Don't Sell Yourself Short.

“Short. Short. Short.”

Rep after rep was followed by this awful word.

I’d drop to the ground and explode back up only to hear this called out each time.

“What do you mean short?” I demanded after I finished the set. “They were deep!”

“They weren’t deep. Not one of them was deep. They were all short. Take some weight off and go deeper.”

Taking some weight off ended up being 70kg before I finally got depth.

“Fuck you. I hate you. Fuck this shit. I'm never training with you again.”

This happened almost 20 years ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday because it was the day I was taught the importance of squatting to depth.

The first time I squatted I squatted 60kg. Little 55kg me was able to squat my body weight. Woohoo!

6 months later I was squatting 140kg. I was the man.

I remember calling my brother to brag. At the time he had a 300kg squat which to me seemed merely a few months away at this rate of progress.

“Bro you've been training for over 10 years and you're only at 300kg. I've been training for 3 months and I'm at 140kg. You suck. Let's go train.”

“Ok”

Getting to the gym, this was my time to shine. This is when little brother was going to outshine big brother. I've stepped into his domain and taken over. His powerlifting titles and records? Pft. They mean nothing. I'll break those records in no time.

We set up and started to squat. I quickly built up to the 140kg I was so proud of. I started my set and dropped down for the first rep. Big brother was standing to the side of me because I didn't need any spot. I was too good for that.

As I dropped down everything felt controlled and strong. I got to the bottom and drove back up only to hear, “SHORT” about half way back up.

Short? I was confused. He must have been talking about something else so I went down again. “SHORT!” there it was again. What was he talking about? What was short? Me? I know I'm short but this hardly seems like the time to be yelling that out.

4 more reps. 4 more cries of, “SHORT!”

Perplexed and frustrated I put the bar back and asked what was short? “Your squats. All short. Not even close to depth.”

I was taken aback by this. How could this be? I don't squat short. I'm an awesome squatter. I've gone from 60kg to 140kg in 6 months. Don't tell me I'm squatting short.

He demonstrated where I was going to and then where I SHOULD be going to.

Oooh. That's a bit different.

He told me to lower the weight a bit and get to the depth he just demonstrated.

Taking off 10kg didn't fix things. “SHORT!”

10kg more didn’t bring a different result or reaction. “SHORT!” Grrrrr!

It wasn’t until I got back to 70kg that I finally got depth.

70kg.

Half of what I had been squatting.

Half.

What had I been doing for the last 6 months? How was it possible that I couldn’t squat more than 10kg more than when I started?

Easy. Every time I put the weight up I just went a little bit shorter. By going shorter and shorter I wasn't building the strength like I should have been. I was essentially making things easier as it got heavier. The heavier it gets the harder it feels so I felt like I was going deep enough. But I wasn't.

I was doing what he so elegantly described as a curtsey. A half squat. A partial. Or, more to the point: bullshit.

The depth of a squat is when the crease of the hip drops below the knee. It's written in rule books. Anything above that is short.

And it goes beyond simply abiding by the rules of a lifting competition. It isn't until you drop below 90 degrees that you are getting the full benefits of the exercise. At that point, all the muscles are fully engaged and have to provide maximum force in order to get you out of the hole.

“But every time I go deep I feel like I can't get up.” Well yeah. Welcome to squatting. Why can't you do it? Because you're not strong enough. How do you get that strength? By going to the depth that you don't want to go to. That's what training is.

It took me about 6 months to get back to 140kg. But now I was squatting to the correct depth.

This new strength had also carried over into other exercises. Because I had built more strength in my quads, glutes and hamstrings I was able to deadlift more. Because I was able to deadlift more all of my back exercises had gone up too. Because i was able to lift more weight off the floor my shoulders and arms had gotten stronger. Because they had gotten stronger my chest exercises had also increased.

So it's bigger than simply doing the exercise wrong and going a little bit shorter because the weight is heavy. There can be widespread ramifications across your entire training which can affect your ability to make progress.

When I did eventually train with my brother again each rep wasn’t followed by, “SHORT!” This time it was, “GO AGAIN!”

Ugh it's always something. “Fuck you. I hate you. Fuck this shit. I'm never training with you again.”