Not trying to be the eternal ass I am known for being - but -

Coach Bear - You say DL's are a lift you want to make sure is done with proper form. But the first lift you list in your training program is front squats. Do you have the same concern for safety with respect to front squats as you do for DL's?

Squats, in any form, present far more potential for injury than DL's, IMO.

Once you learn how to squat correctly - the world is your oyster. Because it is my opinion that squats and fish oil are the answer to almost every training related question.

I've never seen a kid blow out his knee attempting a dead lift.

But that's just me. I could be wrong.

Oh absolutely. We do not attempt a front squat until they have completely learned how to back barbell squat. That workout was in no particular order either. I was just sharing a workout I wrote up that I feel helps a kid strengthen his power clean max. And I agree 100%. A lot goes in to proper squat form. I have actually found front squats 40-60% of their back squat 1RM actually help them with better squatting form, and allows them to actually go a full 90 degrees or below, especially with the lighter weight. Where as regular squats it's hard getting the kid to actually go all the way to 90 degrees.

But going 90 degrees is a completely different debate by coaches as well. Some say never go 90 or below others say they should.

I think anyone arguing against anything less than ass-to-grass squats should be completely ignored. Especially in the context of Oly lifts.

Anyone ever seen a 3-white snatch that was less than 90 degrees? The snatch is little more than a glorified OH squat.

The best thing that could possibly happen to the strength/conditioning cesspool in the US is Oly-style training becoming more mainstream.

Going past 90 degrees is a horrible idea. Its bad for your knees. Those Olympic Lifters going past 90 are having a hard time getting out of bed by the time their 50. How many Baseball catchers in the Pros do you see with bad knees. Ask any PT or ortho doctor and he'll say going past 90 is a BAD idea. We aren't teaching our kids to be olympic lifters, most of those guys couldn't run out of sight in a day. We want them to be functional and not hurt.

The most injurious thing that can happen to a kid is to be taught bad form.

1. Oly lifters get out of bed just like everyone else. Most people will never deal with the kind of poundage elite lifters deal with. But I would love to see a quote, or some facts, or pretty much anything than anecdotal generalizations.

2. Baseball catchers stay in a squat position with the feet at unsafe angles. Additionally, they are getting up and sitting down extremely quickly hundreds of times over the course of a regular 9 inning game.

Doing half-squats with bad form is far worse than going ATG with good form.

But this little tangent has little to do with incorporating PC's into a training program.

There is no empirical evidence of atg squats being bad for the knees. If you are going to be doing Olympic lifts then squat ATG and make dang sure it's done right and the lifter is properly spotted.

As for PC vs HC, we do both. PC develops power from the ground up, but the HC develops explosion and a more powerful hip action, all of which are important in just about every sport.

http://weighttraining.about.com/b/2008/05/13/how-low-should-you-squat-full-or-parallel.htm

Or you could just plug in the Insanity workout,
that is so hard that your boys can't do it anyway,
and avoid this little debate altogether.

Although that would prolly spawn just another debate.
Oh well. Never mind.

NO NO! Don't start with that, I was really enjoying the logical debate about this subject with people who actually know what they are talking about. And yes, kids can do the insanity. I did it at Klondike as conditioning for my basketball team. But guess what? We still hit the weight room.

Truth be known
if there's a weight room already there,
I'd use it too!
But, whether those debating really know
what they're talking about
is in itself, debatable.
So, let the debate continue!!!!!!!!

Hmmmmmm....
only 2 pages of commentary?
Not much of a debate,
is it?

Did they all get the shirt?