Barbell Squats are 200% Gay
Plus top 10 reasons to NEVER barbell squat.
What’s up man,
Today’s newsletter is a combination of two restored newsletters that were previously lost to the winds of time and censorship. Both center on barbell squats because of how supremely gay and retarded this exercise is. I know a lot of you think barbell squats are for alpha males and stuff.
You have all this magic woo woo bullshit pseudo science in your head for why that is. I’m here to tell you today that you are completely wrong and always have been. Nothing about this shitty excuse for an exercise is safe, necessary, useful, or productive. There are worse exercises than the barbell back squat to be sure, but none have this illustrious combination of popularity, cult like fervor, high risk, and stupidity all rolled into one neat package.
The first restored newsletter is for everyone, the second is for paid subscribers only.
Barbell Squats are 100% Gay
Originally published December 12th 2022.
Back around 2011 I published one of my first viral content posts on my old blog The Dream Lounge with the above meme as the introductory image.
It immediately went viral on strength training forums, eventually generating a short response from strength coach Mark Rippetoe directly (featured in the meme).
I didn't even know what a "meme" was at the time, I just thought this was funny and Mark was the perfect guy to pick on in an essay about how retarded barbell squats are.
Why are barbell squats 100% gay you ask? Well this is mostly just short hand for retarded, as gay is faster to type and significantly more offensive in our woke feminist shithole utopia. Barbell squats are not actually a homosexual activity as far as I am aware, even though there is a lot of homoerotic activity surrounding it.
Lots of "going deep", a spotter getting his crotch in there nice and tight, grunting and heaving and sweating and yelling, maybe a little ass slap after a good screaming. Sounds like a gay porno.
The barbell squat is also the king of fake machismo, rivaled only by the deadlift. Ya real alpha bro, so alpha when you go home that your fat 5 fucking wife runs your ass because you handed her your balls a long time ago.
On a more serious note I've always loved making fun of barbell squats because the exercise has the highest concentration of actual retardness, popularity, and fan boys all wrapped up into one complete triggering package.
It is not the gayest exercise, there are always ways to do things even more wrong and retarded - "life finds a way". The barbell step up for example is extraordinarily more retarded - and dangerous - than even a barbell squat on it's worst day.
One of the major reasons traditional barbell (back) squats are gay is that your spine is fundamentally a pyramid. Vertebrae get smaller towards the top, and larger towards the bottom - similar to big booty Latina women and Christmas trees.
In other words your spine is designed to handle less load towards the top - like your head, which weighs about 11 pounds - and more towards the bottom.
In this sense traditional barbell squats are the exact opposite of an effective, safe, congruent exercise. Front squats are also hilariously retarded and dangerous, a shit fix for a shit exercise.
In both cases you're loading the muscles of your legs as far away as possible, when you should be loading as close as possible to the target.
This is where the claims of magical barbell squat benefits come in. The exercise is so poorly designed that it drags other muscles in. This is not a benefit but a symptom of its dysfunction and how egregiously unfocused it is.
As far as safety goes, barbell squats are super dangerous and you will eventually hurt yourself - quickly or slowly - doing them, guaranteed. Most men are beta male sheep who can't think even 6 months out, much less 60 years ahead.
Take a 25 year old barbell squat fanatic for example. He should be lifting heavy weights, very slowly, at least once a week the rest of his life. He should generally be doing the same exercises at 85 as he was at 25. If it's not safe for an 85 year old it wasn't safe at 25 either, you were just better at bullshitting yourself, as your anatomy is the exact same.
A long stretch of time and thousands of sessions of working out will eventually reveal the contradictions and dangers of what you were doing in the first place. It will be called a "tragic" accident or "just old age" or whatever. These are all rationalizations to cover up mistakes and hubris. The exercise was always flawed and that was inevitably going to be revealed with enough repetition and time.
Exercise itself should never, ever hurt you. If the exercise needs "good form" (that is under constant debate) and benefits from "coaching", then it's not exercise, it's a sport masquerading as exercise, like a chick with a dick wearing a dress and makeup.
You're supposed to have a "spotter" when you barbell squat as well, up to 3 really. While three is better than one, fundamentally, if an exercise requires another human being to perform safely, then it's dangerous, stupid, and flawed. The spotters are an attempt to offset how stupid and dangerous the exercise is. Putting lipstick on a pig.
In general you should never put a barbell over your head/neck/face/spine. Over a long enough timeline it's a recipe for severe injury, paralysis, or death. Lots of people do end up fucked up for life from barbell squats but the fitness industry doesn't want you to know that. Not good for business advertising injury rates from your equipment that leaves dudes in wheelchairs or worse.
Barbell squats can be made slightly less gay with things like Smith machines, mechanical stops, hooks, etc. These are like putting band aids on gunshot wounds, and of the few people who use them, even fewer use them correctly.
If you want to train your legs properly over a lifetime what you should do instead is a horizontal leg press, ideally with a strength curve built in to modify the resistance throughout the ROM. Equipment by Nautilus, MedX, Arx Fit, ARETE, etc provide this to varying degrees.
Alternatively a hip belt squat (with zero extra bullshit or fancy setup tacked on) is as close to perfect as you'll ever get with conventional free weights and other gravity dependent equipment. One of our speakers Bill DeSimone once described it as "simply the most congruent lower body exercise conceivable".
Bottom line: barbell squats are 100% certified gay. You should never do them. Ever.
Anything that involves your spine, heavy weights, and requires "good form" is absolute dog shit and should be avoided. Your health and future should be protected at all costs. The vague "good" part should have been your first clue that the exercise was bullshit.
Anything that requires "spotters" is also garbage in terms of exercise. If your body is involved with heavy weights you should have total, absolute control over the exercise. Routinely putting your spine and ability to walk in the hands of others over a lifetime is insane.
Do men get big doing barbell squats? Sure. Skeletal muscle is highly plastic. It will respond to almost anything you throw at it. You can literally pickup huge bags of dog shit and gain muscle. Especially if you're injecting fake masculinity into your ass like the Liver King.
Thanks for tuning in, hope this was insightful.
Top 10 Reasons to NEVER Barbell Squat
Originally published February 27th 2013. For paid subscribers only past this point.
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