• Hack squats isolate the quads effectively while minimizing stress on the spine.

For muscle growth, a mix of variations often works best. If you’re trying to maximize quad development, relying only on low bar squats might not be ideal.

When to Ditch the Low Bar Squat

If you're constantly dealing with nagging pain in your elbows or shoulders, or if low bar just doesn’t feel natural, it’s worth experimenting with different squat styles. Some key scenarios where swapping it out makes sense:

• Chronic elbow or shoulder pain from low bar positioning

• Struggling to hit depth or maintain good form

• Plateauing in squat strength despite consistent training

• Training for hypertrophy and needing more quad emphasis

What’s the Best Squat for You?

It depends on your goals:

• For strength – If you’re a powerlifter, low bar squatting is useful for competition. But if you’re a general lifter, you can get strong with multiple squat styles.

• For muscle growth – A combination of high bar squats, hack squats, and safety bar squats may be better than just low bar squats alone.

• For longevity and pain-free training – If low bar is causing chronic issues, it’s not "better" for you—choose a variation that lets you train consistently.

At the end of the day, squatting in a way that fits your body and goals is more important than sticking to a specific squat style out of dogma. Don’t let attachment to one lift limit your progress.

👩‍💻 Book a FREE 15-Minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment:
https://witsandweights.com/free-call

👥 Join our Facebook community for live Q&As & support

👋 Let's connect! Ask a question, get my FREE newsletter, or find me on Instagram

📱 Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS.

🏋️‍♀️ Download Boostcamp for free for evidence-based workout programs

🫙 Get 20% off Legion supplements with code WITSpod

---

Have you followed the podcast?

Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!

---

Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you've been forcing yourself to low bar squat because you believe it's the only way to maximize strength and muscle, or if nagging joint pain and mobility issues make low bar squatting a struggle and you're wondering can I squat a different way and still build strength and size. This episode is for you. Today, I'm discussing the low bar squat with strength coach Andy Baker. You'll discover how different squat variations compare for building muscle and strength, learn why sticking to just one squat style could be limiting your results, and get a clear framework for choosing the right squat variation for your goals and body. So, whether you've got injuries, you're questioning if low bar squatting is right for you, or you just want to understand the options, this episode will give you the knowledge to train effectively without giving up squatting altogether. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.

Philip Pape: 1:00

I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I've invited Andy Baker back on the show for the third time to discuss squat variations and challenge the notion that there is one best way to squat. Andy's a highly sought after strength coach, co-author of Practical Programming and the Barbell Prescription. He's the owner of Kingwood Strength and Conditioning and the online Baker Barbell Club, where he's helped thousands of lifters like myself train to get stronger by training smarter. If you missed him last time, check out episode 60 and 131, where we discussed his programming, philosophy and approach to bodybuilding. I'll throw the links in the show notes.

Philip Pape: 1:35

But today we're answering the question are low bar squats really needed to build strength and size? Andy, thanks for coming back on the show. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So I wanted to bring you on because a few days ago in your Facebook group, you posted a picture of a line graph from zero to 10, and 10 was the low bar squat, implying it was the, let's say, most effective squat. Whatever you want to call it. Zero was not squatting at all, and then a whole bunch of other variations of the squats clustered near the 10. And I want to ask you why you posted that and get into what it means.

Andy Baker: 2:08

Yeah, so that little graphic or that little picture that I posted, it came as a result of a conversation with one of my members, a longtime member of my club, and it's a conversation that I not just had with him. I've had with dozens or hundreds of people in some context. You know, throughout all the time I've been, you know, hosting forums and social media and you know just conversations with clients and that sort of thing. It's something that's come up, you know, a million times. And so the little graphic that I did was a hand-drawn. You know, I just I had this conversation with him and I literally just reached over and grabbed a piece of typing paper and a Sharpie and made this and took a picture of it with my phone and posted it on the Facebook group, because I don't know how to create infographics, because I'm-.

Philip Pape: 2:55

That's the way to do it, man. It's organic, right I'm technologically.

Andy Baker: 2:58

you know, like my technological age is about 80. So I don't know how to use Canva and all that stuff. Every time I do it it winds up taking me 10 times longer than it should, and it's just so. I'm like you know what, I'm just going to draw this really quick and take a picture of it and put it on there. But like it got a lot of response on there and I was kind of surprised like how many people really responded to that and kind of self-reported, like how eye-opening it was to me, which that happens when you're coaching.

Andy Baker: 3:27

Sometimes you don't realize things that you assume to be common knowledge or things, that you take a lot of things for granted, and then you you say something. You know just a little short infographic or an offhand comment that you make on a subject and it just, for whatever reason, resonates with tons of people. And this one did, and basically the conversation that I had with him. It's a guy that has been lifting in my club for a long time and he's had a history of different injuries and things like that. Nothing major but just little shit that we all get when we're pushing ourselves hard, but things elbows and shoulders I can't. Actually I can't remember right now what the actual issue he was having, but it's been a recurring issue with him over a number of years with low bar squatting and basically what he was kind of reporting to me was that I had told him to start integrating the safety squat bar, you know, not too long ago to kind of save some wear and tear on his elbows and shoulders.

Andy Baker: 4:28

Um, and then he had more or less basically just converted to safety bar squatting entirely and trained like that for a while and didn't have any issues. Uh, all the kind of the, all the little minor injury stuff that he had been dealing with off and on, just kind of went away when he switched over to the safety squat bar and then he decided, okay, I'm going to go back to low bar and a lot of those, some of the little injury stuff started coming back. He was very disappointed and frustrated because low bar is something that he wanted to do but he's like, at this point is it worth it? And he he sounded like the tone of his post was very dejected and I was, I like I didn't quite get it.

Philip Pape: 5:07

Life is over because I can't lower anymore. That was kind of the tone is that like, is it over for me?

Andy Baker: 5:11

like yeah, and the kind of the tone of his post was that like, well, I'm relegated to this other squat variation. You know, I'm relegated to safety squat bar. So it's. It was like somebody told him you know, you just need to do yoga or something you know know. It was like and I'm like, dude, it's not that big of a trade-off. And so I said, let me here, let me explain this to you, because I think you're making this out to be a much bigger deal than it is to switch to some other squat variation. And so I did the little graph and I'm like, look, you guys know me, I came out of the starting strength world. I'm an advocate of the low bar squat. I do think it's. You know, if you had to rank them, um, which that's. That kind of stuff's hard to do because it's always context dependent. It's hard to. With exercises, it's always hard to say this is best. You know this is first, this is second. You know cause it's?

Philip Pape: 5:58

it's context dependent the S tier, the A tier, yeah, yeah.

Andy Baker: 6:01

Right. So it's like it will. It's always. It goes back to that answer that people hate, which is you know, it depends. You know what's the best squatting? Very well, it depends. But you know, if I kind of made this little chart and I was like okay, or this little graph and I was like okay, if we assume, if we're going to say that you know, low bar is the best and I put that as a 10, you guys have in your head that these other squat variations are like two and three, like they're, they're like way, way down, and I said, look, they're probably like eight or nine, like they're all. So it's like all these squat very like low bars, 10 it's over here, but then like right behind it would be the other. You know squat variations of um. You know front variations of um. You know front uh, not front squats necessarily, but high bar, safety bar and and then like zero is like not squatting yeah, it's good to have that on there.

Philip Pape: 6:52

And then like, and then even like leg presses.

Andy Baker: 6:54

I put it like six or something and you know, as what happens online, people get really wrapped up in like the actual number. Well, is it a six? And I'm like don't get. What the point is is like you're not, you're not missing out on that much by switching to it. So like don't get dejected and think that like it's over for you because you can't do this one exercise. And I would say that to any exercise, not just low bar versus high, I'd say that if a guy can't bench, you know, for whatever reason, you know, if the, if the flat barbell bench, like are you missing out on some stuff by not being able to do that? Probably, but is there other things that you can do that are going to still get your upper body, you know, big and strong, of course. So it's not like it's over. There's been plenty of great, you know, bodybuilders and strength athletes and stuff that had to do modified versions of things you know.

Andy Baker: 7:45

So, and that was kind of my point with him was like, look at this point, even me being an advocate of like low bar and all that kind of stuff, you're going on several years now of battling this stuff and even if it is theoretically better on paper for all the reasons that you know, I would tell you that it is it's not better for you as the individual in practice because you're having to just constantly battle through entries and it's not just affecting your ability to squat, but when your elbows and shoulders and stuff are getting tore up from it, it's affecting your bench pressing and your upper body work too. So it's not. What good are you really getting out of it by constantly having to battle through this?

Philip Pape: 8:28

Yeah, people reduce it to just the lift as opposed to the systematic recovery, the consistency, like you said, the avoiding injury. Man, we were talking before about my shoulder and my favorite lift used to be the overhead press and I can't do it right now. So what do I do? Do I go cry? No, I have to figure out what to do. But there might be people listening like why is this a big deal? There are others listening like they love you because they, you know starting strength and they came from that world and they're like well, we know why the low bar is just dominant. What is the origin of that whole thing? So we can get into it. Why is the low bar squat seat put on this pedestal?

Andy Baker: 9:01

Well, it's for the reasons that are outlined, that Ripoteau has outlined in starting strength, basic barbell training, and again you have to kind of put that into context of who is starting strength written, for it's a beginner's program and we're trying to maximize certain amounts of things, and one of those things we're trying to maximize is efficiency. And so you know, what are the lifts that were selected for a novice program, you know, for somebody that's interested in general strength, and that would be the overhead press, the bench press, muscle mass through their most effective range of motion with the most weight possible. So, what variation of lifts? Uh, best satisfy those three criteria and we're going to use those to help us kind of make our exercise selections for a novice and just work on mastering those basic lifts rather than trying, just like any other area of skill development, whether it's in sport or not, even outside of sport, any other discipline that you're trying to learn from scratch and master, is going to start with a handful of basic fundamentals that need to be mastered before you move on to the next thing and the next thing and so.

Andy Baker: 10:29

But then the argument becomes well, what are the basics? I mean, most people don't get in an argument about that, whether it's weight training or math or baseball or any other discipline that somebody would be trying to learn from scratch. If you just make the general assertion that, well, you need to master the basics first, most people go, oh yeah, that makes sense, that's probably right, and then you go on to more and more complex things. From there the argument comes as okay, what are the basics, what are the basic things that you should master? Because most people agree that, as a beginner in any discipline, trying to master too many things especially for people that are doing this, that aren't particularly athletic all the time, it's harder for them to master too many things. So what are the things that we want to focus on in the beginning, that are going to give you the biggest ROI on your return in the gym, that are going to build the most amount of strength, build the most amount of muscle mass, carry over to other endeavors, and so those are the reasons that the low bar was chosen as the squat variation is that it allows more weight to be used. It works more muscle mass than the other variations through their most effective range motion. So does it work? Now, it doesn't work.

Andy Baker: 11:35

The quads specifically, as well as, say, a high bar squat, but the high bar squat in general uses less weight and it doesn't work other muscle groups quite as well as the low bar squat in general uses less weight and it doesn't work other muscle groups quite as well as the low bar squat does. So that's why the low bar was chosen. It doesn't mean a high bar squat is a bad exercise. It just means that for a novice, we think that a low bar squat is the best way to go for those reasons. It's going to work more muscle mass and allow you to use more weight, which are important things for a novice to do in terms of it, because the novice program doesn't use a lot of exercises.

Andy Baker: 12:09

So we're looking at what the exercises that we do use. We want them to work more muscle efficiently, and so on a low bar squat you get a lot of quads not as good as a high bar, but you still get a lot. A lot of quads. You get a lot of hamstring, a lot of gluten, a lot of quads. You get a lot of hamstring, a lot of gluten, a lot of adductor, and so we like to develop all of those things with just a single exercise, which is the way a beginner should do it, as opposed to where we would do. Let's say, we want to work the legs with leg extensions, leg curls, an adductor machine and RDLs or something. That's an inefficient way for a novice to build muscle mass and strength when you could basically develop all of those things with a single exercise.

Andy Baker: 12:53

That is also going to increase force production to a much higher degree. So that's why the low bar is recommended for a novice and then as a, as a trainee progresses and his the goals become more specific to that person. Then you look at, not just on squats but every exercise, branching out your exercise selection to more you know uh, meet whatever your individual goals and needs are. So that's where that comes from.

Philip Pape: 13:19

Yeah, yeah. And before we get to that cause, I love that. If you were writing start, if you were inventing a starting strength today it never existed, you'd never heard of any of that Would you still pick the low bar squat even if equipment wasn't an issue? So, in other words, safety squat bars are just as common as barbells, um, kabuki bars, whatever. Is there anything you would? Would you make a change today?

Andy Baker: 13:41

Not really, because if you do, it just muddies the water for people. You know it depends on whether you're when you're talking about providing information. Are you providing information to an individual or are you providing individual to the masses, to a large group of people? And and to you know and I get an. You know this is always hard when you're writing, when you're doing like what I do and you're trying to do articles or podcasts or whatever. You know this is always hard when you're writing, when you're doing like what I do and you're trying to do articles or podcasts or whatever, there's always a million different caveats and exceptions to everything that you're going to say, and it's it's hard to say anything without you know wanting to provide all those caveats and exceptions to everything, but then what happens is everybody thinks that they're the exception.

Philip Pape: 14:23

Right, so it's.

Andy Baker: 14:24

So, in terms of just now, I can tell you in practice, having walked a million people through you know, like a like a novice program, there are plenty of people, especially with my in-gym clients, who tend to be much older, who from day one cannot do a low bar squat. They and it's it's because of the grip issue. They just and if you've never worked with adults in their 50s and 60s and 70s I mean it's 50-50 at best whether somebody's going to be able to get a bar into the low bar position and you don't want to force it down there. I mean some things can be stretched.

Andy Baker: 14:59

Sometimes people have mobility issues that can be improved with time, but sometimes those issues with your you know you get older men and stuff in there with very arthritic shoulders and that sort of thing those are that's not really that improvable. So you're going to have to find a place on their back where they can put the bar and squat it. And so you're going to have, if you, if you do this stuff in person with people, you're going to have a whole bunch of your clients, especially if you're working with older adults, that are going to be high bar squatting from day one and are never going to low bar squat because they cannot get the bar into that position, and trying to force it into that position is only going to do damage to them from an injury perspective. So sometimes those mobility issues improve over time, yes, but sometimes they don't, and so it's not an issue that you necessarily want to force.

Andy Baker: 15:45

And so, in practice, you're going to have a whole lot of people, uh, that are going to wind up, you know, doing high bar squat or even like a safety bar squat or something like that, from day one, you know, and so that's, uh, that's one of those things, and that's that's where the importance of and and and rip went to in starting strength. Rip went to great pains not to just provide a program in there but explain certain things that would help a coach who can take the information and think on his feet about how to make these adjustments there are. He went to great pains to making sure that people understood things like the relationship to where the bar sits on your shoulders or your back and where it is relative to your midfoot.

Andy Baker: 16:32

Well, when you understand that, you can tailor a squat to anybody, right, and so, um, principal first principles Yep, right, you do have, and so you need to understand the whole thing and the bigger picture rather than just doing what people do, which is flip to the back of the book and find the program and go, okay, I'm going to do this and oh, I can't. Low bar squat, what do I do? Well, if you understood the whole model of the pains that they went to to explain you know how and why squats are performed, the way that they are, um, and how to do them and how to coach them, then you will learn that you know the high bar versus low bar thing. It kind of exists on a spectrum as well. Not everybody is a pure high bar squatter with the bar way up on top of their traps, nor are they a pure low bar squatter with it. You know much further down across the spine of their scapula and that some people may be in between.

Andy Baker: 17:25

But as long as you understand that relationship to where does the bar sit relative to its position over the middle of the foot, then you can put people into a squat that's going to work for them and it may be kind of a tweener, a little bit of a kind of between high bar and low bar squat that feels right for them, that maximizes and gives them the best leverage, but isn't going to force a range of motion on their shoulders that they can't do, and that that position on their back may change over time.

Andy Baker: 17:53

They may be able to get the bar lower. They may start out low and it needs to go higher because it's causing problems, and then you, as the coach, know how to adjust the rest of the squat in order to accommodate where the bar is going to be on there. A big mistake that people make in this high bar versus low bar thing is they'll read the book and they'll go well, I can't do low bar squat because that hurts. And so they'll put the bar in a high bar position and then continue to use low bar mechanics for the rest of the squat.

Andy Baker: 18:22

And you can't do that Because then if you're trying to keep a more horizontal back angle and use a lot of hip drive and you've got the bar and high bar, you're creating a moment arm where that barbell is getting way forward to the midfoot and that's not a good position to be in.

Andy Baker: 18:37

Likewise, if you have the bar in low bar position and you're trying to keep a very vertical torso and you're not understanding why you can't get to depth, well, it's because if you get to depth you're going to fall over backwards because the weight is now so far behind your midfoot that you can't balance it anymore, and so understanding that relationship between bar and midfoot really solves this problem. So you're just trying to get the bar in the right spot for each person, not necessarily getting so wrapped up in whether is it in high bar or is it low bar or is it kind of somewhere in between, and then just getting people set up in the right squat that's good for them, and using those kind of those physics principles that are outlined in the book, those very basic physics principles, to keep that barbell in balance over the midfoot so that they can squat strong but also squat safely.

Philip Pape: 19:29

Yeah, and I'll say anybody who hasn't read starting strength, it is worth looking at the biomechanics charts where they explain all that, also the 30 something page chapter on squats, and actually sit and take notes and start from the you know foot stance and doing it without a bar, and go through that whole process and then get a coach. Once you've tried that for a little bit because you still are not are going to be missing some things. Yeah, people's arms are different lengths. There's so many different reasons. I was talking to my, you know, tony. He was in the group Tony Perry. I'll give him a shout out, cause he he wanted me to send some questions your way too, but he's now maxing, or he's now hitting PRS on his high bar because he switched to it because of his, uh, soreness in the elbow.

Philip Pape: 20:08

As I joined a doctor a doctor, you know I myself went to kind of a between high bar and low bar because of my shoulder, and yet now I'm like, should I just go to the safety squat bar? After seeing your graph, it's like it's not that big of a difference, right, so? But at the end of the day, what you said about the bar path and being over midfoot once you understand that, you can then understand the eye gaze, you understand where squat shoes might be helpful, you understand, like you know, where the knees go and the different squats, because sometimes there'll be more forward and the more upright squats and such. I mean you kind of figure that out over time. So a lot of this which I've learned from you, andy no-transcript.

