What's up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
So how deep should you squat? Well, if you look like Jesse here when he’s squatting,
I’m going to say, “Not that deep.” The reason being, that evident butt wink he’s
got going on there.
“Butt wink”, for those of you that aren’t familiar with it, is when your lumbar spine
goes into this position of extension, or neutral, into this rapid flexion, right back out of
it when the squat gets to a point where it’s too deep.
When I say, “too deep”, I mean too deep for Jesse. And when I say, “too deep for
Jesse”, I mean too deep for Jesse right now. We should all be striving to get as low
as we possibly can.
As a matter of fact, if I’m going to get off this ground at some point, from this position,
I need it to be deep, and need to know, and have the strength to be able to get out of
here.
So, the most functional position of squatting is one that will take us a low as possible.
But only if your body is ready for it. So, I’ve put together a checklist for you to
determine what might be causing your body to do what Jesse did, because he’s certainly
not alone.
We all know that. And how you can attack these things one by one. So, ultimately, when you
fix your cause – what’s causing you to do this – you’re going to be able to squat
safely, ass to grass, and go as deep as you can.
So, we’re going to knock these out one by one. It starts here with Jesse being down.
There’s a reason he’s here, by the way. Not just to showcase the bad squat. It’s
to showcase that we have some things that could be causing the problems here.
One is the hip capsule mobility issue. Meaning, the tightness in the hip capsule itself which
is causing a limitation in your range of motion at the hip. The second thing is an anatomical
restriction of the hip.
That, again, will be restricting your range of motion, and we’re going to have to be
able to determine the difference between the two. But both of them are going to limit your
ability to get low. The third thing is a pelvic muscle tightness.
Namely, in the hamstrings, or the adductor muscles. Then we have ankle mobility and flexibility
issues and pelvic stability issues. All of these, or any combination of them, or one
in particular could be causing you to be losing the control of that spine at the bottom of
the squat.
The first three, ironically, are supposedly – you’re able to screen these out with
the use of this convenient test that Jesse will show here. You’ve probably heard it
before.
People say “Look, if you can get into this position here, and sit back to a point where
you’re low enough in your squat where your hips are past your knees. Below your knees
as they would be in a fully performed and executed squat.
If you can still maintain an anterior tilt here – meaning, you still have the ability
to get into a curvature here, not that you have to maintain that throughout a squat – but
if you can still maintain some curvature here; there’s no way you have a capsular mobility
issue, or anatomical restriction, or pelvic muscle tightness.
They use this test as the example. I’ll tell you right here, this test is absolute
garbage. Garbage. Why? Because it’s not complete. Here’s why. If I were to take
out this goniometer here – we measure angles o f the body with this thing.
If I were to go in here and measure the angle of Jesse’s torso, while it looks like he’s
below his hips, it’s actually deceiving. If I come in here and angle this to his torso
here we have about 95 degrees on torso. 95 degrees.
If he were to sit back – for you guys that can creatively look at this – if we were
to tilt him back up this way, he’d actually be falling backward. Jesse, go ahead and sit
up into a squat now. If he were to go back where he just was, he’s going down.
Instead, what we need to do is measure where Jesse is in his squat. At the bottom of the
squat. Go ahead and get up. If we measure at the bottom of the squat here, now he has
more of an angle of about 131 degrees. So, 131 degrees of flexion here to get down.
Now, the normal range of motion for a hip is around 120-125. If I have to get him back
in that position and recreate that he can’t stay up here like this. What he has to do
is, he gets into his anterior pelvic tilt, he’s in that deeper position of the squat,
and now he’s got to bring his chest and everything else down toward the ground.
Now, he’s lost all this. It’s all gone. He doesn’t have the ability to do that anymore.
So, we can’t rule out those other issues. He could be having – now that we’ve actually
gotten into the true degree of flexion that he’s going to be in for his squat – we
could be dealing with a hip capsule mobility issue.
We could be dealing with an anatomical restriction. We could be dealing with pelvic muscle tightness.
Here’s the thing, if you try this test, you’re able to get down here and you still
– I can’t demonstrate on Jesse – but you’re still able to keep that anterior
tilt; you can skip ahead in this video and go down to four and five.
Start looking at your ankles or your pelvic stability and we’ll time stamp those areas
for you. For those of you who have lost your ability to stay in an anterior tilt at this
point, you need to stick with me now and go through them one by one.
