Almost
a decade ago, a retired Soviet hammer thrower came to the conclusion that
traditional forms of squatting were not the best way to strengthen the muscles
of the thighs and hips. Many in the Soviet Union considered this heresy, as the
squat was the king of leg training in that country just as it was, and is still,
in the United States.
Ten years ago,
the full squat was the foundation of exercise programs for almost all elite
athletes in the Soviet Bloc nations, whether they were weightlifters or not.
Soviet athletes - be they wrestlers, runners, fencers, soccer player or swimmers
- all squatted. But because the retired hammer thrower had won the gold medal in
the 1976 Olympic Games and because he was a respected graduate of the Central
Institute for Physical Education and Sport in Moscow, his opinions were taken
seriously. His name: Anatoly Bondarchuk. His studies led him to conclude that a
particular form of what we'll call the high step-up had two significant
advantages over the standard back squat. Bondarchuk concluded that high
step-ups, firstly, produce greater gains in thigh and hip power and secondly,
cause fewer injuries.
Bondarchuk does
his research and coaching in Kiev. His fellow Soviet coaches and sports
scientists were skeptical about his conclusions. However, as time passed and he
was able to convince a few athletes and coaches, in a variety of sports, to drop
squats from their routines and adopt the high step-up, it became clear that be
had made a significant breakthrough. Many of the athletes using his
"new" exercise began to make gains in power that were far beyond what
they had made using only the squat.
We qualify the
word "new" because, in one form or another, the step-up has a fairly
long history. A review of dozens of pre-1900 books in the Physical Culture
Library at the University of Texas revealed that the step-up was commonly
practiced before the turn of the century. In fact, Dr. Dudley Allen Sargent, who
was for years the director of physical training at Harvard University, used a
form of the step-ups as he was devising one of the first known methods of
cardiorespiratory testing. Sargent's method, first used over 80 years ago, is
called the Harvard Step-Up Test. It involves stepping up, at a timed pace, onto
a bench or chair approximately 20 inches high for a set period of time and
checking the pulse rate at predetermined intervals.
But the step-up
was also used to strengthen and develop the hips and thighs. As weight training
grew in popularity in the 1920s and '30s, the step-up with extra weight began to
appear in books and magazines of that era. However, the squat with added weight
was also given an enormous boost in America during this same era thanks to
several crucial factors: Firstly, the wonderful lifting of the young German
immigrant "Milo" Steinborn, who could do a full squat with more than
500 pounds, secondly, the publicity given to Milo's world-record-breaking
abilities in weightlifting, and finally, the career of Joseph Curtis Hise, who
not only gained a great deal of strength and muscle size with high-rep squats
but also had the ability to fill other bodybuilders with enthusiasm for this
arduous but effective form of training.
Who knows whether
the step-up with weights would have become more popular had Steinborn and Hise
not appeared on the scene and raised the reputation of the deep knee bend,
putting it at the top of any serious trainer's list of "must"
exercises? In any event, the squat became the dominant hip and thigh exercise in
America in the 1920s and has remained so ever since.
SQUAT-CHALLENGED
When the Eastern European nations, led by the Soviet Union, began to assert
themselves athletically after World War II, one cornerstone of their success was
the squat. For a time, they turned to the West, particularly the United States,
for training theory; but as the years passed and they developed their own
coaches and sports scientists, they began to rely more and more on their own
research. It was this tradition of self-reliant research that led Anatoly
Bondarchuk to challenge the supremacy of the squat.
One thing
Bondarchuk concluded was that the heavy back squat was potentially dangerous to
the structure of the lower back. In fact, according to his studies, it can be
demonstrated that the back squat places a load on the structure of the lower
back that, in the bottom position, is at least twice as heavy as the load on the
bar. In other words, if you are lifting 300 pounds in the full squat, your lower
back is stressed to an amount equaling at least 600 pounds, usually more. The
actual amount depends on the speed of descent and ascent. The faster you descend
and the faster you reverse direction and begin to arise from the bottom, the
greater the load on the lower back and, according to Bondarchuk, the greater the
chance of injury.
Bondarchuk also
noticed that athletes who were pushing for those extra few reps on a set of
squats almost always sank an extra inch or so at the bottom in order to get a
bit of "bounce" to push them through the sticking point of the
exercise. For this reason, and because he observed that in no sport did the
athlete ever find himself in the normal full-squat position, Bondarchuk
concluded that it would be safer to use a form of weighted step-up.
When he began his
research, he was unsure of several things. He wasn't sure how high the bench or
chair, onto which the athlete would step, should be. As he began to experiment
with different heights, he soon realized that he could achieve complete
development of the thighs and hips by using varying bench heights, depending on
the needs of the individual athlete. Being well-schooled in anatomy and
physiology, he understood that the higher the bench, the more stress would be
placed on the hamstring muscles on the rear of the thigh. Conversely, he
understood that a lower bench would result in more work being required of the
quadriceps muscles on the front of the thigh.
Finally, he
concluded that the ideal position generally occurred when the athlete was
standing on the toes of one foot with the other foot flat on the bench and the
top of the raised thigh parallel to the floor. If, however, the athlete was weak
in the hamstring area, he should use a slightly higher bench. According to
research done by Osse Aura, a professor of biomechanics at the Finnish Institute
of Physical Education, the hamstring muscles should be approximately 75% as
strong as the quadriceps muscles. If that ratio is not maintained, the chance of
injury increases, while the chance of maximum performance decreases. Bondarchuk
agrees with Aura's figures and uses a form of the leg curl and leg extension to
determine the relative strength of these two muscle groups. If he finds the
quadriceps of a certain athlete to be too strong, he will instruct that athlete
to use a higher than normal box height and thus place more stress on the
hamstrings. If, on the other hand, an athlete's hamstrings are too strong, the
box height will be lowered so that the quadriceps may be stressed more
completely.