Andy Baker: 21:09

And then, like you said, understanding individual anthropometry I've been low bar squatting for over 20 years. I've never had an issue with any of the stuff that people regularly have issues with. I've never had shoulder inflammation, I've never had elbow inflammation. I've never had a torn adductor. You know some of those, uh, the most common problems that we see from low bar squatting. I've never had that. But I can't use just my own experience as a lifter and carry that over to a coach and and uh, or in my role as a coach and I have to recognize that certain people are going to and you can do the other assumption that everybody makes is that if my elbows are hurting, my shoulders are hurting or whatever, I'm doing something wrong, that I'm making an egregious form mistake, and if I could fix this, that may be the case and that's why coaching is important you may be making a mistake. There are some very common mistakes that people make in low bar that will exacerbate all of those injuries. I'd say the most common one is probably carrying way too much of the bar weight in the hands. So people have in their head that the low bar is much lower than it actually is and so they've got that bar seated actually well below the spine of the scapula and what happens is, in order to accommodate that, they're either having to bend way over a much more horizontal back angle than what we would like, or, if they try to keep the torso more vertical and what's kind of a more natural or more aesthetically pleasing looking squat, is that they wind up carrying a lot of the weight of the bar in their hands, as opposed to the whole weight of the bar in their hands, as opposed to the whole weight of the barbell sitting on their back. And that's one of the places that we try to get people on. Day one is kind of where they could kind of loosen the fingers off the bar and the bar still pinned to their back, so they're not actually carrying load in their hands. Because if you are, that's going to drive this area in here, nuts shoulders, it's not your shoulders and elbows aren't going to hold up to that. So, getting the bar higher if people are carrying the bar too low and carrying it in their hands and getting that into the proper place Some people are, especially smaller guys.

Andy Baker: 23:17

They tend to want to pull their hands way too far in and it's like they're under so much tension while they're squatting. It's like, yeah, if you do enough reps like that, enough days per week, you're, you're holding a very, very forceful isometric contraction there. You know it could lead to some some elbow or shoulder, you know discomfort and it's like you know, teaching people. It's not really about where your hands are, it's about your shoulder blades. It's about keeping that really tight upper back, really retracting those shoulder blades with some people call packing. You know you're taking all the skin and muscle and fat on your upper back and really pulling it in tight and really building a good shelf for that bar to sit on. The hands work to just kind of reinforce those tight shoulder blades. But you can keep the tight shoulder blades and move your hands out a little bit in order to take a little pressure off the elbows.

Andy Baker: 24:09

And a lot of people don't they have this idea that their hands need to be drawn in just absolutely where it's. It's like if you pulled their fingers off the bar they would just come apart, like you know, like a cartoon. You know cause they're, they're wound up so tight underneath that. So tight is good, we don't want to be loose under the bar, but understanding what is the role of the hands, the role of the hands is to reinforce the tightness of the upper back, not to have the hands tight on the bar just for the sake of having the hands tight on the bar.

Andy Baker: 24:37

So a lot of people just don't understand big picture of why things the way, that they are the same thing with the thumbs around the bar versus thumbs over the top of the bar. You know a lot of people don't. The reason why you know it's often coached to have the thumbs over the top of the bar instead of gripped around the bar is because that makes it harder to hold the weight in your hands and we're trying to teach the lifter to pin the bar to your back. Pin the bar to your back, pin the bar to your back with your hands Don't hold the weight in your hands and so by eliminating the thumbs it almost it mechanically prevents them from holding a lot of the bar weight in their hands. It forces them to just pin the bar to their back and that keeps a higher percentage of the bar weight, you know, just on their torso instead of in their hand, no-transcript. And when you have a good, clear, big picture, understanding of that, then it allows you to manipulate them in order to fit you, as opposed to just say, well, I got to do it this way, I got to do it this way.

Andy Baker: 25:42

And there's so many people that get involved in this world that are just so obsessive, compulsive about things to their own detriment, and they don't even really understand why it is they're doing what they're doing. And so when you, when you don't have the big picture understanding, then you don't know how to manipulate the variables to create a good squat for yourself or for the lifter that you coach, you're just, you're just blindly following this model, and the model is to get you into a good. It's like one of the things of a model, one of the analogies that I use, and this is true of programming and it's true of uh, of, of, uh. You know technique models, if you want to call it that, or is that. It's kind of it's like a hand-drawn map for somebody. You know, if I draw you a very detailed hand-drawn map, um, of how to get somewhere, how to go somewhere, that's going to get you really, really close to the destination, if it's accurate, but it may not account for every pothole in the road, every puddle every log that fell.

Philip Pape: 26:44

You know what I'm saying.

Andy Baker: 26:45

You're going to have to do some self-navigation on that road. You can't just close your eyes and blindly lock down the road because I drew you a map. You still have to have your eyes open and learn how to navigate some of this stuff. And the same thing is true whether it's a program that somebody writes for you or that you're following, or whether it's a technique model that you're following, is that, yeah, you should try to follow it as best as you can, but you still have to do some individual adaptation along the way to make it fit you and realize what you can manipulate and what you can't. And that makes it really easy and it undoes a lot of this kind of obsessive, compulsive thinking.

Andy Baker: 27:17

Makes it really easy and it undoes a lot of this kind of obsessive, compulsive thinking and it undoes some of the anxiety about having to switch from a low bar to a high bar, which is just, or you know, a safety squat bar or something which to me, even as a starting strength coach which advocates for low bar squatting, I just don't see as that big of a deal in practice for people who are just trying to use this for as a means to get generally stronger and build some muscle mass.

Andy Baker: 27:38

It's just not that. It's just not that big of a deal, especially if you're constantly battling injuries and such like that. Just, I mean, you know as well as I do the one thing that'll derail your progress more than anything else in the jeb it's not your squat technique, it's not your program, it's injury. Injury is the the thing that will set you back weeks, months and years and cause you to never get any headway when you're continuously dealing with the same old injuries over and over again. And so getting somebody where they can train in a way that's pain and injury free is, you know, it's really one of the big picture things you got to take care of.

Philip Pape: 28:21

Yeah, and that's why I wonder how many people start with a low bar and let's say they deal with all the biomechanics and the technique issues you talked about, cause we're maybe talking two audiences at the same time one who maybe hasn't quite learned the low bar squat properly or need to learn some of the things you talked about, like the thumb over grip and others, and then you have folks that are like a lot of folks in your club who came from the starting strength world. They know the low bar squat, they've done it, and then something happens either they get injured or it's just not comfortable anymore. Um, how common do you see people then transition away from the low bar squat due to those issues and maybe even find better results, cause now they've got something that works for them introduce some variations to their programming.

Andy Baker: 28:55

Most people will not just low bar squat all the time. I usually don't remove it from the program, you know, unless there's a need to remove it from the program, like they have an injured adductor or something like that but or if they're, you know they're having the repetitive shoulder and elbow pain and we can't get it fixed. You know, if there's no reason to remove it, I don't just arbitrarily remove it, but I may reduce the frequency of it and introduce other variations for any number of reasons, Some of which just might be preventative. It's just to to, because I know those issues are likely to occur, even if their form is good, and all that kind of stuff I may introduce, like their light day squat, maybe a safe squat bar.

Philip Pape: 29:56

It's simply to eliminate the movement pattern altogether. Right, of course, the cause of the issue, yeah.

Andy Baker: 30:01

Right, and that's what what gets people is is, um, it's not just the low bar squat like in the starting strength program where we're having people squat three days a week heavy. You know that's, that's a short term thing for a novice. You know. I always say you know you're looking at six weeks to six months. You know, with six weeks being really really short on the short side, six months being kind of exceptionally long, most people be it in that three to four month range of how, how long they're going to be able to run or should run the novice phase of the program. But during that short window of time, you know we're having people squat fairly heavy three days a week because they can, they can get away with it and they can, they can add weight to the bar, you know, two to three times a week, um and so, and they can put a lot of poundage on their bar in a very short period of time. They'll make the fastest progress they've ever made. But then you know, once the once the novice gains are realized, you have to. You have to uh, switch your programming methodology.

Andy Baker: 30:55

And squatting with the low bar heavy three days a week is not a good idea and squatting low bar period three days a week may not be a good idea, even if you're using something like a heavy light medium system where you're only going heavy once a week and the other days. It's the frequency that gets people and that's not just true of low bar squats, that would be true of a lot of different lifts. It's it's the frequency that you're exposed to that creates the problems. It's not usually the load, it's the fact that you're low bar squatting three days a week. So you're just hammering away on the exact same tissue in the exact same way in the exact same spot, day after day after day after day, and that's what's. That's what gets people so like, say, reducing.

Andy Baker: 31:38

If you're squatting twice a week and you're going to have your heavy main squat day, be your low bar squat, but then your light day later in the week, maybe that's a safety squat bar so that we're still training that squat pattern. It's not that different from a low bar. In some ways it's not different at all, depending on how you carry the bar, but it allows your shoulders and your elbows to relax and get a break. And maybe that lighter squat day is being paired with your heavy bench day so that you can do your squats first and you're not carrying any of that fatigue over to your bench press. A lot of people and I guarantee there's somebody listening to this they think they're they're they go to, they're doing their bench pressing and they're feeling that elbow tendonitis in their you know, in their elbows while they're bench pressing and they think, well, what am I doing wrong on the bench, like it's like nine times out of say one are you bench pressing?

Andy Baker: 32:29

directly after squatting?

Andy Baker: 32:39

If so, we're going to change that. Or are you bench pressing the day after squatting? And if so, we're going to change that. We're going to bench the day before we squat instead of vice versa, in order so that they're not having to, Because what happens is that the inflammation that's being created in their elbows from the low bar isn't manifesting until they get on the bench, but they attribute it to their bench press because that's just where they feel it, but that's not what's causing it. It's the low bar squat that's causing it. So you know. So just playing with exercise selection, you know, down the road in order to minimize that kind of stuff and say stay healthy and stay injury free is just smart programming.

