Dr. Squat - Dr. Fred Hatfield

Nicely set up site, Todd.

Highlights for me were:
(1) Squat properly, you fool!
(2) Get off the couch and exercise or be known as 'fat grandad'.
Obviously I'm paraphrasing...

No creatine in the top five supplements?

Hope it goes well, I'll recommend it to a friend.

Nick

PS how DO you get a 225 bench???

No creatine in the top five supplements?

### No, and I like creatine, I think it's a great supplement for any hard training athlete, and I've used regularly for nearly 15 years. And miraculously my kidneys still work fine! Shocking I know! But, if you'll no, the Top 5 I recommended while they can certainly help an elite athlete's performance, they are primarily geared toward optimum health. If you're healthy (as opposed to merely, "not sick") strength, endurance, hypertrophy gains all become easier. Even with whey protein, it's often marketed as a muscle builder which it certainly is to an extent, but it also has a host of health benefits such as decreasing insulin resistance, fighting/preventing certain cancers, etc.

PS how DO you get a 225 bench???

### Give me some context, that would be a decent blog for a lot of young beginners. 225 starting from where?

Good stuff Willis, I'll get to all of them except #2.

IMO, while there certainly are differences for the 3 body type classifications, I personally feel the classifications are dated and come from an error of belief that some guys will always be tall and skinny, some guys will always be chubby and fat and some will always be gifted for strength or "David" type looks.....

I'm of the opinion anyone can reach and maintain single digit bodyfat. Chris Thibaudeau and I once had an email exchange in which he flatly disagreed with me. 3-4 years later he went through his amazing transformation and now is incredibly lean!

Also, I feel body type per se is far down on the the list of training considerations though it certainly is one. I mean, sport requirements, fiber type, etc. all come into play in the program design before "body type."

I mean, I don't care what your body type is, I'm gonna prescribe pull ups. I don't care how long your arms are. If you're too fat to do them, we'll doing something else to strip fat and build strength until we get to where you can do pull up, but understand, if I train you WE'RE DOING PULL UPS!

Now, let's say we have a short, powerfully built running back who can squat a ton, and has increased his squat significantly and his quads are getting huge, but he's not getting faster. That could well be due to his build in that he's suited for squatting more than sprinting, we would then emphasize more posterior chain movements that de-emphasized quad recruitment like Good Mornings, back ext. Romanian DLs, etc. with quad strength maintained by unilateral work, and deadlift variations.

On the opposite side of the coin, if we have an athletic basketball player who's 6'7" and needs another 20 lbs. to improve his play on the collegiate level, perhaps despite six weeks of squatting, despite strength and vertical jump gains he's only added a few lbs of lean weight. Well, the squats would change from mere full squats to say one and quarter squats so that he spends more TUT in the lower ROM. Perhaps with his heels elevated as well. Or we may utilize front squat to back squat drop set variations, etc. in an effort to increase TUT in both the ROM and correct motor units. But, I wouldn't necessarily assume either of those examples would need such specialized training on body type alone. I've seen tall guys that needed such a stimulus and I've seen tall guys who've merely needed to perform a proper full squat to add 10 lbs in a few weeks. So, I don't prescribe any specific "guiding principles" based on body type. I'm gonna spend more time finding weaknesses and systematically strengthening each muscular chain.

No creatine in the top five supplements?

### No, and I like creatine, I think it's a great supplement for any hard training athlete, and I've used regularly for nearly 15 years. And miraculously my kidneys still work fine! Shocking I know! But, if you'll no, the Top 5 I recommended while they can certainly help an elite athlete's performance, they are primarily geared toward optimum health. If you're healthy (as opposed to merely, "not sick") strength, endurance, hypertrophy gains all become easier. Even with whey protein, it's often marketed as a muscle builder which it certainly is to an extent, but it also has a host of health benefits such as decreasing insulin resistance, fighting/preventing certain cancers, etc.

*** Good answer, thanks.

PS how DO you get a 225 bench???

### Give me some context, that would be a decent blog for a lot of young beginners. 225 starting from where?

*** I'm sorry, that was 'dry' humour. Hard to get across without some sort of emoticon.
Maybe you could do something on common factors limiting progress?
Muscle imbalances.
Machines.
Maxing out every workout.
Poor exercise selection.
Poor technique.
Limited ranges of motion.
That would cover the gym I'm going to at the moment. Especially, for some reason, the short range of motion thing. No-one seems to do any exercise through a full range of motion, must be something the 'trainers' advocate.

Nick

Malate's fine. Best thing is to get as many different forms or chelates of magnesium as possible to maximize absorbtion.