Hacker News Reader

Comment by quarterto | Hacker News Reader

After wading through the article's obnoxious style, we see it provides no tangible arguments against standing, nor for squatting. In fact, the only argument against standing is that it's uncomfortable, and then the rest of the article is spent explaining how to make squatting less uncomfortable. Squatting for more than 5 minutes would probably make my knees explode.

View on HN

I do power lifting, and had significant problems with my squats until I spent a few weeks practicing asian squats and generally improving my hip mobility. I still can't stay in a squat position nearly as long as my four year old son, but it's been steadily improving.

When I started squatting, my knees were so weak I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without pain. I finally started exercising because my doctor gave me a look of disdain, handed me a sheet of basic exercises and told me to get out (edit: when I went to her to ask about my knee pain...)

I'm not going to argue for (or against) working in squatting position, but squats done properly are not going to hurt your knees.

> until I spent a few weeks practicing asian squats

Is that a specific type of squat, or just a normal squatting position without any weight?

They're referring to the resting squat position talked about in the article.

Knees wide, butt touching ankles, pretty much.

When people unused to squatting squat down, they often end up barely reaching parallel.

It's a form of natural unweighted squat that's commonly practiced in Asia as a rest position.

A crucial difference from how many westerners squat is that the weight is carried back on the heels. Westerners tend to squat with weight forward on the toes, which is highly fatiguing.

There's a vintage video on the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y76UbfBr5vo

(This was linked in the article, but it's since gone walkabout).

It's a squat where the heels are flat on the ground and you're sitting back more.

In contrast to the western "catcher's squat" (from baseball) where the heels are off the ground and the weight is on the balls of your feet.

Mostly because you don't squat properly and/or aren't used to squatting...

In China, until recently, all toilets were basically squatting toilets, yet octogenarians had no issue squatting to use them... how old are you that you can't do for 5 minutes what an 80 year old can do several times a day?

Did you mean to ask "how old are you that you can't do [something you've never done before in your life and thus don't have the muscles for it] for five minutes what an 80 year old [who has done it every day of their life and thus has the required muscles] can do several times a day"?

Also, I'd like to point out the differences in length of time between taking a shit and a normal 8 hour work day.

I'm not saying this is impossible, but I understand the trepidation.

Same goes for sitting toilets though.

And we still don't have any arguments supporting either position. I do squat for a few minutes every day to facilitate my squat lifting workout but don't see an inherent benefit. I suppose one can argue that it has been a natural movement for so long that our bodies may be genetically designed for it.

Look at young children, and see how effortlessly they can sit for ages in squat positions while playing. After I started fixing my squat for lifting, I've noticed I now often naturally squat down instead of awkwardly contorting myself when playing with my son for example.

My mobility is still poor compared to what it was when I was a child, but at 38 I'm now finally more flexible again than I was at 25, maybe more so than at 20, and it's great to not feel constrained by weird movement patterns.

they have very short limbs making this very easy

Their limbs are proportionally the same, and their muscles equivalently smaller and weaker. It's no harder for an adult with proper mobility.

it completely depends on the proportions

long-limbed people have more difficulty with this, while shorter-limbed people don't have difficulty with this after a little stretching

Same in Japan. It's also pretty common to see people squatting near buildings for smoke breaks, etc.

It's easy to stand comfortably for hours: just use the Captain Morgan pose. (get a small box to rest one feet on; alternate feet every few minutes) This is recommended for example by Kelly Starrett. Works for me awesomely.

Its also mostly a tongue in cheek joke, if you didn't get that.

you are probably doing the western squat. If you watch the video in the blog, asian squat is considerable more comfortable and do not cause knee pains.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com