What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
You’ve got stop squatting like this.
Here’s the thing: there are so many causes of this and many other squat problems that
a lot of times, it’s very difficult for us to come to grip with the fact that we’re
actually making this mistake when we squat.
One of the most helpful things you can do is film yourself when you’re squatting so
you can see what’s happening here and be very objective about it.
But I can tell you this: as a physical therapist this is a complex problem.
There are a lot of potential reasons, but I’ll tell you, regardless of what your cause
is, you do need to fix it.
We know that the most important thing you can do when you’re squatting is to try to
establish a vertical bar path.
Which means, the bar needs to go straight up and down.
I'm not talking about the angle of your torso because that will change whether you’re
high bar squatting, or low bar squatting.
What I’m talking about is, no matter what position you get that bar in, you need to
be able to move it vertically.
That’s for a lot of different reasons.
I don’t care whether you’re training just to be stronger.
There, we need to make sure we’re being efficient because a bar path’s efficiency
is going to be critical to your strength.
You want no waste in strength.
Even just for overall athleticism and performance in the gym, you still want to have, and perform
the exercise correctly.
So, let’s talk about, if you’re someone that does this.
Here’s what could potentially be happening.
First and foremost, where is the setup of the bar when you start?
Potentially, you’re starting a posterior that’s setup too far.
Meaning, the bar, if you were to drop a line straight down, is not going through the center
of your foot.
We know that the best balance point for your foot is going to be the center of your foot.
Just slightly behind the ball of your foot.
And we know if we can get that bar setup there, and then establish that pattern of straight
up, and down, we’ll be in a good position on the squat.
But a lot of times, we’ll get that bar a little bit behind that, a little more over
the heels.
It doesn’t come back to bite us until we try to get out of there.
That’s because, if the bar is sitting back further, when I go to push up against it,
I’m pushing into that positioning.
I’m pushing up, where?
From the back of the hips.
The low back goes up first, as opposed to driving the entire torso up.
That almost encourages my hips to do the initiating of that.
Where, if my hips go up – we’ll talk about that a little more in depth in a second – then
my torso, and the rest of my thoracic spine is going to fall forward.
But we want to make sure, if we’re going to setup properly, we’re going to be setup
over the center of our foot.
The next thing we could be dealing with is a dorsiflexion immobility.
Meaning, we lack the ability to get our ankle into dorsiflexion, as you see my ankle moving
here.
We know as we go deeper into the squat, the requirement of our ankle to get into more,
and more dorsiflexion are higher.
In order to get to the bottom of the squat, at a proper depth, that dorsiflexion has to
be there.
If we don’t have it, what happens?
As we’re going down into the squat we start to lose the ability to deepen into our ankle,
and therefore, our knees go a little bit more forward, the body gets thrown offline, and
you’d actually see this floor-bar path happen a lot sooner.
Really, more toward the descent, and not what I was showing you in the beginning here, where
it seems to go down properly, and then make this drastic alteration.
So, if we’re talking about that drastic alteration where we can actually get down
straight, and then we see this big “U” shape on the way up; now we’re dealing with
one of three other things.
The first thing I would start to question is quad weakness.
Why is that?
Because when we get down to the bottom, that’s when our quads are going to be the most in
demand.
Again, even if I’m doing a low bar squat, which is less quad dominant, it’s still
going to be the point in that squat that the quads are most in demand.
So, I have to have adequate strength there.
If you don’t have the ability to get down here with good strength, then what happens
is, your hips – the stronger posterior chain muscles – are going to be recruited instantly.
Your body is smart.
It knows how to get out of the hole.
So, it’s going to lean your forward to recruit those muscles more efficiently, and then start
driving up.
Of course, as you come up you’re going to torso correct.
Your body will come up, and then straighten back out again.
Now, if you’re able to get to the bottom of a squat, however, and hold it, and perform
pause reps; then you’re likely not dealing with a quad weakness.
You have good stability and strength under heavy load at the bottom of a squat.
You’re not likely dealing with quad weakness.
That’s actually why I encourage the use of pause reps a lot in our training.
So, we can make sure that we’re not dealing with quad weaknesses here.
But it doesn’t take away the fact that there’s something else wrong.
The next thing I would look for is weakness in the retractors of the scapula.
Your ability to hold your scapula tight the entire rep.
So, what often times will happen is, people will go down, and they’ll be good, they’ll
be nice and tight on the setup.
And they’re either forgetting about the tightness as they get down to the bottom because
the focus becomes more “What am I going to do to get out of the hole?”, or they
simply don’t have the strength to maintain the tight torso, the retracted scapula as
they initiate out of the hole.
This is something that goes back to a point I made before.
