Stance Width For Squats With Specificity In Mind

- When people do a standing vertical jump, it's generally between a hip width stance (iliac crest of the hips, the middle of the knees, and the middle of the ankles roughly inline with each other) and a shoulder-width stance.

- Heavy weighted squats have a good carry-over to vertical jump ability.

Now my question is, do squats have an EVEN BETTER carry-over to vertical jump ability if they're done with a hip-width to shoulder-width stance? Or, are they still better to do wider? Squats already can't be super specific to a vertical jump because the weight on the bar isn't evenly distributed on your body like your own body weight is when you vertical jump. Powerlifters do a wider stance. This article also suggests a wider stance is more beneficial to training. http://www.strengthandconditioningresearch.com/2013/01/28/squat-stance-width/

An idea I had is instead of using a bar to do squats, getting a weight suit would have even better carry-over to vertical jump since the weight would be more evenly distributed on your body, more specific. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41mZ9xte0AL._SY300_.jpg I'm not aware of any body suits that can handle 250+ pounds though. :-/

Any thoughts on this topic? I got back into weight-lifting this year (basically just squats and deadlifts) and would like my training to have good carry-over to gymnastics and mma.

what about weighted jumping single leg squats?

I dunno about carryover to vertical jump, but the ultra-wide powerlifting stance is only good for lifting the most weight possible.  If you're at all concerned about keeping your knees healthy, a narrower foot stance is called for.

Do shoulder width stance, ATG squats.

Falcon said:

Do shoulder width stance, ATG squats.

Yep.  Best way to squat imo.

the wider your stance, the less quads and the more glutes you use (which is a stronger version).  But I assume you're already deadlifting anyways which already emphasized the glutes and the hips so why also do a squatting version that emphasizes the glutes/hips too?  Better to just use a normal stance.

Also, if you're talking about a better carryover, do you jump in a normal stance with feet closer or wider?  So there's more functional carryover in a closer stance

2 things: Most people I see do a standing vertical jump have a somewhat less than shoulder width stance (nearer hip width). A lot of powerlifters also have this narrower stance.

That's why I'm wondering if it's better to be this narrow, or to go shoulder-wdith or wider.

If you start with a wide stance, your knees have nowhere to go but in.  I like having my knees wider than my feet, so that if my knees cave a little, they'll still be in a stable position.

You see less and less of the super wide squat stance when they are lifting RAW without squat suits. Many RAW PLers still use knee wraps and belts, but you often will see regular squat stance widths to a stance slightly wider than that. Go watch some of the Russian PLer videos and you will see a varying width and depth.