By Paul Yost paulyost@hotmail.com
©Copyright-2008 Houston5ABaseball.com

Paramount Training

The squat is considered by some experts to be the "king" of all leg exercises. Without getting too sciency, it challenges a large amount of muscle mass through a basic human movement pattern. For this reason and many others, I consider it to be one of the more important exercises for any athlete or fitness enthusiast to use. It comes in many different one and two leg variations that can dramatically improve performance and stave off injury to the athlete - both big pluses in my book.

The squat is a ground based (standing on two feet) movement that correlates very highly with athletic performance. Athlete's can improve their strength, speed, agility, power and endurance by appropriately incorporating this exercise into their program. Problems arise when it's either used improperly or performed with terrible technique. This had led to comments such as "it's bad for your knees" and so fourth. Statements like this lead to the elimination of the exercise or shortening up the depth of an exercise like the barbell back squat.

At a shorter range of motion, more weight can be used, potentially making the exercise more dangerous. This will place excessive loading on the knee and back enabling opportunity for injury. In all actuality, the athlete will save their knees and back by squatting with more depth, or range of motion. This will require the athlete to use lower loads (weight) and give the knees a break by placing more stress on the glutes and hamstrings. This enables a more balanced development of the leg and offer more protection for the knee.

It also will result in greater athletic enhancement. The hamstrings and glutes are the more important muscles for injury prevention as well as the improvement of athletic performance in comparison to the quadriceps. But yes, the quadriceps also receives plenty of work from squatting deeply to make their contribution to protection of the knee and performance.

Squatting can be performed on one and two legs, providing plenty of variety. The selection of the exercise depends on training experience, bodily structure and current/past injury to the athlete. Using back squats, single leg squats, front squats, dumbbell squats and split squats are just a few of the many squat variations that can be incorporated into a training program.

For all the reasons above and more I'd strongly consider using the squat as a big part of the training program. Using a variety of one and two legged squatting movements, baseball players will develop great levels of usable strength and decrease chance of injury. The key is to learn how to do it properly to see the maximum benefit.