Daily reminder whether or not you should squat and deadlift is

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Daily reminder whether or not you should squat and deadlift is determined by GENETICS.

> Bret: [...]you know that you can build up the body to be very strong. The muscles and as long as you hold good position and your training parameters are proper, your frequency, volumes, postures, load, all these things, you can build your body up to withstand that.

>Stu McGill: Some people can’t.

>Bret: Well that’s what I would like to talk about. Okay, I’m gonna veer off. You mentioned genetics as it pertains to the spine. Talk for a second about ovoid and the limacon disc shapes.

>Stu McGill: [...]we can have a variety of disc shapes. We inherit that from our parents. If you take a slice through your low back, you will look down and bird’s eye view and see the shape of your disc. Some are oval. If you twist an oval disc (an oval disc likes to twist). The great golfers, not all, tend to have ovoid shaped discs simply because of survival of the fittest. If you can’t swing a club very well and you can’t twist, then you’re going to choose another sport besides golf. People with these slender, oval discs tend to become golfers. Those types of spines can twist. Now, if you take the typical middle linebacker from NFL, they don’t have oval discs. By definition to survive in that sport, they have to take a lot of compression and they have much bigger, thicker, much bigger radius discs. But they’re shaped like a lima bean when you look down on them. they are big and indent at the back where the spinal canal is. When you get a thin branch and bend it, it will bend. There’s not much stress. But if you take a thick branch and bend it, it breaks. That’s what happens with very thick discs that tend to be limacon shaped. The hydraulic stresses that come from bending in big heavy spines get focused to the back of the curve of the limacon and these kinds of people end up with posterolateral disc bulges if they bend too much.