Entry #2: Squat Nerds

     In the past couple of months, I got into lifting weights. I hesitate to say "back" into lifting weights, I've gotten mildly into it for some periods of time in the past but after some relatively recent health problems its become a more serious commitment. What's nice is going to a gym with free barbells, if you want to squat or bench press you aren't locked into an, often unnatural, range of motion. In the past, even when I had no access to a squat rack or barbell to squat, deadlift, or anything, I was interested in how people moved so much weight, why they did it, and what the culture built around it was likely.

     What I think I've found, I think, might run contrary to people's first conception of gym rats, powerlifters, etc. In my experience, the people who are often passionate about lifting are deeply interested in nutrition, form, discussing these aspects, and even fostering that interest in others. Most of the community is very supportive, eager to learn, and self-aware. It's consistently been one of the least toxic communities I've seen online. They want to be people be their best selves, they want them to be motivated and enjoy the journey.

     Something particularly interesting that I've noticed is an incredibly mature, empathetic trait that seems to span so many members invested in this community: understanding people's weaknesses, differences, limitations, and not seeing it as something that makes them lesser, or deserving of being dismissed. Its this acceptance that I think creates space in the community for so many posters to be self-effacing without wallowing in despair. Lanky posters can wail about the challenges of being a "lanklet", lashing out toothlessly at their short-limbed brethren, for whom many big lifts are much easier. Users can joke about their body fat they may or may not be concerned about, referring to themselves as "permabulking". Basically everyone can complain about their calves. 

     In the culture are varying degrees of focus on form. Ongoing debates behind every lift: barbell, dumbell, bodyweight, anything. Beyond even endless debates about squat depth are particularly discussions of proportions. In the deadlift, ratios of torsos to legs are considered. More deeply, ratios between the torso, femur (thigh part of the leg), and tibia (shin part of the leg) are considered. As someone who's relatively new to squatting and deadlifting, and is pretty lanky, seeing this topic come up a few times has renewed my interest in it. I'm not sure what my relative proportions really are but I know I have pretty long legs and inflexible ankles. As such, I've been trying to play around with my form. Both rely on externally rotating your legs and pointing your feet out to, as multiple sources put it, "artificially shorten" your legs. 

     The debate also includes the angle to which your ankle can comfortably bend. From what I can tell, this can be influenced by your natural proportions, flexibility, and muscular imbalances. For someone with longer legs, this aspect (called "dorsiflexion") seems to be pretty vital. Allowing your ankle to flex more gives your tibia more freedom to move; allowing you to drop your hips, stay off your toes, and keep your back from going parallel under the bar. While knowing this stuff is nice, and putting it into practice helps, I'm still a particularly bad squatter. Hopefully, with time, effort, good judgment, and research, I can change that. Either way, even if I stopped lifting sometime in the near or distant future, this aspect of weight lifting's subculture(s) will likely always interest me.

    Keep in mind, nothing I'm saying here I understand even as much as the experts I hear them from and even experts can be proven wrong with time. Either way, here are- with that grain of salt- a couple of videos I watched recently on the subject of squats and proportions that I thought were pretty interesting.