No squats, will I miss out a lot?

Hello everyone, this is my first post so I hope I'm not putting it in the wrong section

So, a few months ago I started getting interested in bodyweight training. At first I looked at Convict Conditioning, and followed that program for I while, but the progressions and the general style of that book didn't quite cut it for me. Then I bought BtGB and got hooked, for the reasons you all can surely imagine.

I'm at the very start of my training (i.e. I'm doing standard push-ups and they are hard enough, for me); I'm 26, just shy of 5 feet 7, at about 130 pounds. I've been pondering if I should buy Foundation One for all my programming needs, but I have a physical problem that's been holding me off.

Basically I have a spastic tendency in my legs; I walk with a noticeable limp (slight, mind you -- it's not crippling, I can run, jump, and the like), I tend to suffer from cramps from time to time after physical activity and  my right knee sometimes hurt, probably postural imbalances taking their toll. For these reasons I have a ReHab Workout and I regularly swim, so I pretty much got that covered.

My question is, if I completely avoid squats and the like, as I've been told to do by my physician, will I miss out much of foundation one? Is it possible to train one's upper body and learn some gymnastics skill disregarding the legs?

Thank you!

Yes!!!!!! Buy Foundation One, you will not regret it! You can always just do the associated iM (integrated mobility) of the squats until you can actually do the element itself. Any more questions, and I'm sure many, many more people will be glad to answer.

Squats are one progression out of seven in Foundation 1. Even if a medical condition prevents you from performing squats, you'll still be able to get the bulk of the benefit out of F1. 

If you do purchase F1, I would recommend showing the leg exercises to your Doctor and getting their opinion on whether you should do them. 

I'm sure the squat mobility work would help you with your limp, or at least prepare your body to squat.  Squatting is such a basic function of human anatomy that I can't imagine it could hurt you unless you're seriously crippled, which I doubt.  You just need to approach it intelligently.

There are some pretty knowledgeable physios on this forum, they could probably help you more with your leg work.

Squats are pretty important in general, but you should definitely buy F1 regardless of whether you do any squats or not.

I have to question why you can't squat.  It doesn't sound right to me, but then I'm hardly an expert.

Bipocni said:

I'm sure the squat mobility work would help you with your limp, or at least prepare your body to squat.  Squatting is such a basic function of human anatomy that I can't imagine it could hurt you unless you're seriously crippled, which I doubt.  You just need to approach it intelligently.

 

There are some pretty knowledgeable physios on this forum, they could probably help you more with your leg work.

 

Squats are pretty important in general, but you should definitely buy F1 regardless of whether you do any squats or not.

 

I have to question why you can't squat.  It doesn't sound right to me, but then I'm hardly an expert.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer.

You're right, I have not been very clear in explaining: it's not that i CAN'T squat (as in, i'm not physically incapable of doing it)

it's just that, given that I have a shorter leg, X crossed knees and a reduced level of control on my left side-- techincally it's a neural issue, just to be clear, wouldn't want to bore you --, when I squat it's almost certainly not going to be Isometric. That, and I really don't trust my right knee I've also been told by my physical therapist that exercising my legs as to improve muscle mass and tone would be bad because it would increase the spasticism (is that a word? sorry, i'm not a native speaker) of the muscles.

It's more of a "long run" issue -- i'm not going to hurt myself by doing some squats once in a while, I'm just a bit concerned about the  unintended consequences. I guess whatever exercises F1 includes I could find a watered-down version and do that, eventually, and see where it leads me.

To be completely honest one of the reasons I initially got interested in GST is that I thought leg strength would not be so important, as long as what I'm interested in is static holds and upper body strength... obviously you need strong legs if you want to vault.

Again, thanks, everybody!

lambdavu said:

You're right, I have not been very clear in explaining: it's not that i CAN'T squat (as in, i'm not physically incapable of doing it)

it's just that, given that I have a shorter leg, X crossed knees and a reduced level of control on my left side-- techincally it's a neural issue, just to be clear, wouldn't want to bore you --, when I squat it's almost certainly not going to be Isometric. That, and I really don't trust my right knee I've also been told by my physical therapist that exercising my legs as to improve muscle mass and tone would be bad because it would increase the spasticism (is that a word? sorry, i'm not a native speaker) of the muscles.

I thought that might be the case.  Squat variations (not limited to those found in F1) will increase your mind / muscle connection.  With care, you won't be building strength and size in your legs as much as you will be learning how to control them properly.  Again, I'm no expert, but you may well stand to benefit from simple locomotion drills and joint preparation exercises.

So, will we be seeing you in the F1 forum?

Bipocni said:

I thought that might be the case.  Squat variations (not limited to those found in F1) will increase your mind / muscle connection.  With care, you won't be building strength and size in your legs as much as you will be learning how to control them properly.  Again, I'm no expert, but you may well stand to benefit from simple locomotion drills and joint preparation exercises.

 

So, will we be seeing you in the F1 forum?

Well, It might not be such a bad idea, to replace whatever exercises F1 has as standard squats with rehab-approved versions that target my valgus knee. I really don't mind not being able to achieve strength feat for  my legs, I just wanted to know if legs and the rest of the program could be regarded as fairly independent, as it seems to be the case, happily. As soon as I can afford it, i'll be sure to get F1. Thanks again to everyone!

lambdavu said:

Well, It might not be such a bad idea, to replace whatever exercises F1 has as standard squats with rehab-approved versions that target my valgus knee.

I can't speak for treating valgus knee, but there's one exercise that seems to have been designed to cause it.