ATTENTION: If you compete, watch this, VERY important....

it's been debated for a long time. I do rippetoe style squats (slightly below parallel, hip drive, ect.) because he is the god of squat knowledge. I would not listen to anyone else. In fact, I have had knee surgery, and doing his style of squats has improved my knee pain and stability, not made it worse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yha2XAc2qu8

If jesus descended down from the heavens and told me not to squat below parallel, I'd tell him to shove it and read rippetoes book, maybe next time he carried that cross he'd have better form.

Ok, so I just got off the phone with my girl, here is the best quick break down I can give of what she told me. The compression forces in the knee during this kind of a squat are extremely hard on your joints. Anytime you press your knee over your toe you create the same severe compression forces on your ankle. A person is more likely to injur themselves using that as a training tool you are pushing your muscles to extreme lengths under extreme tension, the longer you hold it there the more force your muscle has to generate to rebound and the greater a chance you risk of suffering injury. In her words, its a hell of an impressive demonstration and is a neat way to show how developed he is as an athlete. The man has more impressive leg strength then probably 95% of the world and the part when he does it on the kettle bell nearly looks fake its such a freakish display of strength, but the only reason it wont create problems as quickly for someone like this is the immense muscle structure he has around his knee. In short, it is not worth it and there are better and more effective exercises then this. You are taking great risk in trying anything like his with out first being in great physical strength and even then the risk still out weighs any benefit from this exercise.

The deepest benificial squat stops parallel to the ground, when your knee advances over your toe or you go past parallel with the ground you are now using your quads to force yourself back up and have eliminated the point of the squat.

I know I butchered her answers, but if you guys would ever want to do like a weekly couple of questions I am sure she would be willing to answer shit. I never dealt with PT's tell I started to date her, my back was fucked up for ages went to chiro after chiro. she set me up with one PT, the lady set me and then gave me some strength building routines.. ive never had a back problem sense.

She has taken the time to watch a lot of jiu jitsu with me and has even worked on some cool stretches to help with rubber guard that really stretch your ass muscle. For instance you do one prone on your back.. bend your left knee, press it up and towards your right shoulder with your left hand. Now.. take your right hand and grab your ankle above the joint so up by your shin, don't grab your foot she tells me its hard on the joint in your ankle and we arent stretching that. you should feel the stretch pretty easily.

Piston squats are pretty badass, and they definitly won't blow out your knees unless you do them with insane weights like that dude is doing, if you're doing them with just your body weight, or a little bit more your knees should be able to support you fine, plus you'll be getting the whole muscle to work. Also, it's actually easier to do them if you're on a little step of some kind, which makes it easier to go down all the way without having too much trouble with your balance.

If you guys want an other cool exercise, that works your leg muscle, but also builds up a lot of HIP EXTENSION and explosiveness try this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzBoQIw5we4
The last one is a bit ridiculous, but its pretty doable with weights, at first its hard just to do it with your body weight, but you'll see that once you get the movement down, blasting up with more weight is a piece of cake. Try it out some.

That pistol squat balancing on th kettle bell is intense!

That was a wicked video and the debate it created was well thought out. I had knee surgery and wouldn't do more than 90 degree squat myself. There are other ways to develop leg strenght, but that dude is putting on a unbelievable display of strength. It blew my mind. What more are we capable of...

I can do the part where he put the kettlebell on the floor and walked away

I wonder what is the best way to train your body for jiu jitsu...

I would say kettlebells, bulgarian bags, medicine balls, running and swimming. I worry that the typical lifting weight routines will just make you better at lifting a weight in a very specific manner, rather than allow your body to perform better in jiu jitsu. On top of that you will be heavier, tire faster, a little less flexible and lose some dexterity.

For example, how does doing squats with lots of weight improve your game? It will help when breaking the guard of your opponent when your standing up, but other than that it will just make your legs big, heavy, oxygen hungry, less mobile and less flexible.

What do you guys think? I would really like to hear your thoughts on what is the best way to strength and conditioning your body for jiu jitsu.

First off, Mark Rippetoe is the man. His seminal book Starting Strength is the Bible for building strength through full body movements, primarily the squat.

Secondly, LoL at anyone who thinks deep squats are bad for you're knees. I'd be willing to bet that most of these people have never squatted more than 2 plates to depth in their life. And smith machines don't count.

The definition of parallel is when the crease of your hip (where you're thigh meets your hip) is level with the top of your knee. When you break parallel on the squat, the movement engages the hamstrings and gluts more, making it more of a hip dominant exercise than a quad dominated exercise. In fact, stopping above parallel is actually WORSE for you're knees because of the shearing forces placed on your knees in stopping and reversing the motion, rather than utilizing the stretch reflex that kicks in when you break parallel.

The depth standard for powerlifting competitions is that you must break parallel for the lift to count. There's no way that this would be the standard for squatting hundreds of pounds if it was bad for your knees. I know some people will point to the gear powerlifters use (squat suits, wraps, belts, etc.). The depth standard is the same for raw, unequipped powerlifters as well.

Also, look at the depth that olympic lifters hit when they clean and snatch. They are going way below parallel with, again, hundreds of pounds.

Squats are the best way to build total body strength. Pick up a copy of Rippetoe's book. It'll change your life. It did for me.

A good way to get your balance level up for pistol squats is to start out holding on to something stable until your leg strength and balance get up there. You can also hold a door handle on a open loose swinging door or hold your toes until you can go no hands.

Anybody got exercises for doing leg curls without any machines or partners?

that vid made me feel like a total pansy.