"You want muscle on you. In the long term, being skinny is a negative." -Alberto Salazar

Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:

Action speak louder than words.

While I am glad Alberto Canova is finally coming to senses, I still remember how his own Meb Farah fell without being impacted to the ground in the NYC Marathon in March (during the race and afterwards).

Hint: if you can't support yourself from falling down, you're not STRONG enough.

...I have no words

Case Closed wrote:

I have a physique that is muscular, chicks dig it, and Xfit guy would be proud. Oh, and I run a 10k in under 29 mins. Good runners are good athletes, and good athletes take care of their bodies.

See I want to believe you...and then I don't.

Anorexic Linebacker wrote:

...Hasay looks like Boobless Barbie now, pipe-stem limbs and no waist and sinew.

She's been like that for as long as I can remember so I don't know what your point is.

There's a photo on twitter on Mo's account of him putting up somewhere between 175-185 on free weights. I remember seeing it a week or two before his London Marathon race, but I'm too lazy to look for it atm.

Uh... wrote:

There's a photo on twitter on Mo's account of him putting up somewhere between 175-185 on free weights. I remember seeing it a week or two before his London Marathon race, but I'm too lazy to look for it atm.

That's not a lot of weight.

Think about this for a moment. Fast running requires a fair amount of fast twitch action. Anyone who can run a sub 60 400m is going to have a fair amount of fast twitch fibers activating.

Most elite/sub-elite/college level distance runners are going to be fast enough, even down to the 100-200m distance, to have a fair amount of fast twitch fibers activating.

Because of this it is very easy to picture a distance runner being able to squat more than the average population.

Is a 185lb squat a big deal? Nope. Is it stronger than the average population? Yep. Is it stronger than the average gym goer? Yep. Why? The average gym goer doesn't lift legs except for a few reps on the leg extention or maybe a 180lb leg press.

Runners have stronger legs than most people by virtue of the sheer volume of work they do.

Alan

Uh... wrote:

There's a photo on twitter on Mo's account of him putting up somewhere between 175-185 on free weights. I remember seeing it a week or two before his London Marathon race, but I'm too lazy to look for it atm.

In a quarter squat you can load up as much as you want.

Vastly different range of motion. If we are talking a real squat where the crease at his hip is dropping below his knee, 195 pounds (130 X 1.5) is a lot of weight for someone with his morphology.

185 for reps on squat is above average for typical gym goer, but especially notable for someone doing it a week before a marathon; that smacks of truly easy/relaxed lifting which at 185 is more impressive to me.

Time to man up! Go to the gym right now, load the bar with 1.5X bodyweight and post pictures of you doing a *full squat* with hip crease below top of knee. Hint - you might want to check your insurance coverage first.

The actual mass is mostly irrelevant, obviously Mo can't squat what a 300lb person can squat.

Mo "loading up 185 pounds" is not probative, we need photo/vid of him at bottom of squat, not him loading up a bar mugging for camera and then knocking out 20 reps of quarter squats.

Think about, most likely Al Sal dictates that full squats are too risky on the joints (conventional, incorrect BS), and he also realizes that distance running incurs a knee bend under load of about 15 degrees so no point going to about 110+ degrees required for full squat, that's for sprinters.

It's possible Mo can do one or 2 reps, but that's useless, even strength trainers bottom out at 8-10 X 3 reps.

Bottom line, i'd bet my last dollar that Mo does *not* do full squat reps with 1.5X bodyweight.

Photos please wrote:

Time to man up! Go to the gym right now, load the bar with 1.5X bodyweight and post pictures of you doing a *full squat* with hip crease below top of knee. Hint - you might want to check your insurance coverage first.

Right on brah. Most people in COMMERCIAL gyms do quarter squats, if at all.

If you go to a CrossFit affiliate (box), you will learn how to squat correctly, below parallel.

Xfit rocks. Plus i love those giant bumper plates that make it look like the bar is massively loaded.

If you can do full squats, you'll build more "junk in the trunk" like Tyson Gay on PEDs. A bigger butt creates bigger push, bigger push creates better running and chix diggit.