So, the first thing now, if we’re going to look at that capsular mobility of your
hip is, you’ve got to lay on the ground. You don’t need someone like me to do this
for you. You can do it yourself. But what you want to do is see how easy it is for your
hip to get up into flexion here.
Normally, we’re looking for at leas 120 degrees. 90 would be there, but we’re looking
for about 120 degrees of flexion. What you’ll find is people that either have degenerative
hips, or capsular tightness overall, and they start to lose the ability to get flexion here.
They certainly start to get a hard end-feel.
Meaning, it hits here, and it won’t go. It’s like hitting a wall. Here, Jesse’s
got that bouncy end-feel. So that’s another thing to look for. Once we get here, let’s
say we have an anatomical restriction going on.
We’re not going to be able to instantly determine whether or not it’s anatomical
– meaning the bones are hitting the bones – or it’s more of this tightness in the
capsule. What we’ll do is, if he hits a wall here, if I turn his leg out a little
bit toward you guys, and I’m able to go a little further; then we’ll probably think
we’re dealing with more of an anatomical restriction.
Which will happen if you test it a little bit further on here. But right now, if he
can get up here, the next thing I would do is test his internal rotation. I’m just
going to turn his knee in. So, the foot comes out toward you guys, the knee goes in, and
I’m looking for about 30 to 35 degrees here from here.
So, if I go here, and I’ve got that, I can tell you right now, anyone with real capsular
restriction is going to have a difficult time internally rotating. They’re going to have
a difficult time getting into flexion. If you are good there, you can move onto the
next step here, where we’ll go after that restriction of the bone on bone and see if
that’s what’s going on with you.
So, we’re moving on now and looking for a way to figure out whether we’re dealing
with more of a muscle tightness here, or if we’re dealing with more of the acts of bone
on bone. Anatomical limitations. You can see what happens here. Why would this even matter,
first of all? Well, let’s say we’re taking this hip here and going deeper into flexion.
Going deeper into the squat, deeper into the squat. What happens is, at a certain point
here, the femur doesn’t have anymore room. It can’t continue to rotate. It winds up
hooking onto the pelvis here. In order for it to keep going it’s going to grab the
pelvis with it and turn it under.
You see that posterior tilt is happening because, in order for the femur to keep going – because
you’re driving down into the squat – it’s going to have to grab the pelvis and move
with it. So, you get that pelvic tilt. You get that butt wink. That’s one issue. So,
we want to make sure we determine whether or not that’s happening.
What we could do is, as I’ve said before, if it is this, then you can test it yourself.
You can turn your hip out a little bit more. In other words, drive your knees out a little
bit more into external rotation. If you do that, you should be able to clear a lot more
room. Anatomically, the way these bones setup – just like in the shoulder, too.
When external rotation clears more room, you’ll get more flexion out of it by having your
knees out. So, there is a fix for that, even if you anatomically think you’re screwed.
You can change that a little bit by changing the position of your knees as you squat down.
So now, the other thing to consider before we get into it – because I’m going to
show you how to differentiate between the two with one, single test – you also have
these muscles that run back here. Hamstrings that run from the base of the pelvis here,
and cross the knee, and we also have the adductor muscles that are attaching to the other side
– the front side – of the pelvis, that are attaching to the femur.
So, when we move this down, and we keep this back – when the pelvis is back – you’re
getting more of a stretch. You’ll be able to feel that. That restriction from these
muscles that could be holding you back because they’re too tight. The same thing with the
hamstring.
Don’t let people tell you that “You’re letting some of the tension go because you
have a flexion of the knee there, and that’s letting some of the stress off the hamstrings.”
Yeah, fine. But the hamstrings are a long muscle that attach all the way to the back
of the pelvis here, and that’s going back even further as you go down to squat. Especially
if you’re talking about going ass to grass.
There are going to be length inhibitions here that are causing you to still feel to much
tightness here that will restrict your pelvis. And if it’s going to keep going, it’s
going to pull it under with it because it’s attached. The hamstrings are attached right
back there via the hamstring attachment to the pelvis.
