There is a general belief, generated largely by Ericsson et al. (1993) and popularized by mainstream media (Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers), that the amount of time spent deliberately practicing a skill is all that matters in determining mastery (Hambrick et al., 2013). It’s about how many hours you can put in, ultimately creating a certain path to success.

When training the squat, the goals and techniques vary greatly depending on the sport or discipline. In this blog post, we will explore the differences between weightlifting, powerlifting, and strength training and the impact your choices have on how to train the squat.‍

Coaching is not easy, so it cannot be expected that anyone doing it is perfect and avoids all of the pitfalls that we have found ourselves committing. With that said, the reason we came up with this list is to help alert coaches to potential difficulties they will face along the way.