Mike Boyle’s RFESS (rear foot elevated split squat) has made some serious waves in the strength and conditioning community. I think that is important that he dares say no to back squat or front squat any more. My question now is with olympic lifts being bilateral, can the same be said with the back being a poor transducer (better stated as a coupling agent due to anatomical syntax) with cleans? I
ROFTL with the RFESS Part 2
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Plyos, great conditioning, and sound single leg strength things are good to go in hockey yet the name of the track game is maximum performance and back or front squats may be a necessary evil. With a good “posterior core” one should be fine on back squats and front squats.
Agreed!!!
JTD
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Very interesting article. Has Mike Boyle addressed these arguments formally?
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I remember when people were shooting down that 4 day split 10 years ago. Along with Mike Boyle, I attended Poliquin seminars from 1997-99 and I often wondered why it took him so long to embrace some of the concepts discussed back then. Jason Ferrugia, who attended those seminars as well, had to enlighten him years later.
Anybody see Cressey’s latest blog post? Big surprise that the back to back days caught up to that athlete. Is it me or does the programming of Cressey, Boyle, etc…resemble that of a good sprint coach more and more each day?
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I have major problems with Mike Boyle’s recent discoveries:
1) The Attribution of any exercise to one person/trainer – It’s not Mike Boyle’s Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (RFESS), it’s simply a split squat – it’s been around for decades – he didn’t invent it – he simply dressed it up with a fancy abbreviation and suddenly its a new package… I dont think so. They definitely have a place in training programs and can be very sport specific but can they replace maximal squats for strength training?
2) How can a 1 legged (or 1.5 as others put it) exercise be used as a strength exercise – it cant. Therefore already “Mike Boyle’s RFESS” has limited use in that it can only be used to illicit a few adaptations – Strength Endurance, Hypertrophy etc. Which for most sports (particularly field sports) is not a major factor in explosive power performances or sprint actions
3) “The Low Back is a limiting factor” – first of all when is it a limiting factor? At a certain position in the squat, at a certain load, at certain speed? This statement simply isn’t scientifically proven or descriptive enough at present – and until then it is only an opinion. Not to say that this isn’t certainly a factor we should all consider when utilising squats, but surely this carries over to deadlifts (as mentioned), stiff leg deadlifts, olympic lifts – need i go on… Yes the low back is a limiting factor – that’s where we come in, to assess the INDIVIDUAL! There is no 1 rule that applies to every athlete. Surely if anything the low back limiting movement highlights a Range of motion issue in the athlete that should be addressed by the programming and exercise selection?
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Participant
I have major problems with Mike Boyle’s recent discoveries:
1) The Attribution of any exercise to one person/trainer – It’s not Mike Boyle’s Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (RFESS), it’s simply a split squat – it’s been around for decades – he didn’t invent it – he simply dressed it up with a fancy abbreviation and suddenly its a new package… I dont think so. They definitely have a place in training programs and can be very sport specific but can they replace maximal squats for strength training?
2) How can a 1 legged (or 1.5 as others put it) exercise be used as a strength exercise – it cant. Therefore already “Mike Boyle’s RFESS” has limited use in that it can only be used to illicit a few adaptations – Strength Endurance, Hypertrophy etc. Which for most sports (particularly field sports) is not a major factor in explosive power performances or sprint actions
3) “The Low Back is a limiting factor” – first of all when is it a limiting factor? At a certain position in the squat, at a certain load, at certain speed? This statement simply isn’t scientifically proven or descriptive enough at present – and until then it is only an opinion. Not to say that this isn’t certainly a factor we should all consider when utilising squats, but surely this carries over to deadlifts (as mentioned), stiff leg deadlifts, olympic lifts – need i go on… Yes the low back is a limiting factor – that’s where we come in, to assess the INDIVIDUAL! There is no 1 rule that applies to every athlete. Surely if anything the low back limiting movement highlights a Range of motion issue in the athlete that should be addressed by the programming and exercise selection?
(1) Mike has a knack for dressing up exercises and this is a positive thing to many bro coaches as he tries to make the motion more uniform. Touch the pad to the knee, use a bar or specific %. I like that thinking but like you they can’t replace conventional work. I would like to hear Eric Cressey’s thoughts on this as he has a book on maximal strength yet his affiliate code has FSC3.0. I don’t think Mike is the first to use a bar in a SS or Bulgarian exercise as we have photos of guys from the 70s at least. We also have them going down slow enough to touch their knee without a bruise on the kneecap.
(2) Mike will argue that the hang cleans (what he calls a clean), plyos and sprints, and the trap bar will cover the needs of explosive power. Yet Death to Squats shouldn’t give birth to the RFESS.
(3) Mike’s core training isn’t enough? Perhaps back rehab is too much work? Change a program and customize it? Mike doesn’t agree as it will hurt team chemistry.
Great points Rob…I would love to hear from Mike as he has registered but this isn’t his site so it’s likely he will not say anything as this forum is not biased. Again maybe for Hockey but not more absolute sports.
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