Philip Pape: 33:16

Yeah, you know, the more I've gone through this with some of your programs, like Conjugate, your bodybuilding program, others even volume-based programs where they have developmental variations of the lift and talk to a bunch of great coaches on this show is the variety has massive benefits. Once you get past that point, even for reasons you may not be aware of, because of the fatigue versus stimulus over time issues, especially as we get older, where things are just cascading across days, like you said, you might be doing your low bar Monday and then your next upper body. You have a developmental variation of the squat, you mix it up or testing the one RMs on conjugate right and you go to a. You rotate literally every week. There's something to be said for that Cause. I know there's dogma in the world that they come from with starting strength, which a wrong audience cause. That's beginners Right. And if, if you then extrapolate that, okay, so the next 10 years I'm going to do the same three lifts over and over, it's not going to be sustainable For most people.

Andy Baker: 34:10

That's true. And exactly what you're saying for strategic variety is kind of what I call it, where the variety is strictly there for the purposes of fatigue management, and that's both systemic fatigue, you know, just manipulating the exercises so that you're using, like with the conjugate program, like on your max effort day, where you're. You know, this week we're doing a rack pull and it's 650 pounds, and then the next week we're doing a front squat which is 300 pounds, like that's there strictly to kind of mitigate some of that systemic fatigue, but also the local fatigue which is not doing the same movement hard and heavy, over and over and over again, because it's the same. I call them hotspots, but it's basically the same little, it's not just the same tissue, but the same little spot, the same little point on the tissue where it's the weakest or the most vulnerable is being stressed over and over and over and over again and not getting any time to recover from that stress. Even just switching from a low bar to a high bar is slightly changing where the peak stress is at in the tissue, and I don't necessarily know where it's at in every single lift, but I know it's different, right, so I know the peak stress in a max effort, low bar squat is in a different spot than it is in the high bar squat and in a different spot than it is in the low bar squat and in a different place than it is in a deadlift. And so by kind of varying up those movements week to week on your heaviest days, you're minimizing that stress being all directed in the same exact place every single time.

Andy Baker: 35:44

The best analogy and I have to give credit to Matt Winning for this, for pointing it out I don't know if he was the first, I'm not a big, necessarily Matt Winning guy, but still I have to give credit for it because he's the one where I heard it and I was like that's perfect analogy. It's just like rotating the tires on your car. Why do we rotate the tires on your car? Because, if you're and if you want to take that analogy even further, what if we kept the tires, all four tires, in the same spot and all we did was high speed left turns in a circle, right, that's where would the where be? Well, it would be in one spot, it would be in a, it would be in one spot and it would be in a predictable spot, right, because the peak amount of stress on those tires is in the same spot all the time. But how so?

Philip Pape: 36:25

how do you accelerate?

Andy Baker: 36:26

It would accelerate because you're going fast, right, and it just like with you when you're going heavy. That's like the same analogy is going fast, so you're applying peak stress to the same area over and over and over again. Well, how do you mitigate that? Well, make some right-hand turns, mix the right-hand turns in with the left-hand turns. Rotate your tires every few months so that it's a little bit. The back tires get moved to the front and left gets moved to right. So you're mixing it up a little bit and it's just a small amount of variation like that, you know, can save your tires a lot of wear and tear, right. So it's, that's the same way to the tire.

Andy Baker: 37:03

Analogy is the same way to think about the different tissues on your body is, if you're going hard and heavy frequently, all the time on the same lifts, it's going, you're going to wear out those spots. So, figuring out a way to reduce frequency, introduce variation. There's a lot of different ways you can go about it Managing, mixing up the loads, the intensities, that sort of thing. That's going to save you a lot. And again, it mitigates against injury and overuse, which is the thing that derails your training more than anything. So I'd rather have somebody injury free on a, maybe a what is on paper a slightly suboptimal program, versus being on the optimal program and being hurt all the time.

Andy Baker: 37:47

Right that that makes it not an optimal program it cancels out the optimality and it made and it differs across individuals, right like, like what's, because again we get into the anthropometry thing. So even with differences in anthropometry I mean the frequency and the exercise selection and all that that may work for well for one guy is not necessarily going to work for the next guy. And and even even not just limb length and things like that, but even you know even the size of a guy's traps and upper back. I mean, if you get a guy that's a real thick power lifter type guy with real thick, big traps and big, thick upper back, versus a guy that's 165 pounds, that's not as developed or whatever. I mean that can be different as well. Have trouble with low bar, say, one guy doesn't have enough thickness to do it, right, he's got, he just doesn't have enough meat back there. I mean he can, but it makes it harder when you don't have, when there's nothing to pack, pack together and create a shelf for that bar to sit on. You know that the skinny guy may have trouble with it, but so also is the big, thick guy that's got monster traps and a big thick upper back and all that. He may also have trouble getting the bar down there. So you. You know you just can't force it with everybody and you have to kind of, you know, understand the bigger model and then just find, find the spot on the back and the variation that's going to work best for them. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say just, I mean, this is just an aside, but I was kind of terms of the preventative thing, where I was talking about changing exercise selection slightly, not just in response to a problem, but in order to potentially prevent a problem that you know is likely to occur.

Andy Baker: 39:31

I do that a lot with certain athletes. A lot with certain athletes Probably more than any other sport of athletes that I've worked with is probably swimmers and baseball players. If I work with a pitcher that's a young kid or whatever that's got a really good arm and that's pitching a lot and maybe has a chance to go play college ball or maybe, you know, get drafted minor league or whatever. Like you have to protect their arm. As a coach, as a strength coach, yes, you want to get them bigger and stronger and all that kind of stuff is. Have them start having shoulder and elbow pain on their pitching arm. It'll get you.

Andy Baker: 40:18

I mean, you're one you can't, as a coach, be responsible for creating problems in the gym that are then carrying over to their sport. That's regardless of any sport. But like stuff like that, where you're you don't have a lot of leeway and the thing is is like with inflammation, tendonitis and things like that once it gets set in it's very hard to get rid of. You know, especially on a kid. That's like a pitcher that's throwing all the time the way that they do now, where they're not just. You know, it's not like they just have a game on Saturday.

Andy Baker: 40:49

These kids pitch all the time. They're going to private lessons all the time. So that arm is under a tremendous amount of wear and tear and of none of those, those types of factors are under your control as a coach. So you know it's very rare. If I get a kid of that caliber which I do get occasionally I'm probably going to have them safety squat bar right right off the bat, because I don't even want the potential of low bar squat fucking around with their shoulder or their elbow.

Andy Baker: 41:16

Yeah, just get the arms out of it, right, if it's just a general guy, that's, you know, 35, and comes in it's like, hey, I just want to build some muscle and get stronger. Then it's like, yeah, we're going to try low bar, you know, and if it doesn't work later and you start getting some elbow and shoulder pain, no big deal, we'll switch it up, you know and figure out. But somebody like that where you've got a higher caliber athlete or something where you have to really protect them, in those cases it may not even be worth the risk and it may just be well to start a risk mitigation game right off the bat and particular I have special interest in, and Tony and I were talking about how it places a little bit more stress on your back, actually in a weird way with a yoke, where you find you can't you know you can't push as much through the legs and the loads a little bit less than your low bar, but also there's this extra back element.

Philip Pape: 42:12

Is there some sort of rig or special equipment for an athlete where, if they literally just want to use their legs and nothing else, you know what I mean Like, or is that? Is that a hip squat or a belt squat? You know what I mean?

Andy Baker: 42:22

Yeah, that would be a belt squat, which may be appropriate in certain cases. I don't really put a. I put a belt squat kind of in the same place that I would like a leg press or something it's not like a six or seven, I'm not.

Andy Baker: 42:33

I'm not against them, but I don't think that they're quite as good of a tool. As you know, I like the idea of the force being generated from the legs and traveling up, you know, through the back and through the core, if you will, through the abs into the torso and up into the bar. I like that longer kinetic chain. I think there's a lot of value on that for most people in terms of really developing, you know, real practical full body strength. I think that longer kinetic chain of you know, from from the feet all the way up into the bar has a lot of value. You lose a lot of that with a with a belt squat or you know a leg press, certainly, um, you know, but do they have their place? For sure, if you have a guy with a bad injury, uh, to the upper body, where you know, or the back you know a guy with a bad injury to the upper body or the back, a guy with a bad back injury, something like that, then for sure a belt squat or something like that is entirely appropriate. The safety squat bar there's a learning curve to it, for sure. I kind of liken it to and again, it kind of depends on the person and where the bar exactly sits and even what they choose to do with the handles. You watch some guys kind of push up a little bit as they go down and come up. Some guys pull down a little bit, you know. So where does that bar sit? You can even flip it upside down to make it really hard if you want to. It's more like a front squat there, but it's you know, it's.

Andy Baker: 43:53

To me and this is just my own personal feedback from it, no-transcript my subjective feedback on it is it's kind of a tweener in between high bar and low bar. The weight that I'm able to do kind of reflects that. You know. It kind of is the weight I can squat on. Safety squat bar is kind of in between what I can do. You know high bar versus low bar. So I think that's an indicator to look at.

Andy Baker: 44:40

And then you know, I would say, depends on how you want to look at this.

Andy Baker: 44:43

Is it a downside or is it an upside to the safety squat bar is the stress that it places on the back and the fact that you do have to develop a very strong upper back in order to safety squat bar big weight, because it does want to roll you.

