2 quick lifting questions.......completely noobish

_KitKat_

Ok, so question #1: When doing squats, why do you (I) feel the most burn in my quads. My doms also only effect my quads, but you always hear they are great for the butt. So why does my butt not hurt?

Question #2: When you feel ready to move up weight on the free weights, is it better to bump 10lbs but only be able to hit 4 reps before failure or stay where you are and hit 6-7 before failure?

Told you quick and easy, if not a little odd :laugh:

ValGogo

I THINK....if you do the right, if I remember correctly (I haven't squatted in like....um......10 days, you feel it in the hips and side butt area.

dont_tap_my_aces

you likely aren't doing full squats to parallel. Go lower and you will feel the glutes and hammys activate

kdiamond

You should feel it in your quads mostly, but you should also feel it in your butt. My guess is you aren't sitting back enough on your heels. Make sure your knees do not go forward past your feet. Sit back in your heels and go down as much as you can.

It depends on what your goals are, but yeah, it should be ok to just hit 4 reps. Have you tried going up just 5 pounds to see how many reps you can hit first?

LoveMyLife_NYC

Where you feel the squat depends on your foot positioning. Closer together tends to really hit the quads, whereas a wider stance will help the inner thighs and booty. Plus, always make sure you keep good form, no matter how your feet are positioned. Chest up and sit back on your heels with your legs muscles and core engaged.

As for the reps, my trainer told me its best to stick to 6-8 to make strength gains and 12-15 with a lighter weight if you're working on endurance. If you can only do 4 before failure every time you pick up the weight, you're running the risk of injury and poor form.

neandermagnon

if you want butthurt, there's plenty of it on the forum :laugh:


where you get doms doesn't mean you're only hitting those areas... squats is a compound exercise so it hits several muscle groups at once, including your glutes. You can work a muscle hard and not get doms from it. doms is more a sign that you're not used to working that particular muscle in that way, it's not an indicator of how hard you worked, i.e. you can work your *kitten* off (pardon the pun) and get no doms at all. so maybe your glutes are just more used to being worked than your quads.

re question 2 I did stronglifts, that required bumping up the weight every time you successfully did 5x5 reps so yes if that meant only being able to do 4 the next workout, you move up to that weight, and keep using that weight until you can do 5x5 with it... if you fail to do 5x5 on 3 consecutive workouts then you deload 10% and work up again.

chowhall

#1 generally means you could go a little lower: Everything you could want to know about the squat can be found by googling "starting strength mark rippetoe squat"

#2 The starting strength program recommendation is to start with an easy enough weight (like the bar) and add 5 lbs for 3 to 5 sets of 5 until you can't go up any more and then back off 10 pounds and get back at it. There's a similar program out there called "Stronglifts 5x5" that has a handy spreadsheet. It's just one training philosophy that's worked for lots of beginners.

fivethreeone

1) This depends on whether you are doing high bar squats or low bar squats. High bar is with the bar sitting fully on top of your traps. These require a little less hamstring/glute activation and are felt more in the quads. Low bar is with the bar sitting in the rear deltoid/the spine of the scapula.. The low bar squat recruits far more glute/hamstring mass.

Low bar vs high bar squatting is a personal preference. Personally, I can't low bar squat to save my life, although I tried for a long time. My body just feels more natural in a high bar squat. Because of that, I do more hamstring and glute work (Stiff leg deadlifts, good mornings, hip thrusts) to balance that out.

All of this is assuming you're using proper form, as squats are a highly technical lift. This might help you understand the difference if that wasn't clear enough: http://70sbig.com/blog/2012/01/low-bar-vs-high-bar-squatting/

2) I move up by sets. For instance, if you're normally squatting 5x5 at 95 lbs, I'd do 5x3 @95 and do the last two sets at 100, then the next time do all sets at 100.

ASKyle

#1 Your form may be off. You should be able to wiggle your toes when you squat. Keep your chest up. Focus on squeezing your butt as you squat.

_KitKat_

Thank all of you, I have had my form checked by a few, knees stay behind toes, and squating parallel to the floor, knee deep....not sure if that's worded right. My legs have always been muscular and strong and have always had a butt. I do feel it in the back (glutes, not my back but back of legs), just soreness is always in the quads.

Thank you to the person that explained low vs high squats, I had no idea about this.

I really like the idea of the strong lifts 5*5 , I also like the partial up split with some sets at the higher amount.

At my gym I can only go up by 10lb. 2*5lb so only going up 5 is not possible for me.

Really appreciate all the feed back, also to the one that mentioned "butt hurt" you made me laugh out loud, I deal with many like that on the forum and sshh....don't tell but I enjoy watching those that get butt hurt :drinker:

psych101

if you want butthurt, there's plenty of it on the forum :laugh:

LOL at this :laugh: