This is Brent coming at you with the overhead squat assessment. Now, this is
going to be a series of videos by request. In this first video, we're going
to go ahead and go over what is ideal posture?
What is that ideal that we're judging our overhead squat assessment against? As
well as how to setup the overhead squat assessment for your patient or client, so
that you know you're getting an accurate read as we go into "signs and symptoms." So
I'm going to have my friend come out.
Leanne is going to show us exactly what good posture looks like. Now, you guys
notice I have some key words written up here. These are the key segments, or
joints, that I want to look at to make sure I have everything lined up ideally.
Now we start with the feet.
That's because everything stacks on top of the feet, so if I were to fix her head,
fix her shoulders, fix her hips, and then try to fix her feet, there is a chance I
can change all of that alignment back up. We're going to go ahead and start bottom-up.
Now with the feet, there's basically three things to think about.
I want them parallel, hip-width, and I want to make sure that I have some sort of
medial arch, which I'll explain in a second here.
So first things first, feet parallel - let's define that term. Feet parallel is
going to be second toe pointing forward. If you guys just threw your hands out in
front of you, you guys will notice that it's actually your index finger that points
upward, and your thumb kind of points in, so if you thought about your feet
doing the same thing, it's actually second toe pointing forward. Big toe's
going to point in just a little bit. I know you guys are going to see a lot of this
turnout. So the next thing is going to be hip-width. Now be careful.
These are not Leanne's hips. These are Leanne's thighs. This is her vastus lateralis. Her hip joint
is actually just underneath her ASIS. So her ASIS, for those of you guys who are
familiar with your palpations, not a hard palpation to find. You're just going to
go ahead and find what most people call their hips, the top of their ilium, palpate
around. You guys will notice a notch right before it become soft tissue. So, we
want to make sure that the feet are in line with that ASIS. Alright, her hip joint is
right behind this point.
Next, I want to make sure that she has some sort of medial arch. Now, it is very
helpful when you guys do your overhead squat assessment, to have somebody take
their shoes off.
They can probably
leave their socks on unless you guys are doing some more advanced assessments, but
at least the shoes off will allow you to see this little space in here. I
shouldn't say, I don't know if you guys are aware, where the first metatarsal-cuneiform
joint is and cuneonavicular joint is, but these bones right here, in the
middle of her foot, shouldn't be touching the floor. If you guys see those
bones riding on the floor, that is going to be something we notice on our
assessment as a dysfunction.
I want to at least try to get them set up. "Hey, can you maintain that position?"
Good. Alright, the next thing we're going go to is the knees. Now in static posture, we
expect her knees to be in-line. But when she moves, "if you can give me a little
dip here, and give me a little quarter squat," we're going to want to see her
patella track over her second and third toe. So once again, if I go back to this
position with my hands, this would be analogous to the middle of my hand
I want my patella to track right through the middle of my foot. Now the
lumbo-pelvic hip complex, as you guys can see here, LPHC, has several things
that we're looking at, or at least four or five things that I'm looking at right
off the bat. "Leanna, you can go ahead and turn sideways." I want to number one, make
sure she's in neutral. "That's okay." So I had you guys palpate the ASIS here. If
I were to put this part of her pants on her ASIS, palpate around her ilium, and
found this other bony notch here, which "go ahead and turn your back to the
camera. There you go." You guys can see these two bony notches, being her PSIS, are
actually a lot closer together than the ASIS are, but if I go ahead and put the
back of her pants up on her PSIS and then I line up her pants, that gives me a good
idea of whether her pelvis is level, and that's the first thing I want to notice.
"Is this level? Or is she turned in a little bit," which you guys might already
know, is an anterior pelvic til. Usually what comes with that, is now we see that
there's this excessive curve. We wanted a neutral curve, which we saw Leanne
started with, and then as we go through the overhead squat assessment, we'll talk
about
something called an "excessive forward lean," and I also want to make sure that
Leanne, even just standing there, has a little bit of abdominal tone. I know you
guys have seen, "hate to have you do this Leanne,
but go ahead and totally relax out your TVA." Alright, so you guys see those people
who have like, they have no abdominal tone whatsoever.
You know, they got that little, like beer belly thing going on. Like, we want just a
little bit of beach belly. That should be kind of normal as were standing there.