Andy Baker: 44:56

It does want to kind of collapse your upper body and roll you over. So if you're not you know, if you're not paying attention to that, if you're not you know, holding everything tight from the, from the waist up, and paying attention to that, it's easy for the heavy safety squat bar to get to fold you in half and you can kind of feel that when it gets heavy, you can feel that that that pressure of wanting to fold you up and you have to resist that at the same time that you're coming up, which is an element that is there on a barbell squat but not quite as pronounced as it is on a safety squat bar. So you know, in terms of, is that a pro or a con? It depends on the context. I happen to think that safety squat bar squatting, getting really strong on a safety squat bar has tremendous carryover to a barbell because of the fact that once you get on the barbell it almost seems easier after the safety squat bar, because of the fact that you've had to learn.

Philip Pape: 45:50

I totally agree with that yeah.

Andy Baker: 45:51

Your back and your core, if you will, and everything has gotten so much stronger that the barbell it feels I don't want to say feel easy, but it almost is like you're squatting on a machine or something, because you're not having to fight that tendency of that bar to want to fold you in half. So I think it has tremendous carryover to the squat. I also think it has tremendous carryover to the deadlift because I think in order to get a big safety squat, bar squat, you have to get, you have to get very, very strong in the mid back, and I think that that that's a positive thing. Um, as an assistance exercise, if you wanted to call it an assistance exercise for the deadlift, I think safety box safety squat, bar squatting is right up there, almost at the top of the list in terms of in terms of improving deadlift strength. So that's that's a. That's a pro as as a con. You know, deadlift strength, so that's a pro as a con. For people that are less athletic and maybe don't already have that upper body kind of the upper back or core strength or whatever you want to call it. It could be a con because then the limiting factor on the squat is no longer the legs and the hips.

Andy Baker: 46:52

It's like a front squat. It's like a front squat. It's like why is a front squat? In theory, is a front squat a really good squat variation for building up the quads? In theory, yes, for where you know the, where, where the bar sits and the fact that other muscle groups aren't as involved in the quads are having to do all the work and torso is very vertical and you can get a really full range of motion on the quads by getting deep, because you're not having to fight the resistance from the hamstrings and all that. So in theory, the front squat is a really great quad developer. In practice it's not always, because the limiting factor is almost never quad strength. For most people it's the rack position.

Andy Baker: 47:30

So, in order, from a hypertrophy standpoint, in order for an exercise to be considered a good hypertrophy movement, the limiting factor needs to be the target muscle that's being trained. So if you're doing front squats for the development of your quads but the quads are not what's limiting you and you're being limited by your ability to rack the bar or even just hold the bar upright and you're failing because you're getting doubled over at the bottom of the squat or halfway up on the squat, then it makes it not such a good exercise for that purpose. And so the safety squat bar in general is not as challenging as a front squat in order to maintain position, but it's more challenging than a barbell for most people, and so in some ways it could be considered not as good of an exercise if the limiting factor is that. But it's like everything else, though. If you start it, if you're new to it, and you start it in a conservative spot, you know with a weight that you can do and do in good form, and then you load it progressively, but conservatively.

Andy Baker: 48:30

Everything that needs to get stronger is going to get stronger. I mean your legs are going to get stronger, you know, at the same pace as your. You know your abs and your upper back and all that stuff that needs to be strengthened in order to. So it's all going to get stronger if you train it. But at the beginning there may be a little bit of a learning curve for people, because the limiting factor is not the legs and the hips but instead is the you know, the upper back and the ability to hold that weight. So you know, that's just that's. That's one programming consideration.

Philip Pape: 48:57

Yeah, yeah. And then there are a million ways to vary these things like um, pause squats I learned from you with the safety squat, bar or plat squats. You can really hit the quads really hard with those. One question that comes up then okay, if you've got high bar, safety bar, low bar, they're kind of clustered together. They each have their not pros and cons, but different things that you need to adapt and get stronger with the different muscle groups, like we were talking about, to put a positive spin on it. And then you shift a little bit over and people are thinking okay, in the absence of low bar squats and again shout out to Tony for this question you still want maybe to develop the part of your hip musculature that's maybe not getting hit as much with the low bar that you have it out of your program. Would you then supplement with leg press, hack squats, box squats? What's your approach to that for folks who are just not low-barring anymore?

Andy Baker: 49:41

Yeah, it all just depends on the goal. I mean, certainly, the thing that the low bar really hits well and a lot of people. Part of the reason you know it gets hit hard is because this is where a lot of the injuries occur is the adductors, which know, which is on the end, the big meat on the inside of the leg that then wraps around to the back of the of the leg and kind of attaches on the, on the underside of the pelvis, in the in the rear. A lot of people mistake uh, what is an adductor injury for a hamstring strain? Most people cause it, they, they, it the adductors. You think of them on the inside of your leg, which they are, but they're hip extensors and they go around to the back and so adductors get hit hard in a low bar squat and that is one of the most common areas where you see a bad injury on low bar squat. That's the most common bad injury on a low bar squat is a torn adductor. They hurt like a motherfucker and they take forever to heal and so but that's, that tissue is being it's being stretched a lot at the bottom and it's it's being really heavily engaged in a lot of that hip drive element from a, from a low bar squat, is coming off of a rebound, not just of the hamstrings but off of the adapters, and so that's an element that you that you somewhat lose the with other squat variations. You know I'm not a big fan of like the adapter machine or something like that. So you're you know you're losing that If I was having somebody say strictly high bar, you know I would certainly make sure and I do some of this with athletes anyways I would make sure that we're doing things like RDLs or something like that. That really hits a lot of the of of hamstring. But you know for, for that really hits a lot of the of of hamstring. But you know for for most people, just for your average guy looking to, just I'm just trying to get stronger and build muscle mass. You know the mechanical differences between high bar and low bar. Are they different? Yes, are they that different where it's just going to affect the regular guy trying to get bigger and stronger? Not, not really.

Andy Baker: 51:35

You know I I took a picture. I think I put it on my Instagram picture or video. I'm not sure how long ago it was. It feels like maybe six months ago, probably been longer, and it was a picture of me at the bottom of a low bar squat and then another side-by-side a picture of me at the bottom of a high bar squat and you can barely tell the difference right. I mean, the the back angle is slightly different. You know the every the knee angle is slightly different, but they're not that different now they are more, they are more they're they're they're more different on certain people, certain body types may may exhibit more difference between high and low bar, but, like on me there, it wasn't that, it wasn't't that different. Now it's different enough, even though to the naked eye it doesn't look that like that much.

Andy Baker: 52:21

But I can still low bar squat a lot more than I can high bar squat, even though that I train high bar now more than I do low bar. But I so there is difference in the fact that you are can squat a lot more weight. You know it's a different movement You're bringing in and the reason you can squat more weight is because you're bringing in more muscle mass into the movement. So the low bar allows you to squat that heavier weight. But even all that being said, functionally carry over to everyday life. General leg size, that sort of thing. Are you losing that much between switching from one variation to the other? Not really If you're highly competitive in a given sport.

Andy Baker: 52:57

Are you competing in powerlifting? Are you missing something by not low barring? Yes, because the whole idea in that sport is to squat as much weight as humanly possible and low bar is going to allow you to do that. If you're bodybuilding, are you missing something by exclusively low bar squatting? Yes, most likely, if that's your only variation that you're going to have in your program for your legs is a low bar squat, you know. Are you potentially missing something? My answer for most people and again this varies by anthropometry, but for most people, yeah, you're going to be missing something.

Andy Baker: 53:32

Because I know, like, for me and I was never a prolific squatter best squats I ever did was, like you know, around 550. I think I did a triple with like 535 or something like that. So not not world-class at all by not even impressive by today's standards, but not weak, um, and it's, it's definitely stronger than average. Your average guy did squat in the gym, um, but visually, you know, my quads were not developed, you know not, not really, I mean, are they bigger than the average guy that doesn't squat? Yes, but were they for somebody who had spent that much time under the bar and could squat five, 50, you would think you would see a bigger set of quads than what I had. Um, what I did have was a gigantic ass and a gigantic set of adductors. So that's so. All of my leg mass was basically I always I've made that joke a bunch of times I was all ass and adductors, but quads not so developed.

Andy Baker: 54:24

Now a guy with a slightly different build may be receiving a little bit more of that stress, you know, in his quads and it's not like my quads didn't get work. I mean they still got sore and all that kind of stuff didn't get work. I mean they still got sore and all that kind of stuff. So I know that quads are getting work, but from just a purely aesthetic standpoint of you know, like if you were competing in bodybuilding or whatever, you know, I got much more development in my quads when I started switching to predominantly high bar and safety, squat bar, squatting and less low bar, which is to be expected. You know I wasn't that strong at them when I first started, which was another indicator that they maybe weren't doing all that much work in the low bar squat relative to the posterior chain, especially the adductors, them relative. Some of that's just technique, getting used to the technique and all that. But I'm a pretty good athlete so the technique changes aren't necessarily that hard for me in the gym.

Andy Baker: 55:26

For some people it's like reinventing the wheel. I mean, if you work with guys that just aren't good athletes and aren't good natural lifters, slight changes in technique it's like, oh my God, it's like you're teaching them to, you know, a whole new sport or something. Whereas a good natural athlete can switch between a high bar and a low bar squat, no problem. But athlete or guys that aren't good natural athletes have a harder time with that kind of stuff. And that's one of the reasons, like rip talked about in the in starting strength about one of the reasons if you go back to the early earlier in starting strength, about one of the reasons if you go back to the early earlier editions of starting strength, there were some variations of the novice program which had front squatting on the middle day. So you would, you know, squat regular back squat on Mondays and Fridays and then the middle day was like a front squat and the you know the idea was to, you know, to lessen the load a little bit or whatever.

