>>MARK: Hi I'm Mark Perry the creator of BuiltLean.com
and I'm joined by John Leva and this our second video
regarding squat depths, so on our first video we talked about how you should
squat bellow parallel which means your hip joints are gonna be below your knee joint
as you squat.
The issue was that a lot of people are unable to squat very low.
And there are usually 5 reasons, and we're gonna
go over these five reasons with you today
along with possible solutions to help you correct them
so that you can get the proper squat down.
Okay, so I'm gonna be going through all these issues
for you
and John's gonna be demonstrating.
Okay, so what are the big problems a lot of people
have is that their
deep core musculature isn't working, and so if you squat with a weak core,
it's not gonna provide a stable foundation for you
and so one way to test this out is
you are gonna do a normal plank and you are gonna see
if you are feeling the exercise in your abs or your lower back.
If you are feeling the exercise in your low back, that means that your abs
are probably not contracting properly and you have a weak core musculature
and so there are a couple of things that you can do to help.
Strengthen your abs, number one you can do is
the pale off press,
and secondly you can also do a single-leg lowering exercise.
Okay, so the second problem that prevents people
from squatting is tight calfs,
and that's something I personally have.
and so the way to test tight calfs, is you are gonna do a normal body weight squat
and you are gonna squat down as deep as you can.
Then you are gonna do another body weight squat,
except this time you are gonna put
25 pound plates underneath your heels,
you are gonna squat down as deep as you can
and you are gonna figure out if you are squatting down deeper with the plates behind your heel,
or without.
If you've squatted down deeper with the plates that means that you have
tight calfs.
A couple ways to increase the flexibility for calfs is
number one, you can do foam rolling, and or you can also do calf stretches.
Okay, so the third problem a lot of people experience is
tight hip flexors and one way to test tight hip flexors is you are gonna
find a stable object you can hold onto as you squat
and you are gonna squat down and figure out when your tailbone
tucks underneath your pelvis.
and so, if you notice that it tucks, underneath your pelvis kinda
high up in the squad, that means you have really tight hip flexors.
One thing about this test you should know is, this only applies if you pass
the previous two tests . A couple of ways to
improve your hip flexor flexibility
is, you can do across a plunge, a kind of yoga pose,
you can also do Bulgarian split squats
Okay, so the fourth problem a lot of people have, is lack of flexibility in the upper
back.
And so, one way to test this i you are gonna do a normal body weight squat
except you are going to bring your arms up as high as you can
above your head.
If, as you squat down your arms start to come forward, that means that you have an issue
with your upper back flexibility.
If, however, you are able to
keep your arms really far back, that means that your upper back
flexibility
is pretty good and so the way to improve your upper back flexibility and
my favorite corrective exercise is you are gonna do foam rolling
on your upper back
and then you can also stretch out your chest
which can help release tension in your upper back.
Okay so the fifth problem is
the butt muscles or the glutes are not falling properly
and so one way to test this out is,
you are gonna do a body weight squad, as you lower,
you are gonna figure out if your knees start to give in.
Another way to test this is, if you normally squat, your knees give in
that's an indication that your glutes are not firing properly,
and so the way to solve this issue
is you can do
expand walking, and you can also
foam roll your inner thigh, this can help really activate the glutes
during your squat.
Alright, so that's a lot of information to pack in in only a few minutes
but I hope you found that valuable,
I want to thank John for contributing this awesome article to BuiltLean
and by the way
if you want more information, definitely check out the full article
on BuiltLean.com
again, thank you for watching, and I'll see you soon.