Quote:
Originally Posted by EasyRhino
Silly noob question, but for someone who is NOT doing olympic or PL lifts, but just doing "general fitness" deadlifts and squats, is the raised heel of a shoe still preferable?
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The raised heel is good for squats if you have problems getting to a proper depth as the Espi noted. A lot of people have ankle flexibility problems, which makes them raise their heel off the floor or round their back at the bottom. Even if you have good flexibility (I can do an ATG squat with bare feet, for example, as long as I'm not using too much weight), the raised heel still makes it more comfortable at the bottom.
I find that they are less good for deadlifting since the heel makes you shift your weight forward and onto your quadas when you really should be using your posterior chain to pull. Some respected trainers endorse it, though, so your mileage may vary. I usually deadlift in socks only, which may skew my view a bit.