Andy Baker: 56:13

But the kind of the challenge with that is that those are two fundamentally different movement patterns. One, you're trying to teach a guy to stay bent over and drive with his hips. The other, you're trying to teach a guy to stand straight up and, you know, come straight up with the legs and almost push the hips forward and you're bad natural athletes, which a lot of your clients are going to be. If you're a coach, you're just you're not going to be always working with very gifted people. It completely confuses the movement pattern in their head. Now, if you have a guy like a college athlete or something, that's not going to happen. They're not going to be confused. Their mechanics and their proprioceptive awareness and all that that's not going to be confusing to them.

Andy Baker: 56:49

To switch between a high bar and a low bar or a front squat All three of those could be taught at the same time and they'll immediately know how to differentiate between how to do.

Andy Baker: 56:56

All three of those could be taught at the same time and they'll immediately know how to differentiate between how to do all three of those. But if you take a less talented, less gifted person and you try to teach a multiple squat variations at the very beginning. It's like you're trying to teach them three different sports at once. It totally doesn't make sense in their head and they'll start trying to do low bar stuff on their front squats and front squats on their low bar and it's a mess in their head. Bar stuff on their front squats and front squats on their low bar, and it's just it's a mess in their head. So that's just something that you learn as a coach and something that Rip identified pretty early of let's not confuse the average non-athletic person with too many different cues for too many similar movements, Cause it just muddies the water for them a little bit.

Philip Pape: 57:30

Yeah, there's a lot there, eddie, a lot there, eddie, but yeah.

Andy Baker: 57:35

That's what I do, I do. I stream of consciousness.

Philip Pape: 57:37

So no, no, it's all good. I'm trying to figure out what to follow up on Cause I know you asked something.

Andy Baker: 57:42

I know you asked something about leg presses and hack squats, but I don't remember now.

Philip Pape: 57:45

You covered it, you covered it. You always cover it in your own way, which is good. So I feel like to listen to you. But but developing those movement patterns I mean the, the, the low bar squats technical enough, like you said, for a beginner to not have to throw in yet another thing to learn. And but then going back to the argument of variation, I mean again, you talked about not only strength but size. We know a lot of strong guys who don't necessarily have the most well-rounded physique, or maybe it's asymmetric, if you want to use that term, like you said, ass and adductors, and what are the things you work with when you coach and in the club and everything else is the everyday Joe who wants to be strong but also look good. Yeah, there are guys who want to push their lifts. We also want to, you know, look healthy and have decent physique.

Andy Baker: 58:26

Yeah, I just call it. You know, small B bodybuilders you know, not competitive, not not up on stage with the spray tan and all that, but basically training for as much muscle mass you know as possible so that it to maximize their, their physique, for their, for their genetics, within reason.

Philip Pape: 58:43

Right, which closes the loop on the whole discussion of squatting being one, one type being superior or not. It really depends. And, like you said, if you're a power lifter, olympic lifter or something, it's going to be one thing, something that's going to be one thing. If you're an everyday guy that's trying to be well-rounded, enjoy the variety. Like I think there's a fun, you know, mental aspect to getting to try all of these things. Um, and even, you know, using blocks and periods to kind of go through one. You know, if you want to do five, three, one and stick with one lift for a while but then vary the reps, great. Then you go to the bodybuilding for a while. Maybe try that. You know it's good stuff. Andy, I know we don't have a lot of time left. Are you open to some rapid fire questions about this topic? And by rapid fire we can keep the answers a little shorter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine, I'll try to time myself.

Andy Baker: 59:24

No, no, no, it's cool. The problem is is, once a thought gets into my head, if I don't say it, I'll lose it.

Philip Pape: 59:38

It doesn't come to say so all right. So what's the most underrated variation of squat in your opinion?

Andy Baker: 59:44

Oh, you know what I'm going to say here? The 14 inch camber bar squat. Okay, the rackable camber bar for that. So, that's the, the, the curved. No, no, no, that's like I call that the. Well, yeah, different people call it. That's like a Buffalo bar, which is like the, the, the Duffalo bar, whatever they call it, like the the curved bar, where the the it's the 14 inches the weights are basically sitting at, like hip level um, when you're standing there.

Andy Baker: 1:00:15

That is a hard version, but that is a um. That is a great version to squat with. Um. I think it's very underrated for quad development and the reason I say that is because it's similar to a front squat, which is it doesn't look anything like a front squat but the weight tends to swing out a little bit in front of you, kind of like where the bar would sit if you were front squatting it. You have to keep a more vertical torso and you can't really hip drive on that. You can cheat a little hip drive into a like.

Andy Baker: 1:00:48

So a guy that's, let's say, just trying to work his quads right, I little hip drive into a high like. So a guy that's, let's say, just trying to work his quads right I have to watch this because of my bill. When I'm just trying to really work my quads, when I'm not trying to, there's a difference between working your quads and trying to squat a heavy weight right. So when I'm trying to squat a heavy weight, I'm going to introduce techniques and squat with leverages that allow me to squat the most weight. So that's going to be low bar and I'm going to introduce a lot of hip drive into that movement. If I'm trying to work my quads, I'm going to high bar or safety squat bar or camber bar or something like that and I'm going to intentionally try to reduce the amount of hip drive that I get into that movement, because that is the reason you hip drive is to recruit hamstrings and glutes and such into the movement and I'm trying to not do that.

Andy Baker: 1:01:30

The camber bar does not allow you to hip drive very much. What will happen if you try it is your hips keep going up but the bar just sits there. But you really have to drive straight up through the bar and you have to keep a more vertical torso, kind of like with a front squat. But where the bar sits it's so much more comfortable. It's not like a front squat where the whole time you're fucking fighting that rack position. Or if you're doing it like I do with straps, you're battling with the straps or moving around. And if you don't have the mobility to do a really, really good front squat, then they're a challenge constantly because of the rack position and then it makes them not a great quad developer because the limiting factor is your just ability to hold the weight, whereas the Cambridge bar doesn't have that. It's very, very comfortable to hold.

Andy Baker: 1:02:16

People talk about the instability of it and all that, but I think that I haven't really. Unless you're using shitty form or whatever, the weight doesn't really swing that much. So it does sit comfortably on your back, but it keeps a lot of pressure just on the quads. And every time I do that movement which is not very often, because the bar is a pain in the ass to go get it's 85 pounds. It's hard to carry across the gym and I'm lazy, so I often pick a variation based on how the rack is already set up. So it's like, if safety squat bar is sitting in the rack already on the J hooks, I'm like, oh, I'm safety squat bar squatting today. If the high bar, if the bar bell's in there, yeah, so I'm, I'm all about like, so it's, it's um, but every time I do that lift I'm like why don't I do this more, Like this, like I, like my quads are so pumped and particular where you'll feel it is right, in that area of the quads that is the hardest to develop for most people, which is that, that area, the lowest part of the quads.

Andy Baker: 1:03:20

Okay, the most, the most distal area of the quads, right above, like the knee, which is the part you know if you're training for aesthetics and you're wearing shorts or whatever. That's the part that's visible Right and like you can have big quads. But when that area is like you have turnip quads, so that the quads are really big up top by the hips but small above the knee, you can't really tell that you have jacked quads right. But when you get done with a set on that camber bar, that specific area of the quads is just lit up and I'm like I don't know why I don't do those more and I don't know why I don't prescribe them more to more of my clients that have access to that bar, because it's a very, very underrated tool for quad hypertrophy I think.

Philip Pape: 1:03:57

Well, it's been a while since I got a new bar, so because I've looked at the transformer bar for years, it's just so expensive and it probably gives you something similar, maybe with, depending on which.

Andy Baker: 1:04:12

The cambered bar is the easiest on the shoulders. It is absolutely the easiest bar to squat with on the shoulders because your hands are at your sides. Your hands sit at your side, so it's really, really easy.

Carol: 1:04:20

Before I started working with Philip, I had been trying to lose weight and was really struggling with consistency. But from the very beginning, philip took the time to listen to me and understand my goals. He taught me the importance of fueling my body with the right foods to optimize my training in the gym, and I lost 20 pounds. More importantly, I gained self-confidence. What sets Philip apart is the personal connection. He supported and encouraged me every step of the way. Connection he supported and encouraged me every step of the way. So if you're looking for a coach who cares about your journey as much as you do, I highly recommend Philip Pape.

Philip Pape: 1:05:00

So my next two questions. I think you answered them Best. Variation for quad development Sounds like you like that one for quads.

Andy Baker: 1:05:06

I can't say it's the best. It's definitely unique. It's definitely unique enough to potentially integrate for just for the just for its own sake. It's hard to say what's best, and that's true with any exercise, because you're always trying to find that sweet spot, kind of that nexus between load and the range of motion of the muscle that you're trying to target right, so you can stimulate a muscle really really well with certain exercises, but that just you just don't have the capacity to really load those exercises well, which makes them, you know, not as good.

Andy Baker: 1:05:42

It's kind of like a bench press versus a cable fly. Like a cable fly does it? Does it hit the chest really? Or let's see either. The better example is like an overhead press and a lateral raise. Right, a lateral raise is a good exercise, like it. It hits the side delts really, really hard. What's the problem with it? There You're going to have an inability to load that movement over time, right, and so you can only. So you need to find movements that both stimulate the muscle really really well but that also allow you to progressively load them into the heaviest weights, and so that can be a little bit.

Andy Baker: 1:06:18

That's like the low bar versus high bar thing, right? Yeah, do low bar allow you to use more weight? Yes, are your quads doing more work? Not necessarily Because, yes, you're using more weight weight, but not all of that weight is being done by the quads. You know you're doing. A good portion of that extra load that you're using is adductors, hamstrings, glutes, whatever. So for again, for the beginner, that's appropriate, but for a guy with a very narrow focus in that training session of I'm just trying to apply stress to grow my quads, you know is is a low bar better just because I can squat more weight? Not necessarily, because not all that weight's being done by the quads. You know it's being done with a lot of others. So maybe a high bar is better from that standpoint because, yes, it's using less weight but much more, a higher percentage of that weight, is actually being lifted with the quads.

