The back squat, or simply the squat, has the greatest carryover value of any exercise to the Olympic lifts, short of the actual lifts themselves. It is simply not possible to develop a weightlifter to his or her full potential without performing thousands of repetitions of heavy back squats. It is not only an obviously great strengthener of the legs and hips, but also of the torso musculature, and furthermore stimulates the anabolism of the musculature.
Now before I proceed further, let me answer the obvious question of many - low bar or high bar. I am discussing the high bar squat as it is performed by weightlifters all over the planet. The low bar squat is an event, and as an exercise it has great benefit at improving results in the low bar squat. For weightlifters there are many more useful ways of directing energy than performing low bar squats.
Previously I wrote about the snatch to clean and jerk ratio, but today I'm going to discuss the squat to clean and jerk ratio. In the 1950s and 1960s there were frequent incidents of elite level weightlifters being forced to withdraw from competitions because of knee injuries. These types of situations have abated greatly and in today’s world level competition their occurrence is extremely rare. The reason for that, I believe, is the increase in the squat to clean and jerk ratio along with better selection of athletes.
In the late 1970s the Soviets gathered data and found that their best lifters had best back squats that averaged 131% of their best cleans and jerk. As time passed there was anecdotal evidence that many of the top lifters in the world had even higher figures.
As a coach I’ve used this 131% in calculating the target squatting figure for my athletes. For instance, if I am planning on having a lifter target a clean and jerk goal of 120 kg for the next cycle, I will plan all the training percentages for the back squat off of 157 kg or more, which is 131% of 120. This seems to provide the proper amount of loading on the individual, and enables to athlete to stand easily with whatever weight is cleaned.
Naturally there are variations among individuals, and since I work with Americans and we have no infrastructure for talent selection, the variations are even greater. Once my athletes have mastered technique, and their bodies have been balanced through training, we can plan on targeting back squatting weights at that 131% figure. This can be difficult for those with especially long femurs and who are lifting at a less than optimal bodyweight. Others have excellent squatting leverages and can routinely exceed that target weight. These adjustments in training weight have to be made when planning the training.
Since I’ve been developing weightlifters by teaching technique, balancing their bodies, and then prescribing appropriate squatting poundage, I have seen very few knee problems and no injuries. The strength levels have been appropriate as evidenced by the proper ratio of snatch to clean and jerk weights.
So how often do I have my lifters squat? For my veteran lifters, I program squatting five to six days per week during preparation cycles, with one of them being front squats. For very advanced lifters they may even squat twice in the same day. During pre-competition cycles, the back squats are done once or twice per week and front squats once or twice per week, depending on the individual’s needs. 80% at a minimum is programmed for each session.
Front squat intensities are calculated at 105% of the clean and jerk. Personally I prefer them to be higher. This will insure that the recovery from the deep squat in the clean is relatively easy and there is enough leg strength left for a successful jerk drive.
This piece is being presented to assist coaches in understanding the interrelationship between back squatting, front squatting, and cleaning so that training can be designed in a manner that most effectively uses the energies available to the athlete.
I begin by teaching the squat snatch press, a movement in which the athlete assumes a full back squat bottom position while taking a snatch width grip with the bar resting on the shoulders behind the neck. The movement then commences with the athlete pressing the bar overhead while remaining in the full bottom position. The exercise has been mistakenly called the Sots press when in actuality a Sots press is performed with the bar in front of the neck with the hands in a clean width grip. 
The best movement for learning the squat clean bottom position is the traditional
The split jerk is best learned by performing overhead lunges. The weight is supported overhead with the hands taking a clean width grip. The athlete then steps forward with the preferred leg into a lunge position and lowers the hips until the thigh of the front leg is parallel with the floor. The athlete then recovers to the starting position. This movement, like the previous two, is to acquaint the athlete with the bottom position before any attempt is made to assume the position at the end of an explosive movement. 
I’m sure the complaints and arguments will continue to emanate from those who just don’t want to bother with learning how to perform the lifts or to coach technique. For a large number of people in the world of traditional resistance exercise, the movements they employ are of minimal neuromuscular complexity and so the teaching of technique is a relatively simple task. In fact in bodybuilding the whole point of exercises is to isolate muscles and reduce as much as possible the interplay between individual muscles and muscle groups. Furthermore, there is no need to teach the act of actively not contracting the muscle. 
With this change, athletes were able to employ a thigh brush that allowed the legs and hips to be used more effectively in the pull. With the development of biomechnical analysis of the lifts, the application of biomechanics by coaches, and the recruitment of larger numbers of top athletes to the sport, the modern double knee-bend technique was described in the mid to late 1970s. 
Balanced development refers to both the muscular and nervous systems. Not only should a weightlifter’s body have minimal development of non-functional muscle with respect to the performance of the lifts, but the 
At one time it was thought that technique was best learned in a gradual manner over a period of several years of a lifter’s career. Current best practices indicate the greatest benefits are derived from learning technique early in the career. In many national programs, the emphasis is to learn technique during the pre-pubertal years. Technical training is performed with dowels so the athlete is already beginning the process of neural development before resistance training begins. 
One item that is rather obvious is the ratio of the snatch to the clean and jerk. If an athlete is mature, and is lifting in the appropriate bodyweight class for his or her height, proper training is reflected by this ratio. For many years, the top international lifters had best snatch figures that were within the range of 78 to 82% of the clean and jerk. With the advent of heightened drug testing protocols at the international level, that range is likely to expand upwards to about 84%, as the use of performance enhancing drugs is more necessary to improve the results of the clean and jerk. 
Another way to look at it when projecting ahead is to calculate what is called the K-value. In this calculation we use the same absolute average intensity and compare it to the total lifted at the end of the cycle. In the previous example if we take the 117.1 average absolute intensity and divide it by the total of 290 (130 + 160), the quotient x 100 is equal to 40.5. Empirical studies of the best training programs show this quotient should be in the range of 38 to 42, so this absolute average intensity is an appropriate one. 
