A few weeks ago I had a conversation with one of my satellite athletes regarding the back squat. A little background to the story is she is currently doing what many weightlifters do, and that is utilizing an open gym membership at a CrossFit gym to do her programming. A coach of the CrossFit gym approached her, and apparently said something along the lines that she should focus on her back squat to improve her snatch and clean.
Now I am going to stop the story here for a moment, and give further background. This particular athlete has a back squat of 105kg to a clean and jerk of 75kg, and a snatch of 60kg. In addition, I know that 105kg is not a “true max” for this athlete as I have had her hit that number on repeated occasions, and do 100+kg for doubles. But if we look at this to her snatch and clean numbers, there is an obvious surplus of leg strength to a lack of technical proficiency. Knowing this surplus exists her programming instead focuses on maintaining current strength numbers and improving technical proficiency in the competition lifts.
Back to our story. This isn’t about the coach’s comment to an athlete but more about the idea that the back squat, or squats in general, are an assistance exercise to the classic lifts and should be treated as such. So when my athlete called me and asked if I thought if a back squat centric program would make her a better weightlifting, I said “not at this time”. I pointed out the discrepancy in her snatch and clean numbers to her back squat and reminded her why we are placing more emphasis on her technical proficiency than improving her strength numbers. Which led me to my next point: That squats are an ASSISTANCE LIFT.
I view the squat as an assistance lift for athletes like myself, like this satellite athlete, and others whose squat numbers drastically overshadow their classic lifts. It is a good “problem” to have, and allows us to use the squat just to improve positioning, tempo and speed out of the hole. For athletes who have a front squat that is the same or only slightly above their clean, the squat IS STILL AN ASSISTANCE LIFT. It is being used to increase the clean or even just make the current clean numbers easier and more consistent so we can hit the jerk. I remind my athletes who are concerned with their 1RM squat numbers that we don’t compete in the squat. We compete in Snatch and Clean & Jerk. And yes, the obvious statement that the stronger we are the easier it is to complete the classic lifts holds true. That strength has to come with technical proficiency in order to be utilized, and therefore treating the squat as a secondary lift to the classic lifts is necessary in order to see progress in competition.
-Stephen Butcher
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