Philip Pape: 1:07:09

Would you if you, if you had to rank just for quads being lifted with the quads? Would you if you, if you had to rank just for quads? You know, and would you even throw the leg press in there, or hack, squat, or you know a pause variation like which one would if you had to pick one? You know, hack squat.

Andy Baker: 1:07:22

Yeah, I mean of all variations are just like non-barbell stuff um squatting variations.

Philip Pape: 1:07:29

If I had a, if I had a gun to my head and they said A Texas six shooter.

Andy Baker: 1:07:36

You have to go into this bodybuilding contest in 12 weeks and your success or failure will be dependent on the size of your quads. I love these analogies because it will. If you can be honest with yourself, what would you do? I would live and die on the hack squat. Yeah, I think it has probably more more capacity than anything. Talking about strictly quad hypertrophy, it's, it's hard to beat a hack squat. You know there's some downsides to hack squats but, um, in terms of just strictly the hypertrophy of the quads, it's, there's nothing else involved in that movement, which is a downside for a strength athlete who actually does want other muscles involved in that movement low on the platform, narrow ass to grass, full range of motion, slight pause at the bottom is very, very hard to beat that and you can load them super, super heavy, um yep which.

Andy Baker: 1:08:40

So it's very hard to make an argument against a hack squat for just pure quad hypertrophy cool hack squat.

Philip Pape: 1:08:47

I'm saving up for one of those machines at home because those things are damn expensive they are and they and they're good, and don't get a cheap one because they're not worth it. Right, so right right, no, yeah, for sure. So what's the? What's the most common squat mistake that you see?

Andy Baker: 1:09:00

oh, not understanding that relationship between barbell and midfoot. You know they did they, and so they're making changes to the squat without understanding how the changes to the squat are affecting that relationship. And that's the one thing that really can't be compromised with. If you're talking about doing a good, you know there's areas for compromise in all different aspects of the barbell squat. But the one area that really doesn't have any room for compromise not if you're squatting heavy, if you're squatting light, I guess it doesn't probably doesn't matter as much, but that that that barbell has to remain over midfoot and a lot of the changes and manipulations that people make, they do so without understanding how those changes are going to affect that relationship. And so you need to understand the model of a squat from a big picture view and understanding.

Andy Baker: 1:09:51

Okay, when I move the bar up my back, how does that going to affect my torso, my torso angle? You know my back angle. If I move the bar lower on my back, how's that going to affect my, my back angle? You know that sort of thing and and you know, and so if you don't, if you don't understand those, then it may. It makes it harder to make technique adjustments to yourself. So I think that's. I still see that. I see that with some of the guys in the club sometimes, and I'm surprised that I see it because they're like well, I switched to high bar and what they mean by that is well, I just moved the bar two inches up my back, but I changed nothing else.

Andy Baker: 1:10:26

You tried to do everything else the same way and if you think of the balance point, of what is your midfoot, that's a very small area, and so if you're changing the bar on your back by several inches, you're changing that relationship significantly and on a very heavy weight.

Andy Baker: 1:10:44

You're going to find yourself in trouble If you've got the bar and high bar and you're keeping the exact same back angle and you're trying to hip drive out of the bottom and all that. So if you say I'm going to switch to high bar but then you change nothing else, you're kind of in trouble. And the same thing for a guy that wants to try low bar, that you know wants to switch to low bar and then tries to keep all the rest of the mechanics exactly the same, is he's going to have trouble with that squat. It's not going to feel natural to it.

Philip Pape: 1:11:09

Two things about this. First is, like I liked that your answer was a principle as opposed to a tactic, cause I think you know a lot of the answers about a common mistake would be foot stance or some specific tactic, and, like you said, it comes down to the principle from which all potential mistakes derive for every individual. But then, um, would you recommend some sort of like mind body exercise where and I'll tell you from personal experience, trying to find the right position for my shoulder in one session I remember trying like eight different positions for the bar and loading it just so I could see the difference, and that actually taught me a lot just in that moment, something I'd never done before about the differences. Would have you done something like that or recommend it?

Philip Pape: 1:11:49

in terms of, in terms of just like learning, just a learning learning thing, just to understand the midfoot out of the context of just one type of squat, but actually being able to translate it across the different ones, it kind of depends because people are different types of learners.

Andy Baker: 1:12:03

Okay, so some people are going to learn really well by seeing it. Like seeing the diagram, like what they have in starting strength, like seeing the seeing the diagram of the guy squatting from a profile and seeing the line drawn down from the end of the barbell, you know, to the mid point on his foot and seeing how a change in back angle would affect that. Like some people will see that and it will translate. Like they'll understand that and can get it to translate immediately. Like once they understand it intellectually, they can get it to translate on the gym floor. And some people may understand it intellectually and not get it to translate on the gym floor because they're smart but bad athletes. And some people can have it very roughly explained to them and can feel it when it's right and feel it when it's not right. And those are usually your good athletes. Your good athletes don't require a whole lot of instruction. They feel what's right. Naturally, they pick up things on their own with just verbal cues Okay, move the bar a little bit down your back, tighten up your shoulders. Now, when I want you to go down, I want you to lean over just a little bit more, and they understand exactly what that means and they do it perfectly with just a short verbal instruction. So it kind of depends on what type of learner you are. So a lot of I mean.

Andy Baker: 1:13:24

Eventually you have to learn by being under the bar and you have to learn what that feels like and you have to use enough load to where a mistake. You can feel it. If the weight is too light, a lot of people can't like. An empty bar is not enough weight for people to learn with because they don't feel the mistake. If you're a let's say you're a 225 squatter, you're likely not and you're saying I'm trying to work on technique with the. I'm going to go in the gym today with just the bar and I'm going to work on technique. That's not going to work because 45 pounds is not enough weight for you to feel your mistake. You need to feel how wrong it is when you lean over too much and get the bar out over your toes. You can take an empty bar and put the bar out over your toes and you're not going to feel it. You can maybe put 135 on your back and lean over too far and have the bar four to mid toes and you're not going to feel it. You can maybe put 135 on your back and lean over too far and have the bar four to midfoot and not feel it. So you got to have enough load. That's why we're always we're not just when we talk about like we kind of make fun of, like I'm going to have a technique day and I'm just going to do like really lightweight work on technique. We're not just shitting on it Like, oh, you're a pussy or it's not that. It's that. No, it really is not technique training.

Andy Baker: 1:14:35

If you're going with really lightweights, the weight, in order for the technique to be trained, it has to be done with a heavy enough weight for you to really integrate it and really understand what a good rep versus a bad rep feels like.

Andy Baker: 1:14:48

And that's the same in any sport. I mean, if you're trying to teach somebody how to hit, yeah, there's things that you can do, little drills you can do to work on certain things. But if you're not swinging that bat full speed, you know it's not going to be integrated into the mechanics. You know, because doing doing things slow in sport or doing things very light in the gym is not really technique work, because the technique involves the load. That's a part of it and it's, and that lifter barbell system and its relationship to the center of mass and and your balance point over your middle of the foot changes with load. You know. So that that center of mass is not the same at 135 as it is with 315. So you're not really working technique when you're going with very light weights. So it's, if you're going to work technique, it has to be heavy enough for you to actually feel a mistake yeah, fair point.

Philip Pape: 1:15:45

I only asked because it was an accidental thing that I had put myself in, because I couldn't get into a position right and and I was already fairly loaded up after because, like you said, during the warmup you don't even notice Right, and then it starts to hit you and you're like, wait a minute, this isn't quite going to work. Let me shift it. And I noticed from three different variations back to back. It was just a little revelation for me. I'm not, that's how I was curious about that but if, but of course you're going to get fatigued if it's loaded up too.

Andy Baker: 1:16:12

Right, that's true too. Yeah, and there is. I mean, there's always room for self-experimentation with that kind of stuff and you learn. I mean, dave Tate has this kind of philosophy and I somewhat agree with it. I definitely see his point and I somewhat disagree with it. But he's like everybody needs to work without a coach for two years.

Andy Baker: 1:16:35

And there's some value to that, because if you're just having somebody walk you through everything all the time, you kind of it's like think about it. Like when I'm driving somewhere, if I'm sitting shotgun and a buddy of mine or an uncle or somebody else is driving out and we're driving out to a hunting property, going out in the middle of nowhere, if I'm sitting shotgun I can never tell you how to get, how to get to where we're at. But if I'm driving myself, I'll remember where to go and where to turn and all that kind of stuff. And it's kind of the same principle of you know, when you're always the passenger which sometimes, as a client, you are because the coach is doing so much of the work and the thinking for you and he's telling you put your hands here, lean over this way, put your feet here, do this, do that. He's doing so much of the thinking for you and you're just doing it, which of course usually leads to better results in the short term.

Andy Baker: 1:17:28

But you're also not necessarily always learning why. Because I know me as a coach, I don't always explain why to all my clients. They're not necessarily interested all the time. So every time I give them a cue or a set of instructions, I don't always tell them. And this is why we're doing it right, because I got an hour with that person and it's like we got to just get the workout done and get out and they don't. Some of them care, some of them don't, and so it's kind of the same thing of like Dave's point of you know, it's not a bad idea for somebody to just train completely on their own for a number of years so that they can go through all that self-experimentation, even if maybe they don't get the best results. But they will learn some stuff better on their own by doing it on their own and then having it kind of fine-tuned with a coach.

