What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today I want to give you the single best tip that you're ever going to get when it comes
to squats.
Especially getting out of the hole, which is the most difficult portion of the lift.
The key is this: whenever you get a tip for an exercise it has to be one that can make
great changes, without you having to focus on the minutia of it, because that's when
things go wrong.
A perfect example of that, I gave you guys a way before to do rows better, to make sure
that you're getting full extension.
People will tell you "Oh, just get your elbows behind your body."
So if that was my tip, and I was rowing like this, you might think you're doing it right
because I'm getting my elbows behind my body, but I'm really not because there's much more
room for extension if I were to just get myself into thoracic extension.
The better tip on getting your elbows behind your body would be to stick your chest out
on every, single row you do.
So if I were to stick my chest out and move my elbows at the same time, now I'm getting
full extension of my elbows behind the body.
So you can see the right thing to focus on is key.
When it comes to the squat, when you're talking about the descent, and getting down people
will say "Sit back."
They want you to get back so you can involve the hips and get down to depth.
But it's really difficult for you to understand how far back you're going, and if you're ever
going low enough.
That's where an instance like a box fixes that.
I can take a squat bar, and now say "Sit back."
I'm not really sure what that means, but if I put a box behind me here, the first thing
I have to do – prospectively – is to sit back, in order to get back to the box.
So I sit back that way, then I come down to the bottom, and I actually feel it.
So I'm down here, I feel I've made contact, and I come up, and out of the hole.
So sit back, and I come up, and out of the hole.
So that's how that fixes that.
Now, we have to get out of the hole, and this is where things break down.
This is what you're going to want to focus on.
People will say the best thing you can do to perform a squat is to have a tight core.
It's to engage your core throughout every, single rep, because that is going to maintain
the stability throughout your entire torso, and that's going to allow you to transfer
force from the ground, back up to where you started.
It's really difficult to understand what people mean by "engage your core".
Does it mean to 'flex down'?
Because that could be engaging your core.
What is truly engaging your core?
All you have to focus on is moving your hips, and your chest as one unit, together, from
the bottom of the squat.
So let me demonstrate it first, without the bar.
When I'm down at the bottom of a squat, and I get down here, what happens is people will
either dissociate one, or the other.
So the chest will start first, they'll lurch forward first here, and then start to lift
up, and straighten up again, or when they're in the bottom, more likely, they're going
to try to load the hips a little bit more.
So what they do is, they start the hips backward first, that way.
Now I can load the glutes a little bit more, which allows me to take some pressure off
the quads, and then reinitiate the upward motion.
But I've taken a lot of the work away from the quads.
Maybe because they're weak.
Maybe because they're fatigued.
Whatever the reason.
But if I go down to the bottom here, and I say "move the hips, and the chest at the same
time", now I do that.
Very easy to focus on.
The same way I can focus on moving the chest to initiate, or to have impact on the extension,
I can move the hips and the chest together to – guess what?
Have an impact on the core.
The core is what is connecting these two areas together.
You cannot move this area, and this area without this area, which is connecting the two being
stable.
So it looks like this.
You get in here, we have the bar.
When we get all the way to the bottom here, whether you have the box back there, or not,
you sit back, you're down, and when you're in this position here, chest and hips move
together, and up.
Down, chest and hips move together.
It's not doing this.
I'm not here, chest lurches, and then comes up, and I'm having segmented motion there.
Or back here, and then hips kick back first this way – come around the side, Jesse – hips
kicking back that way, and then I come up, and then I straighten up from there.
That's going to lead to an eventual breakdown somewhere.
Likely, in your low back from having to take on that almost 'good morning' type loading
on the low back.
You don’t want that.
Move the hips, and the chest as one unit, simultaneously from together, from the bottom
of every, single rep.
Your core will automatically engage, and will give you the stability you need to perform
every rep powerfully, and correctly.
Guys, the difference in how you cue somebody makes a big impact on how well they see results
from the training they do.
ATHLEANX focuses on that every time we train somebody.
Every workout we do, we focus on the things that make the biggest difference, and help
you to see that difference in your training every time you try it.
Head to ATHLEANX.com to get our complete programs.
In the meantime, if you've found this video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up
below.
Let me know what you want me to cover in a future video and I'll do my best to do that
for you in the days, and weeks ahead.
See you.