POSTS

LeBron James, Quarter Squats, and Specificity

A few months ago, video surfaced of LeBron James doing an unusual wide-stance quarter squat. The internet exploded into two camps:

  1. Quarter squats aren’t squats! Squat to depth!
  2. Quarter squats are better for athleticism than full squats!

Both of these camps have some points on their side. But I don’t want to talk about which of these camps is “right” here. Sure, if we only had one barbell exercise we could do for maximum athletic development, we could have a discussion on what kind of squat is best for this purpose. But we don’t have just one barbell exercise at our disposal! We can, in fact, do more than one.

So what I want to discuss is what both of these camps miss out on: exercise selection and specificity. When designing our program, we want to be precise with the qualities we’re trying to drive. Then, when we choose exercises for that program, we want to choose exercises that drive those qualities. So what specific qualities go into these vague notions of “athleticism” and “explosiveness”?

  1. Muscle size
  2. Limit strength
  3. Speed/Power

Additionally, we need to consider these qualities in the context of basketball performance. What exercises best develop these qualities?

Muscle Size

When considering muscle size, we need to first define what musculature is important for basketball. We don’t need to think about all of it now, but suffice it to say that if we want to jump high, we need big legs and hips. So we want to find exercises that drive leg and hip size (hypertrophy). In this context, the back squat should be a staple exercise. Not the only exercise, certainly, but it should be in the core of the program. Now, what about range of motion? Muscle size here isn’t basketball-specific. It is fairly well-established in the literature that muscle hypertrophy is improved when performing an exercise through a full range of motion. Thus, for a hypertrophy-focused block, back squats should be done through a full range of motion.

Limit Strength

The right answer for strength is a little bit murkier. While muscle size is a very general quality in the context of basketball, strength can be considered either general (it is foundational to success, but not specific to the sport), or specific (force production when jumping is specific to the success criteria for a basketball player). I would classify squat strength as more general (leg strength) than specific. A specific quality that derives from this strength is power, the ability to generate that force in a very small window of time. This can be expressed in basketball as a vertical jump. This specific quality includes the speed component we’ll discuss later.

Now that we’ve established constraints in building leg strength, what is the ideal way to do this? Again, the literature suggests that deep squats build strength better than shallow squats. That is a big point in its favor. Additionally, squatting to the bottom position allowed by an athlete’s anatomy provides a consistent range of motion through which to measure a squat. For instance, if I squat 315 to parallel, then a week later I squat 325 three inches above parallel, did I get any stronger? I don’t know!

So, to build strength, we would also want to use back squats with a full range of motion. We would prescribe these with different intensity/volume ranges than what we would for hypertrophy as we transition to a block more focused on special preparedness.

Speed/Power

I’m grouping these together, even though they aren’t exactly the same. Speed is the quality here that allows us to express power. But for the purpose of a vertical jump, we can think about them similarly. Is a back squat here useful?

To answer that question, we need to think of whether or not a back squat develops speed. Generally, to develop speed, you want to choose exercises that require speed to progress. What speed is necessary for a back squat? Squats are slow! Why would I use a slow exercise to develop a speed/power-limited quality?

If partial squats build a vertical jump better than full squats, it’s only because of strength developed in that specific range of motion. But specificity means being specific in both range of motion and the quality developed. So if I’m trying to develop leg power expressed by jumping, I’d much rather choose an exercise that develops it directly. What exercises do we know require a high rate of force development, can be incrementally loaded, and develop explosive/reactive hip and leg power?

There are many options here. We can use the olympic lifts—cleans and snatches—perhaps of the power variety, to emphasize the explosion and lower the learning curve. We could use medicine ball throws, which have advantages in learning curve, but are less convenient to load incrementally and require a lot of open space. We could choose an explosive squat variety, like box squats focusing on speed off the box or squat jumps. We could also use box jumps and depth jumps.

What Would I Do?

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not pretending to be qualified to be anyone’s strength and conditioning coach, let alone the coach of one of the greatest athletes in the world. So this is going to be overly simple for someone at that level. Further, it’s likely that something like this is already in place. One set on Instagram does not tell the whole story of a program. Having said that, I would use back squats, with a full range of motion, liberally in all phases of training (along with other exercises). When we’re in the off-season, back squats would be programmed for volume: lower intensities, more reps and sets. As we approach the season, I would program it more for strength: lower volumes, higher intensities.

Power cleans are a great exercise for building power, and would also be programmed throughout all phases of training. Power cleans require good technique to be used most effectively, so it’s important that technical practice happens often. In a more general phase of training, power cleans are programmed primarily for technical efficiency: low intensities, with focus on technical mastery. As we approach the season, we transition to higher intensities to develop the power we need throughout the season.