100 questions about the primitive squat

Do you keep your back straight?(It feels more comfortable to me that way)

Does it matter if your knees extend in front of your ankles like this / ?

Does it matter if your knees splay out to the sides?

Should you always keep your knees and feet aligned?

I have been playing around with primitive squats or full squats quite often, and I have always had these questions about them. I really like the movement and I want to make sure I am doing it in the proper way. I searched the internet for a while and many of these questions have opposite answers.

Thanks for any help.

Not really sure what a primitive squat is, but I will try to help some. I will just answer as if it is a full depth squat (possibly with a bar)

Yes, your knees can go past your toes. Anyone that says different doesn't know what they are talking about. Go watch a few videos of olympic weightlifters and tell me if their knees are past their toes. On the other hand, if you are doing it because your weight is on your toes, you are wrong. The weight should be on you heels or your whole foot.

The knees should track over the toes. I always squat with my toes pointed out, so therefore my knees are out. Its your knees coming in you don't want. You can squat more weight with your knees out than forward.

Your back should be straight as in it has a good lumbar support (whether this is straight or an inward arch will depend some). Depending on the squat you do it may be almost straight up and down or it may be very bent over at the waist, but the lumber is always strong and supported, never curved.

In case you want to know where I came up with this, my knowledge on this comes from the book Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training by Mark Rippetoe, my Crossfit Olympic Lifting Certification taught by Mike Burgener, and my personal experience.

Nick_EOD said:

Not really sure what a primitive squat is, but I will try to help some. I will just answer as if it is a full depth squat (possibly with a bar)

Yes, from what I gather it is the same thing. If the information you give me is for weight-bearing squats, would you still recommend a straight lumbar for non-weight-bearing movements?

Thanks for all the help.

Might as well. It is a good habit to get into, bracing your c*re, in case you ever do decide to lift some weight, or even just pick something up or carry it.

I see no advantage to letting your lower back slouch even if there is no weight. Unless you doing specific conditioning for curved back strength, a straight back seems be a pretty good idea.

Nick_EOD said:

Might as well. It is a good habit to get into, bracing your c*re, in case you ever do decide to lift some weight, or even just pick something up or carry it.

I see no advantage to letting your lower back slouch even if there is no weight. Unless you doing specific conditioning for curved back strength, a straight back seems be a pretty good idea.

That is a good point. You can never have enough good habits. Thanks for your help.

I agree with most of what's been said but I have a few things to address.

Olympic lifters compensate their knees in front of their feet in order to have a more vertical back which is essential to lift mroe weight. Also, not all OLer have their knees past their feet, because limb ratios play a big role in this.

Do you have longer legs than arms, or the other way around, etc.

Finally, a primitive squat should not have a straight back, IMO, (unless of course you have long legs, and a short torso) because you're not using it for what it was intended to do, and that's being therapeutic. A primitive or third worlds squat allowed people to "sit" for long periods of time if their wanted. Imagine doing that while straining to keep your back rigid and straight... it defeats the purpose.

I recommend watching this video by KStar himself: http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/Cros ... ToPoop.mov

Also, if you watch until the end, you're going to see an epic transition to a pistol.

If you mean the third world squat (sitting comfortably in a squat position) the only real requirement is to have loose hips and be able to push them back to assume the position. Everything else is of little importance because your body will assume the natural position it self, the only thing you need to provide is flexibility/mobility. You can loosen the hips up to assume the proper position by doing this:

If you are adding weight to the movement or are trying to learn to back/front squat Nick's explanation is textbook. I would also strongly advise you to get someone who is competent in squatting (powerlifter preferably, olympic weightlifter or strength coach preferably) to take a look and make adjustments to your form from time to time. Squatting with weight is a VERY technical movement loading up without proper technique will guarantee injury down the line. It will be a question of when not if.

RandomHavoc said:

Finally, a primitive squat should not have a straight back, IMO, (unless of course you have long legs, and a short torso) because you're not using it for what it was intended to do, and that's being therapeutic. A primitive or third worlds squat allowed people to "sit" for long periods of time if their wanted. Imagine doing that while straining to keep your back rigid and straight... it defeats the purpose.

Ok, I didn't realize this was what he probably meant by primitive squat. If you are just sitting in that position, then disregard most of what I said. I was talking explicitly about a weightlifting exercise.

My mistake. I guess terminology can get the best of us sometimes.

On Mr. KStarr's MWOD blog, also available on youtube, there are several episodes concerning the "paleo chair" i.e. just hanging out in a full squat, to develop hip mobility, and also on good form for squating, i.e. pushing a load up from a squat. Good stuff there.

Thanks for all the help guys, I think I now have a pretty thorough understanding of the difference between load-bearing and third world/primitive squats. Do you know of any significant benefits of third world/primitive squats? Thanks again for all the help.

The "primitive squat" is very good at opening hips and stretching your shins/ankles. It's a very good skill to have and will help you in a lot of ways. For a while, I was doing 60s every morning and night. That's gotten a bit lax though, but I saw a lot of improvement in hip mobility