If Mo can squat 1.5X BW, he should have a vertical jump of about 25". At 5'9", that means he should be able to touch 10'1". If he can add another 35-40 pounds to his squat, he should be able to dunk.

If Mo could throw down that would be epic.

"how to squat correctly"

Proper form is key, and your functional joint strength will improve. Most people have bad form can mess up joints/tissues.

Don't use mirrors, vid yourself.

Fortunately the safest most stable positioning for squat can also be the most powerful (ignoring sumo squat that some powerlifters use). I've seen guys instantly add 20-30lbs to their squat after form correction.

Check out this guy doing ATG (Ass to ground/grass) low-bar squats with 509 pounds, knees are out, feet shoulder width with slight outturn, breath hold to block core, and no freaking weight belt. Very smooth, though he's twisting on last few reps so prob an imbalance. Not perfect, but very impressive. Bonus, you will build very strong core/abs doing squats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC_V9YNBiPk

The average guy can't even bench press or squat their own weight, let alone 1.5X. Of course, Mobe Keflarah is not average.

http://voices.yahoo.com/can-lift-as-much-as-average-man-10938146.html

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-journal/WLSTANDARDS.pdf

1.5XBW squat is about equiv to 1.1-1.2XBW Bench press

Wait, what? How in the world are you people so blown away by squatting 185 pounds? As a casual lifter I was squatting 225 for reps after a couple months (yes, going below parallel), and that was by no means an impressive figure. Women in my gym routinely squat 185, and they ain't huge.

Mo weighs 130 pounds, how much do you weigh? Can you run 10k in under 27 mins? Can you run 10k unde 37 mins? Are you as old as Mo or in your 20s flush with testosterone.

Total mass in squat is irrelevant, it's mass/bodyweight that's key. The average woman i see doing full squats (which rarely happens) are pushing about 95-145 pounds. Though i gotta say the woman do full squats better than guys, cuz they don't care about racking up big numbers, whereas a guy will overload the bar and quarter/half squat thinking it's the real deal.

Anyway, read previous post on "average" guy. If you're not a troll and you weigh 130-150, then you are awesomely above average!

As for couple of months of training, that's all it takes to get rapid increase if you're under 30 (Mo is not). What do you think you could squat first day in gym?

Ho Hum wrote:

MIC ITW wrote:

I performed science.

What science was that?

Glassman Science...duh

Mo was under 30 when he first started working with Salazar, wasn't he? I'm 5-10, 145, mid-20s. I have inferior basic speed and much worse endurance than Mo - 31:00 @ 10k, 54 in the 400.

What I found was that at first I was truly awful at squats; just couldn't get out of the squat position. It's a combination of chronic distance training, which seems to actively harm your squat, and excessive desk work. I think my early squat max was around 130, which may be why people are surprised at Mo's strength; they never dedicated the time to actively improve their lifts. Even in your thirties, you should see rapid improvements due to neural adaptation if you've never lifted.

FWIW I believe Salazar has mentioned Rupp doing squats in the 200-220 range. Whether those are full squats or not I have no clue, but I'm sure he's capable of that.

You're at about 1.55XBW, nicely done, but well above the average moribund American.

I may have to eat my words, according to this article Farah is squatting 200lbs=1.5XBW for 4-6 reps.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/apr/19/camp-mo-farah-london-marathon

BUT I'd still like to see if they are true squats because:

Seb Coe was one of the early pioneers of weightlifting for distance running and he ran shorter distances requiring more power. He weighed about the same as Farah. Yet his lifts were paltry, maxing out at 190lbs, and HALF SQUATS.

From the book Coe/Martin on his strength training:

Seb Coe (130 lb [59kg] body weight) doing six sets of half squats the number of reps per sets will be 15,15,10,10,10, and 5, with the weight increasing by 10 lb [4.5 kg] from 140 to 190 lb.

Is Farah that much stronger than Coe? Don't believe it. If you see vids of Farah, look carefully, looks like huge plates, but they're actually lite bumper plates weighing only 10lbs each.

Re: Neural adaptations: yeah super quick, one can increase their squat by large amounts in 1-2 weeks before any significant muscle growth.