Squat Strength is Invaluable
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Stone et al. (2024). The use of free weight squats in sports: A narrative review—squatting movements, adaptation, and sports performance: Physiological. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 38(8), 1494-1508.
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The purpose of this study was to review the available—sizable—scientific literature involving the squat movement pattern of exercise and its respective physiological adaptations. Furthermore, these specific adaptations were reviewed to determine their ability to improve sport performance, injury prevention/reduction, and orthopedic rehabilitation.
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In this study/review:
>The benefits of increasing maximum strength cannot be overstated. The improvement of this singular metric simultaneously potentiates and promotes increases in power, rate of force development, speed, balance, and endurance through numerous mechanistic pathways.
>Perhaps counterintuitively, in most sub-elite athletes, strength training alone improves power and speed better than training methods that are dedicated towards power and speed.
>Increased squat strength improves critical components of sport performance including jumping, sprinting, and change of direction.
>While absolute squat strength is a valuable metric, relative squat strength, which also factors in bodyweight, is superior as a contributor towards jumping, sprinting, change of direction, and overall athleticism.
>While squat strength has significant contributions to overall sprinting performance, it has a larger effect towards the improvement of the acceleration phase of sprinting as compared with top-end sprinting speed.
>Research involving squat depth can be categorized between quarter-, half-depth, parallel, and full/deep squats. Different depths of squats have various beneficial training effects, however full/deep squats are foundational as they create strength-specific adaptations across the entire range of motion. Parallel or partial squat variations can be added for additional effects.
>Improved muscle cross-sectional area (hypertrophy/size), muscle architecture, and nervous system alterations from squatting are primarily responsible for improved sport-related performance.
>Heavy squats improve muscle, tendon, ligament, and bone tissue quality. For at least this reason, squatting reduces the risk of injury, mitigates the severity of the injuries that do occur, and improves the rehabilitation process of lower extremity injuries.
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Take-home:
>Strength training is usually the most beneficial training method for improving maximum force production, power output (including rate of force production), and the development of speed (including change of direction).
>Squats should be at the forefront of virtually all high-quality training programs given their remarkable ability to transfer into so many important performance metrics (especially jumping and sprinting) as well as defend against sport-related injury.
>Squat variations deserve a permanent role in all athletes’ weekly training programs and should respect principles of progressive overload and periodization
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