What's up Vikings, Coach Vaughn. Welcome to this Part 3 with The Most Overrated Kettlebell
Exercises. Today we're gonna get into heel raised squats. Now is there a problem with this? Not
really, because the claim is it helps you keep more of an upright torso and takes more stress
off your low back. Making it "more quad and glute dominant." So, do I believe you can do this right?
Yes, but when people have the wrong mindset, "it's just a lower body exercise" that's where it goes
into an overrated mindset. You need to learn how to use your lats, obliques, core muscles,
with your breath using your diaphragm breathing correctly so you don't put all that compression on
your spine. And then secondly, if you're wearing cushy soled shoes that already have an elevated
heel - aren't you kind of rendering it useless if you're already putting another insert in there?
You might as well be squatting with high heels and so the achilles tendon the nerves and the soles of
the foot are all going to be blinded because they don't know what to stabilize. I like squatting
with a flat-soled shoe or squatting barefoot and that's what I recommend we're going through this.
So just like last time, if you wouldn't do it with a 48KG kettlebell...you probably shouldn't
do it the lighter kettlebell - as I stated in the first episode. So set up just as you would with a
kettlebell swing "chopping at the hips" - instead now swing it hiking and just popping it up
up to your chest get the handle just below your chin right here
and what I see now more than ever online are people FLARING the elbows this puts all the stress
in your neck and traps right here. So you're already putting the kettlebell over your toes
here. You want to keep the kettlebell over your midfoot and keeping the elbows
DOWN - that way your lats can engage you could stack your hips over the shoulders nice
and tight. From here, just point out the toes a little bit if you need to get more room. Depends
on your femur head if you like squatting more neutral or a little bit more out me personally
like squatting more out - having a long femur head. So what I'm going to do here is inhale,
and then I'm going to grunt coming up. Show you again,
notice how my spine stays nice and tight when I inhale through my nose.
(Inhale going down / grunt as you come up)
And you just set it down. What I like to use as an analogy is think your abdominal is a soda can.
When you step on a soda can and it's not opened. It can maintain that pressure,
so you're not breathing for a little bit as you go down. So you're inhaling through
your nose and then grunt as you come up. There's no point in grunting at the top of the squat. So
then I want to put my money where my mouth is now doing with a heavier kettlebell. Show
you my setup, I like to get a nice solid root right here, and tilt, pack. Now, "how can I get
a little bit more heel raise." Do an offset squat. So just offset this going from here...to here.
(Inhaling through nose / grunting coming up)
Get 5/5 each side if you. Want to
keep that shin vertical. Really dig that toe down like you're "squishing a bug."
And then you can gently set it down. So those are your claims on how to get a better
goblet squat. If you want to do a heel raise...do an offset squat,
but really own your foundations first knowing how to breathe with your abdomen. So if you'd like to
see more check out my book, The Kettlebell Awaits, featuring how to do swings, cleans, snatches,
squats, get ups, windmills, all in detail - all in one source. You get it now on Amazon.com.
This is Coach Vaughn signing off - hope you have fun with that.