So, let’s figure out one simple test which one you’re dealing with. You’ve got to
differentiate between the two of these. Now, let’s differentiate between those two. What
we do is get up onto a box here. The box just needs to be high enough to take your ass a
little bit below your knee, into proper depth on the squat. We have that here because of
the foot position and the elevation.
Now, as Jesse sets up here – put the squat bar on your back. All right, great. We should
already instantly determine that this is not the right position. The same way it wasn’t
the right position when he was on the floor on all fours because he’s not squatting
from there. He can’t squat that upright. He doesn’t have the proper angle here between
his torso and his leg.
So, he has to angle more forward, which he would in his real squat, in that 131 degrees.
In order to get there, all of a sudden, he starts to lose this ability here. Now, he’s
going to feel it, and you’re going to feel it one of two places. The first thing could
be, you’re going to feel it right in here. Do you feel that?
JESSE: That’s where I feel it.
JEFF: He feels it right in the front here. Like it’s jamming in the front here. Now
you’re dealing with something anatomical. But it doesn’t mean you also don’t have
the muscular component because here’s what would happen.
If I were to fix it and tell him “Jesse, if it is anatomical here we can create some
extra space by letting the leg drift out a little bit more, driving your knees out a
little bit so you get more external rotation.” Which allows him to get a little bit more
mobility here. It frees that up, but now where do you feel it?
JESSE: On the inside.
JEFF: Inside. So now he’s feeling the adductor issues. The adductor and underneath the hamstring.
So that could happen to you. You could feel that, when you make that change, you’ve
freed it up in one place, but I’ll tell you what happens. If you’re going to take
your knees and move them out, and the adductors connect to this femur here, and you move it
out further; you’ve just increased the flexibility demands you have on those muscles.
So now you’re going to have to address both the fact that you want to change your squat
pattern a bit by driving your knees out, but then understand that the demands on the adductors
are going to be even higher. So now you need to make sure you’re stretching them out.
We’ve gotten through all those. Again, for those that were already skipping past this;
good for you. You’ve eliminated two other options.
But for these guys who have already gone through here, it doesn’t mean, unfortunately, that
you may not have other contributions from those final two places either. Whether it
be pelvic stability, or ankle issues. So, you’ve got to watch those, too. We’re
moving onto those right now. Now we’re down on the ground here. We’ve got to look at
the ankle mobility. This is Jesse’s leg.
JESSE: Hey, guys.
JEFF: Jesse. It’s an unmistakable leg, believe me. For many reasons. The fact is, we’ve
got to make sure that his ankle mobility is enough to allow him to go down. Why? Because
if the ankle, if you’re going down into a squat you need to have your ankles to continue
to give you something call dorsiflexion. Meaning, as your knee goes down – go ahead, Jesse.
Down.
It needs to be able to give and create the opportunity for your pelvis to come down.
If you hit a wall here – go back – and you can’t go forward anymore, but he’s
got to continue to get down; what happens? The pelvis is going to drop and go with it
because you can’t get any more forward with the ankle. So, he’s got to have the pelvis
come with it. That would be another cause of butt wink.
What we’re looking for here is a simple, simple test to determine whether or not he’s
got enough ankle dorsiflexion. All you’ve got to do is setup a few inches away from
a wall, or a box, and what you do is just try to lean forward, keeping your heel on
the ground here, and see if you can touch that knee to the wall, or to the box. Jesse
can’t and there’s a reason for that.
If I were to take out the goniometer and I would measure what I’ve got here. From 90
degrees I’ve got about 23 degrees forward. You’re looking for about 20 degrees of dorsiflexion
to be able to do that. If you get in this position here and you can’t get there – go
ahead, Jesse. Back a little bit more. Let’s say you restricted in there.
The question you want to ask yourself at that point is “Where are you feeling the restriction?”
Are you feeling it right here, in front? Where you’re feeling a pinch again? Or are you
feeling it back here in the Achilles? If you’re feeling it more on the backside you’re probably
dealing with a calf muscle tightness.
If you’re feeling it more in the front side you’re probably dealing with a subtalar
mobility issue, where you’ll want to work on more ankle mobility drills. I have a couple
that we’ve done on this channel that we’ll link for you. One that was right here, actually.
It was a very, very helpful one for that specific issue. But in the meantime, which one are
you dealing with?
Determine that and that will give you your plan of action. But we’re still not done.