Philip Pape: 1:18:11

Yeah, that's one way to put it, but I'm sure you've seen a situation where there's a lot of bad habits to break down, if it's been too long.

Andy Baker: 1:18:18

Yeah, and it depends. Again, it's one of those things where it depends. It depends on the person, and some people really need the coaching and they need the hand-holding and they won't figure it. They will never figure it out on their own, they just don't have the aptitude to do it. Just like I probably wouldn't figure out nuclear physics on my own right, I could probably you know what I'm saying. I could read every textbook in the world cover to cover and still not know. You know, not know anything. So it's like it's if you don't have the aptitude for something, you're probably not likely to do that well on your own without some coaching.

Philip Pape: 1:18:56

Yeah, and the whole thing about cues, that's an interesting one, because that's kind of the final thought I have here is when you talked about the mistake being people don't understand the relationship or don't take time to learn it, and then you talked about different learning styles. So you've got the on paper biomechanics and then you have trying it out. If somebody is at least starting just on their own and they haven't had a coach yet, what's maybe I don't know if it's a cue is the right thing to ask you about, but something that they should be thinking about tactically to make sure that they're tying it to the midfoot model. You know, cause just to say, well, put it over your midfoot isn't going to work for everyone.

Andy Baker: 1:19:29

No, it doesn't work. I mean, even with an experienced lifter, I don't ever say get over the midfoot.

Philip Pape: 1:19:35

Right, that's not the actual cue Right.

Andy Baker: 1:19:37

So I will tell them something to put them over the midfoot.

Andy Baker: 1:19:41

So I may say uh, you know, I may say something like you know you're on your toes, or something which they're usually not on their toes.

Andy Baker: 1:19:48

But I'll see, you know, I'll see their heels start to slightly lift off the ground right, so they're starting to carry too much weight on the balls of their feet which is going to shift everything forward of midfoot. So I'll say, you know, I may say back on the heels or get off your toes or whatever. And again, the thing with cueing and we talk about this in the seminars is it's cueing becomes a very intimate language between the coach and the client, and the same cue may not work for one person the way that it does for others. And that's part of your role as a coach of people is understanding. What word or phrase am I going to say to this person that effectively reminds them? And it doesn't matter what, it is right. So it's just like when you're trying to teach people to set their back on a deadlift. With some people you say set your back harder. The next person you say lift your chest more. You're trying to get two people to do the same, but for the one person, telling them to set their back doesn't cue anything. So you tell them to lift their chest and it does. But then for the next guy, if you tell them to lift their chest, they so you tell them to lift their chest and it does. But then for the next guy, if you tell them to lift their chest, they don't set their back, they drop their hips. So you don't use that cue with that guy, but you do use it for the other guy. So you're trying to get the same result, which is, I'm trying to get both of those guys to flatten their back out, but I'm using two different phrases between each lifter because I know, for whatever reason, one clicks with one guy and not the other guy. So the same thing would work on a squat when you're trying to get somebody back over, say midfoot or whatever it might say.

Andy Baker: 1:21:16

I may tell a guy you can get back on your heels. Well, I don't really want him on his heels, I want him off of his toes, right, and some people bond better to negative versus positive. So get off your toes versus get on your heels. One's a positive, positive, one's a negative. One is stop doing this, the other is start doing this right. So some people interpret positive versus negative a little bit differently. You know it may be.

Andy Baker: 1:21:43

It may be if he's leaning over too much, if his back angle is starting to drift too far down, I may tell him chest up, you know that's getting him over midfoot. You know, because I don't want to, I don't want the bar him leaning over too much more to where the bar starts to drift forward to midfoot. So I'm telling him chest up more to get the barbell back centered over midfoot. So the chest up cue is a midfoot cue, it's just. I'm not telling him get over midfoot because it's not necessarily specific enough. It's too, it's too zoomed out. You need something more specific in that instance to get him midfoot.

Andy Baker: 1:22:17

So, um, and not every cue is about getting them onto the midfoot. There's other things. You can fuck up in a squat, you know, knees out. Knees out can get people back over midfoot.

Andy Baker: 1:22:27

Because if a guy's knees are drifting forward too much as they squat down or they're having a lot of knee slide at the bottom, that will pull that whole lifter barbell system forward a little bit and can get them off the midfoot.

Andy Baker: 1:22:39

So I may cue them knees out more.

Andy Baker: 1:22:41

You know I want them to shove their knees out more as they're descending and, and that cue is and knees out fixes a number of different things sometimes, but one of the things it may do is help them get back over midfoot better. So that cue it's just I'm chewing these out in order to help get them back over midfoot, among maybe a couple of other things too. But that's so. You just have to find the language between you and your lifter as a coach that's going to resonate with them in real time, and that's really all that queing is is what is real time instruction that I can give them while they're performing the movement that gets them to do what I want them to do under the bar. And if I said purple monkey dishwasher and that got them to shove their knees out and lift their chest up, then that's a good cue, right? So it doesn't matter what the cue is. As long as the lifter understands what that is and does what I want them to do in order to correct the form, then it doesn't matter.

Philip Pape: 1:23:40

Yeah, and I think it's powerful because when I learned starting strength I did it from the book. I did it on my own for several months. Then I went to see a starting strength coach here, cody Anino, here in Connecticut. Starting strength coach here, cody Anino, here in Connecticut. And within one hour you know he fixed, you know, 90% of what I was doing wrong. Right, just because of having that ability for an expert to say here's what I'm seeing and here's, here's the cue you need. You think you can cue yourself and watch yourself on video and it's just there's a block for a lot of us in getting that right until you have that expert or you join the barbell club and you post a form video and have andy uh say say exactly what he's seeing. He'll get you fixed up and it's never too late.

Andy Baker: 1:24:15

Sometimes you get the coaching. I was at a. I remember back in 2000 I don't know when it was, I was just fresh out of the military, but it was sort of in 2007 or something like that and I, my deadlift was around like 500 and I'd kind of been stuck around like in that 500 range for a long time. And I did like a 10 minute coaching session with Rip and Josh Wells in the back of a gym. They were doing a. They were with CrossFit.

Andy Baker: 1:24:42

Rip was with CrossFit still at the time and he was doing a seminar there and he had invited me out just to attend and sit in on the, on the, the lecture and such.

Andy Baker: 1:24:52

And then during like the lunchtime workout, like where the coaches lift and stuff, I I got in a workout and, um, I was doing my deadlifts and him and one of the staff coaches got me by Josh Wells, who's an excellent coach here at Houston actually, to walked over and they were watching me deadlift and I remember I don't even remember what the cue was, but Rip was, like you know, in his here do this, do this, do this, okay, pull, pull, another rep.

Andy Baker: 1:25:15

And I did it and 500 went up easy, whereas before it was like kind of a max effort. And then I threw on like 525, 530 and it popped right up. That's one little simple cue by a good coach like a Rip or a Josh Wells on a guy that's not elite but already at 500 deadlift that PR'd my lift by 25 pounds right there on the spot. So it's little things like that that even an experienced lifter who more or less knows what they're doing is not seeing in themselves or feeling themselves that a trained eye can see and fix. Right there in the moment, and in some cases instantly, you know, set a 25 pound PR.

Philip Pape: 1:25:59

If you're watching or listening, listen to what Andy has to say here, because you will be a better lifter if you take his advice. So I know we talked a lot about squatting. Is there anything else we should have covered that you're like yeah, I got to get this off my chest about squats?

Andy Baker: 1:26:16

No, not really. You know, I would just tell people to in general about their training. Kind of the way this whole conversation and this whole podcast episode started is just relax, you know, like have fun with it. Like if you can't do, yeah, if you can't do exactly what you want to do, like just relax, make small changes and then go for it as hard as you can from there and chill out about it and don't turn like there's enough stress in life where we don't need to turn our training into another form of stress. So just chill out.

Philip Pape: 1:26:43

True, it's true. And if you're like type a uptight guy like I am, it's all the more that you need to relax and chill out, cause it will definitely help's most of the guys I'm talking to I mean, that's who a lot of my clients are, and I'm not that way, they're the ones who listen to podcasts too.

Andy Baker: 1:26:56

And I'm not that way. Yeah, a type A guy is the one that's going to tune into a podcast on squat mechanics, like you know what I mean, and that's it's like not my personality, but it's written in a book or whatever drives them nuts and they wind up sucking a lot of the enjoyment out of the process but also, I think, sucking some of the results out of the process too. One of the things look around at some of the guys that are really really strong out there. Social media is not always the best place to gather information, but a lot of them are having. If you kind of watch it, just it appears from the outside they're having a lot of fun with their training. You know, and I don't think it's just because they're awesome lifters. I think the fact that they're having fun with the training sessions are just nothing but one big giant source of anxiety and stress for you. How good are you really going to be?

Philip Pape: 1:27:55

100%, 100%. Where's the live by man? Yeah, all right, where do you? I think I'm going to send people to the barbell club if you're good with that, but is there anyone else who want people to hit you up?

Andy Baker: 1:28:04

Yeah Well, to find the barbell club or one-on-one coaching or training templates or whatever else. It's all there at andybakercom. You can find everything from there.

Philip Pape: 1:28:23

All right, and those who follow me also, if you have questions about it, I'm in the club and I know a bunch of guys in there, so if you want to know what it's about, reach out Andy. Thanks again, man. It's always a pleasure. We get deep into some of this stuff and people need to know to just chillax, have fun with their training squat, however, it makes sense. There's no right, there's no wrong. Just train and get better over time, that's right. Thanks for coming on, man. All right, man, thanks, appreciate it.