Obviously, since
an athlete cannot do a high step-up with even 50% of the weight he or she can
use in the full squat, the problem of the "double loading" stress on
the lower back is greatly reduced. The lower back experiences far less stress
when an athletes does a high step-up with 100 pounds than when he does a squat
with 300 pounds, assuming that both of these lifts are maximum efforts. Also,
since it would be impossible for an athlete to "bounce" out of the
bottom position in the high step-up, this exercise completely eliminates the
problem of the bounce. This is an important consideration since the complete
full squat, especially when done with a "bounce," is potentially
harmful to the structure of the knee.
HOW IT'S DONE
The high step-up starts out similar to the regular squat. The weight is placed
on a standard bar and the bar is placed on a squat rack as would be the case
with a squat. But then things are different. Before squatting, normally you step
backward, but with the high step-up you move forward, toward the platform onto
which you will step. But if your gym isn't set up to allow you to step forward,
don't be concerned. Simply be careful as you position yourself for the step-up.
You may need to construct a box if you can't find a bench or sturdy chair of the
proper height. And if you have a box or chair that's a bit too tall, don't
forget that you can use a 100-pound or 45-pound plate under your bottom foot.
Or, for that matter, you can use pieces of plywood to achieve the exact position
you need. You should also be careful to keep your shoulders more or less over
your hips as you step up onto the box or bench; don't bend forward at the waist
in order to do the step-up. Also, slightly bend the knee of the leg onto which
you lower yourself. It takes some of the shock out of the descent and is a bit
safer.
Several years ago
the Bulgarian weight lifting team began to drop all back squatting in favor of
high step-up. By that time, many Soviet lifters had abandoned squats and made
their higher lifts in the snatch and clean and jerk than ever before. Perhaps
the most dramatic example of this involves the career of Leonid Taranenko, the
current holder of the world record in the clean and jerk in the superheavyweight
class. Taranenko has done the clean and jerk with the amazing weight of 586
pounds. Think of it! Almost 600 pounds lifted from the floor to full arms'
length overhead. But to many longtime lifters in this country, it is perhaps
even more amazing than it has been at least four years since Taranenko has done
a back squat of any kind. Besides his practice on the snatch and clean and jerk,
the only form of heavy leg training that Taranenko does is the high step-up with
weights…Heavy weights. His best in this exercise is three reps with each leg
with 396 pounds. Taranenko's coach, Ivan Loginovich, one of the foremost
trainers in the Soviet Union, was one of the coaches who worked with Bondarchuk
to perfect the high step-up and use it as a replacement for the back squat; and
one of the proofs found in this particular pudding is Taranenko's many world
records.
One thing coaches
in the Soviet Union and Bulgaria noticed was that those athletes, both lifters
and those in other sports, who dropped the squat and used the high step-up
developed more complete muscularity than those who simply squatted. Many of the
coaches say that the legs of those who work hard on the high step-up look more
like those of someone who did sprinting and jumping as well as squatting.
Apparently, the balance required in the high step-up calls more muscles into
play, producing fuller, shapelier development.
WORKING THEM
IN
As far as how to work the exercise into your training routine, one way would be
simply to eliminate squats and replace them with the high step-up, using the
same sets and reps and handling as much weight as you could in the step-up.
Another way, if you have a desire to push your strength levels up several
notches, would be to do the high step-ups as the Bulgarian National Lifting Team
does them, which is as follows (assuming that the athlete can do a maximum of
two reps in the high step-up with 170 pounds):
1. Begin with one
set of 8-10 reps with no weight, and
2. Proceed to 45 pounds for six reps (45x6), 110x3. I32x3, 150x3, l60x3 for
three sets, 135 x6 for three sets and sets of 115x3 to failure.
The Bulgarian
team uses the pulse rate as a gauge to let them know how far to take the sets.
They believe that each of the moderate to heavy sets should produce a pulse rate
of 162-180 beats per minute. The lifter doesn't begin his next set until his
pulse has dropped to between 102 and 108. The Bulgarian team does virtually this
same workout five or six days a week, along with quite a lot of other leg work
that goes with the snatch and the clean and jerk. Unless you are young (21 or
below) and in unusually good condition, we don't recommend that you do such a
demanding workout without at least one day of rest between sessions.
If these low
repetitions don't appeal to you and you'd like to stick with more traditional
approach for step-ups, you might simply do several sets of progressively heavier
warm-ups, go to three heavy sets of six reps, and finish off with three lighter
sets to failure, aiming for 15-20 reps per set. And if that doesn't give you a
super pump, you need to have your oil checked.
If you do adopt
either of these routines, we suggest you drop all other heavy lower body
exercises such as leg presses, front squats and hack squats. You could continue
with leg extensions and leg curls and, of course, with calf work, but you should
be careful not to overtrain. The trick in all exercise programs is to do enough
to stress the muscles so that they become larger and stronger, but not so much
that they can't recover in time for the next heavy session.
Give this
result-producing exercise a try. It has literally worked wonders with the
strength and power athletes in Eastern Europe, and with their bodybuilders as
well, most of whom swear by the high step-up. Make no mistake, squats are a
wonderful, effective exercise: but perhaps the high step-up can allow you to
make even more gains than you could with squats alone. It's worked out that way
in the iron game behind the Iron Curtain. |