We have one more where we’re on our feet, in the squat, and our bodies betray us because
we lack pelvic stability. We’ve got to check that out now. So finally, what we’ve got
to do is look for that pelvic stability because that’s a very, very important thing.
What you can do right off the bat is, you can potentially be setting up improperly.
Meaning, in too much anterior tilt. What would happen here is – Jesse, get into an anterior
tilt. If you set yourself up this way when you squat, then when you come down – come
down slow – there’s that wink. There’s a reason why he’s winking badly at that
point.
If he already gets himself into that anterior tilt he’s already putting himself in hip
flexion. He’s putting himself in about 15 degrees of hip flexion. Meaning, all the reasons
we talked about before with the capsular mobility, the anatomical restrictions, and whatever
else could be going on; it’s going to be exaggerated because he’s already taking
away some of the hip flexion.
So, what you want to do instead is, you get up at that top, and you’re going to put
yourself, not so much in an exaggerated anterior tilt there. But get yourself tucked under
a little more by squeezing your glutes. The thing that squeezing your glutes does is – it
actually does two things. Number one: it gives you more stability here.
It puts your pelvis in a little bit better alignment underneath your spine to support
it. But it can also correct any hip alignment issues. Meaning, hips open to the left, or
hips open to the right. I did a video on that as well. What we do is, let’s say we get
to the bottom of the squat. What happens is, Jesse – boom. He winks.
What you want to do is – I think, a lot of times, in the most difficult position of
the squat, the low portion of the squat, that’s when we tend to lose our stability of the
hips. So, what we can do is focus on trying to improve that. You put something at that
level that gets you right to the point where your butt winks. For Jesse we had to put it
on top of a mat to get it a little bit higher.
Now, if he’s in this position – what you want to do as well – you want to fix your
position. So, if you’re in a wink you’re going to get yourself back into a more neutral
position, or even more anterior. So, you can actually work to overcorrect here. Get yourself
into this anterior position here.
Now, his goal is to try and lift himself an inch or two off that ball – good – without
losing his ability to stay there. So, a little bit of a wink there. Go ahead and just slide
– right there. Perfect. See, now he’s got the ability to do that. Why? Because he’s
got focused stability there. He’s focusing all his attention on that pelvis and making
sure the pelvis doesn’t move.
We need that because when the legs are moving they need to be able to push off a stable
pelvis. For the same reason it works in reverse. If you’re going to jump you want to be able
to jump off something solid, not off sand because we need stability from below. The
legs need stability from the pelvis in order to be able to provide the best strength and
function.
So, if he’s here, he can now grab a kettle bell to overload his ability here and challenge
his ability to be able to stay right there. Just like that. Now you can do a couple squats.
As many squats from that position. Up and down, just a little bit. From here, up a little
bit. Go up, like, 5 inches. There, and down. Right there. And up. And down. And up.
You see that? You’re really working on maintaining that pelvic control. So, if you have an issue
there, you’re going to want to make sure you address it because pelvic control issues
will totally cause you to give out at the bottom of a squat and bottom out. And then
you cause that dreaded butt wink. So, there you have it, guys.
Hopefully you’ve found the video helpful. Obviously, I could not have done it without
the help of my skeleton – I mean, my skeleton and Jesse. Guys, the fact is, squatting ass
to grass is a fundamental requirement of our bodies. However, your body had better be prepared
to do it.
Hopefully if you take a few minutes to go through this step by step instructional here
you’ll see whether or not your body is prepared to do this. The good news is, if you uncover
a reason for why your body is giving out at the bottom of your squat you’ll realize
that there’s pretty much a fix for any of it.
You just have to dedicate a little bit of extra time to make sure you’re fixing your
body to be better prepared to handle the loads you’re going to in the squat itself. If
you guys found this video helpful make sure and leave your comments and thumbs up below.
If you like these comprehensive videos where we break out all the tools we’ve got here,
make sure you leave your comments and let me know what else you want me to cover. I’ll
be happy to do that for you. You guys know, this channel is always about putting real
science behind the strength. Not just breaking out problematic studies, but what really works
in practice.
We’ll continue to do that for you here. In the meantime, guys, leave your comments
and thumbs up, subscribe, and we’ll be back here again in just a few days with another
video. See ya.
JESSE: Are you calling me a tool?!
JEFF: Absolutely.