How Low Can (Should) You Go

We explored the question today of how low you should go in the bottom of your overhead squat.  In Crossfit terms, which tends to be a great goal for most lifters, is to get below parallel. What probably all of you reading this know though is that no two people move the same, so although below parallel is a great general range of motion, it may be more or less beneficial for some to go lower, or even higher.  To simplify this idea, we set the goal this morning of going as low as you can in a safe and effective position.  Safe (or healthy) meaning you are not compromising any good positions for your range of motion, eg heals coming up, back rounding, or shoulders internally rotating to "get depth.".  Effective (or powerful) being all of these healthy positions, (health and effectiveness almost always go hand in hand), and keeping the bar over your center of mass, or balance point.  Wherever that place was for you today was what we went with.  If as low as you could go today in a healthy and effective position was above parallel, then we stayed light and looked at that as something to work on to get more range of motion (or benefit).  If you were able to go lower than parallel, we made sure that depth was not compromising any safe or powerful positions.  
Here is Megan at the bottom of her overhead squat, in the lowest most effective and healthy position for her today.

Workout:

3 Rounds:
2 Snatch
2 Overhead Squat
3 Rounds:
1 Snatch
1 Overhead Squat

For time:
9 hang snatch (65/95lb)
5 rope climbs
15 hang snatch
3 rope climb
21 hang snatch
1 rope climb