I said the one thing you should be doing every, single day – every, single day – after
your workouts are face pulls.
Why?
Because face pulls are incredibly important in reinforcing the number one strength deficit
we probably face as human beings.
Because of what we do posturally, all day long.
That is, pretty much, try to counteract any benefits of having scapular strength.
All the things we do are in front of us.
The weakness is apparent in most of us because of the posture that our shoulders assume from
doing all this stuff.
You need to work on your ability to get there.
But, I said – very importantly – you might be someone that thinks you’re doing the
right work because you’re doing 100s of reps.
Maybe you’re doing 100 reps of face pulls, you’re doing 100 reps of band pull-aparts,
and you think you’re doing the right thing.
I would argue, that means nothing.
I want you to do high quality, focused contraction reps.
You’re better off doing 20 sets of 1 than 1 set of 20.
That’s something I’ve said many, many times before.
If you find that you’re getting to the bottom and you’re exhibiting this squat pattern
that I showed you in the beginning here, I would focus much more on, first of all, including
both band pull-aparts and face pulls if you aren’t already.
But more so, concentrating on how you’re performing them.
Squeeze every, single rep as if it’s the only one you’re going to do.
Focus on getting a good contraction, hold it, maintain it, get better at being able
to sustain those contractions.
So, when you do go through a squat it’s not a momentary ability to do it, but a consistent
ability to do it.
Up and down, throughout the squat.
Then finally, we get into this situation where it could just be habitual pattern.
So, let’s say you had an ankle mobility issue that you never worked on.
By the way, I have a whole video on how to address the ankle immobility.
That dorsiflexion and mobility.
I’ll link it for you guys to make sure you can see that, because that is a very popular
and common problem.
But let’s say you had it in the past.
You’ve addressed that, and now you’re good, but you’ve learned this pattern of
relying on, and initiating with the hips on the way up.
That’s a problem because, here’s what happens.
I have a demo here for you.
Let’s say I have this jump rope and it’s reflecting my hips, and then the rest of my
spine up here.
Just like a whip, if I were to initiate movement here, and drive up with the hips first, what
happens to the rest of the rope?
It goes from being relatively straight, to down because it’s a connected chain.
Just like our whole body is a kinetic chain.
Just like our spine is a connected unit.
When I move the pelvis up, the rest of it goes down.
So that means you’re going to throw and lurch your shoulders forward.
Very much like that weakness in the mid-back, if the mid-back is giving out, the bar is
going to go – your body is going to go forward with your head, with your shoulders.
That’s going to cause that forward lurch.
The same thing happens here.
Just by initiating movement with the pelvis, I can cause that.
But this goes back to what I said was the greatest squat tip I could ever give.
That is going to help a ton of you guys if you haven’t applied it to this problem in
particular.
That is, when you get to the bottom of your squat, the number one thing you can do is
try to visualize your pelvis and your ribcage.
Your pelvis and chest, and your sternum.
Whatever it is that kicks in for you.
If it’s your whole chest, you can envision that scapular retraction, too.
So, you can make sure you’re staying there.
But this, and this need to move together.
So, if I were to take this rope, and now I take it, and I tighten it, and I keep that
tightness, and I move it together, now it moves up as a unit.
First of all, it moves a lot more efficiently.
Secondly, it has no more of that drag, which will cause that forward lurch.
So, lots of different things you can do there, guys.
It really comes down to whether or not you are aware of your own problems.
Again, as I’ve said in the beginning, the number one thing you can do is record yourself.
Try to get on the sides.
That’s where you’re going to see these things most visibly.
Or have one of your buddies or somebody at the gym film for you, so you can watch it
back.
The thing is, these things become readily apparent.
If you need an app to do it, guys, I downloaded an app.
Iron Path is the name.
I get nothing for recommending them.
Although, Iron Path; if you’re listening, maybe a trip to Hawaii, or something.
I’m sure you’re going to get quite a few downloads today.
But the fact is, it’s a great app, guys.
At least it’s a tool.
It gives you, if anything else, some feedback as to how bad it is for you, and how much
you’re doing this.
That will at least give you a jump off point to correcting it.
Guys, I hope you’ve found this video helpful.
If you’re looking for a program that puts the science back in strength – all this
stuff matters.
As a PT and a strength coach, guys; it ALL matters to me.
Both ends of this.
I’ve got to make sure that you guys perform these exercises the best, you’re getting
the most out of them, and ultimately, for the athletes that follow me, take it out onto
the field to perform better than ever.
All this stuff is built into all our programs.
It’s over at ATHLEANX.com.
In the meantime, guys; tell me what else you want me to cover.
I’ll do my best to do that for you in the days, and weeks ahead.
All right, see you soon.