Now,
next thing we're going to look at is shoulder girdle. When I sit here and I
got Leanne, "you can go ahead and face the camera." When I have Leanne getting set-up,
we know that a lot of individuals have a propensity to get here with their
shoulders. So I want to make sure I at least cue "shoulders down and back" to start,
see if she can even get to this position. Now this is going to be a little
interesting when we go into an overhead squat because I'm actually going to actually have Leanne
throw her arms in the air. Right. Elbows locked. She's just going to go
straight up, and what I want to make sure is she did exactly what she did, which is
her shoulders kind of stayed down, as opposed to raising her arms like this,
where you see shoulders come up to her ears, as I kind of manhandle Leanne here.
The last thing I want to look for is the head, guys. "Let me have you go ahead and turn
sideways." I know a lot of you guys see this forward head tilt, and we see this
like, protruding chin. We want to make sure that Leanne's ear kind of lines up
with her shoulder assuming that I just put her shoulder into optimal
posture by cueing her down and back. Now, when you get somebody set up for this
overhead squat assessment,
this is what you start with. "Alright, so go ahead and turn straight." But with all
that being said, you don't want to go heavy, heavy, heavy, on the cues. I don't
want to cue Leanne into a million positions that she's not used to being
in. I don't want to give her a million instructions. I want to get a clean
assessment. So basically what I'm going to do is I'm going to set up her feet,
make sure she starts with her feet parallel.
I'm going to make, I'm going to kind of, check out her pelvis. I might adjust her
pants so it's easier for me to see whether her pants level or not. I'm not necessarily
saying anything to her.
Of course, ask permission if you're going to palpate.
I'm going to go ahead and say "arms up."
All right, we'll check to make sure that her head's straight. Then, just go ahead and
have her sit. You guys notice I didn't use a whole lot of words. It's like, "okay,
feet parallel. Good. Hands up, and go ahead and sit back for me." About all the cues I
want to give. Alright. So, once we get into the next video and I talk about common
postural dysfunctions and the common signs we'll see, we'll talk about how we're
going to notate all this stuff. Now, a couple things you do have to be aware of.
These things can destroy your squat assessment. Somebody has to be able to
keep their heels on the floor. Every once in awhile, "let me go ahead and you turn sideways."
You'll see somebody, "can you squat and let your heels come up?" Have you ever
seen that? Right? Every once in awhile, you guys will see this, and someone's heels
will come up off the floor as they're squatting. That is going to destroy your
assessment. You might be able to guess that they have tight calves from that, but
unfortunately, because they've lifted their ankle off, you really don't know
how that's affecting the rest of their kinetic chain. Alright, the other thing we
want to make sure is they're not faking it. Alright, I know a lot of fitness
professionals out there, a lot of athletes out there, they've been taught
how to do a squat. So if you have to, here's the trick I use. Rather than
having them do an overhead squat assessment,
I'll have them do a sit and stand assessment. Now they don't necessarily
know it's an exercise, but you guys, as professionals doing your assessment, know
that there is no difference between sitting and standing, and your overhead
squat. So I could say, "go ahead put your hands up over your head.
Stand up. Good. Sit back down.
Stand up. Good. Can you sit down with only touching your butt to the chair and
getting back up? Good." So you guys can see, this is the exact same thing.
This is also a wonderful regression if you guys have maybe, a less well
conditioned, or an older population, who can't do an overhead squat to begin with.
You could break it down, not do the overhead part. You could have them put their
hands on their waist to start or hands over their head to start, or maybe break
it apart, and do this part as one part of the assessment, sitting as the other. But
if I go ahead and take just about anybody and go,
"Ok. Let me just have you sit and stand." I know from here, at least here, down,
that's the exact same assessment, and I can get almost anybody to do that.
Alright, so there you guys go. We have optimal posture, which is going to be
reviewing real quick, feet parallel, hip-width, with a mild medial arch. Knees
in line with the second and third toe. That's patella in line with the second
and third toe. Lumbo-pelvic hip complex - I'm going to go ahead and set somebody's
pants up so that I can see if her lumbopelvic hip complex is in neutral. Shoulder
girdle. Shoulders down and back. That includes, even when I put my arms up,
shoulder girdle is down and back. And then head, I'm going to at least look to try to
start in neutral position. I hope that this gives you guys a good
foundation for what is going to happen in the overhead squat video series, as we
start pulling this thing apart sign by sign. Thanks again.
That was long. That was 10 minutes.