Starting Strength, 3rd Edition - Mark Rippetoe [46]
The primary beneficial feature of a squat shoe is its lack of heel compressibility. The drive out of the bottom starts at the floor, where the feet start the kinetic chain. If the contact between the feet and the floor is the squishy gel or air cell of a running shoe, a percentage of the force of the drive will be absorbed by the compression of the cell. This compression reduces power transmission efficiency and foot stability. Unstable footing interferes with the reproducibility of the movement pattern, rendering virtually every squat a whole new experience and preventing the development of good technique. Squatting in running shoes is like squatting on a bed. Many people get away with it for years, but serious lifters invest in squat shoes. They aren’t that expensive, especially compared to brand new name-brand athletic shoes, and they make a huge difference in the way a squat feels.
We have spent a lot of time developing a model of barbell training from the perspective of balance. Poorly designed or incorrectly utilized footwear completely undermines your application of this rather elegant model. Just buy the damn shoes.
Clothing
A brief word about clothing is in order. It is best to squat in a T-shirt, as opposed to a tank top, because T-shirts cover more skin than tanks do. Skin is slick when sweaty, and slick is not good for keeping the bar in place. The shirt should be 100% cotton or 50/50 poly/cotton, not all synthetic, because these high-tech materials are always slick under the bar. Shorts, sweats, or training pants should always be made of stretchy material. This is very important because if your pants grab your legs, and they will because of the sweat, a non-stretch garment will restrict the movement of your legs and interfere with your ability to shove your knees out and use your hips. The same thing is true for shorts that stop right below the knee, even if they are stretchy. Mid-thigh stretchy shorts or simple gray sweats are the best pants for training. And make sure your pants are pulled up; if the crotch hangs down in the middle of your thighs, this will interfere with your knee position. Clothing should not affect your movement in any way and should never, ever make it harder for you to do a thing that is hard already – squat correctly.
Figure 2-63. Training clothes should fit in a way that does not hinder the performance of the lifts or the ability of a coach to observe your technique. Baggy pants and shirts may be fashionable, but they are not terribly useful in the weight room. T-shirts are preferred over tank tops, and shorts and sweats should be chosen for function, not appearance. But clever logos are always good.
Mirrors
Squatting in front of a mirror is a really bad idea. Many weight rooms have mirrors on the walls and have conveniently placed the squat racks near the walls, too, making it impossible to squat without a mirror in front of you. A mirror is a bad tool because it provides information about only one plane of the three: the frontal, the one that gives you the least information about your position and your balance. Forward and backward movement is extremely difficult to detect when you’re looking straight forward into a mirror. Depth is also very difficult to judge from this direction; some obliqueness of angle is required to see the relationship between the patella and the hip, but a mirror set at an oblique angle would require that the neck be twisted a little under the load to see it. Cervical rotation under a heavy bar is as bad an idea as cervical overextension under a heavy bar.
A mirror can also be distracting because it shows any movements occurring in what should be your invisible, uncluttered background when you’re looking down. The human brain being quite sensitive to visual movement, this is not useful when you’re trying to concentrate